How can I control fan speed for GE 12730 with Zwave?

Add-ons Bindings
1

Greetings. I’ve recently acquired the GE 12730 fan control wall mount switch. I’ve succeeded in getting it to work with a simple switch definition in OpenHAB. However, all I can do is turn the fan off/on. At the actual switch, I can set the fan speed (low, medium, high), it seems the hardware is working fine.

Habmin finds the Aeon Zstick Gen5 controller and identifies the device as a GE 12730.

I’d like to be able to control the fan speed with OpenHAB. After lots of Internet research, about the only thing I’ve found is the idea of using a Dimmer item with a slider. Haven’t been able to make that work.

If anyone else has had any success doing this, your feedback would be greatly appreciated.

My item file entry:

Switch item=LivingRmFan

My sitemap entry:

Switch LivingRmFan “Ceiling Fan [%s%%]” { zwave=“2:command=SWITCH_MULTILEVEL, restore_last_value=true” }

2

Fred, did you get this figured out? I just installed the same Fan control switch. I’m seeing some weird behavior around setting dimmer numerical values. I’m wondering if I should instead be using multilevel switch like you indicated, LOW, MED, HIGH. I’ll continue searching, but my fan doesn’t run if my setting is below 50 or so. If I set it to 40, it will just wind down and stop. I hope my fan is good and not exhibiting some sort of electrical resistance.

Cheers!

Tony

4

I have three of these in my home network all working fine. Just mapped the channel to a dimmer. For HomeKit integration I did have to use the lighting tag as switchable is not an option at this time .

Dimmer LivingRoomFan “Living Room Fan” (gFans) [ “Lighting” ]
Dimmer MBedFan “Master Bed Fan” (gFans) [ “Lighting” ]
Dimmer OfficeFan “Office Fan” (gFans) [ “Lighting” ]

To clarify this is with openhab2 and I used paperui to create the channel link to these items declared in /etc/openhab2/items.

5

I hate to bring this back up again, but I am a complete newbie in OpenHAB - only having used the PaperUI to get a WeMo switch, TP Link switches and a Philips Hue hub and lights running. My fan(s) is my next project, and I have been looking closely at the GE 12730 switch.

What steps would I need to take to get the switch working with 3 speed controls on my fan?
I know I need to physically install the switch.
I need to take my Aeotec z-wave stick to the switch so it can find it and add it.
I need to have the z-wave binding enabled (I do)
I need to discover the switch as a z-wave thing.

Once I do that - is there something I need to do (hopefully in PaperUI) to get the switch working as a 3 speed switch?

6

I’m still using OpenHab v1.8, so I can’t saw if my solution is best for OH2.

Items file.

Number  LivingRmFan     "Ceiling Fan"
Dimmer  LivingRmFanD    "Ceiling Fan [%s%%]"    <slider>    { zwave="2:command=SWITCH_MULTILEVEL, restore_last_value=true" }

Sitemap file.

Switch item=LivingRmFan mappings=[0="Off", 1="Low", 2="Medium", 3="High"]

Rules file.

rule "Ceiling Fan Control"
        when
                Item LivingRmFan received command
        then
                if (receivedCommand==0) {
                        sendCommand(LivingRmFanD,0)
                }He
                if (receivedCommand==1) {
                        sendCommand(LivingRmFanD,20)
                }
                if (receivedCommand==2) {
                        sendCommand(LivingRmFanD,50)
                }
                if (receivedCommand==3) {
                        sendCommand(LivingRmFanD,90)
                }
end

My ceiling fan has a pull chain that sets off, low, medium, high and a wall switch (on, off). I replaced the wall switch with the GE 12730 and set the pull chain to high. Brand name of the fan Harbor Breeze.

This setup has been working great for me. Hope this helps.

7

Thanks!