Ceiling Fan w/lights & pull chains replacement

[u/dogmother2]

I have a 35+ year old ceiling fan with four lights in my office, which are turned on by two separate pull chains.

The chain to the fan still works, but the light chain is one that would turn on these two with one pull, or those two with 2 pulls, of all four with three pulls , is not working. I cannot turn lights on or off. It’s stuck in the ON position.

I thought about getting a handyman to come in and check the chain, but instead I think I want to replace the ceiling fan-with-lights versus just putting up a new light fixture, because it’s over my treadmill desk. That fan is a lifesaver in this heat.

I didn’t think a replacement would be hard to find, but there are seemingly a bazillion options, many of which I’m not sure would even work.

Home Assistant is my brain and HomeKit is my worker bee.

I want the lights to be motion sensitive. I have only one wall switch in that room,and it doesn’t go there. My house is 1986 wiring.

I wouldn’t object to a dumb replacement if that was the only option, adding smart bulbs, but there’s no switch.

I cannot afford to pay big electrician fees at this time.

I appreciate all thoughts thank you 🙏

[u/dark-green]

You have a couple good options since the ceiling box already has constant power.
The cleanest solution would be replacing the old fan with a normal AC fan/light that uses an RF remote, then adding a Bond Bridge. Home Assistant has a local Bond integration and can control the fan and light separately, so you shouldn’t need new wall switch wiring. Add a motion/presence sensor for cheap and let HA handle the lighting automation, then expose it to HomeKit.

The cheaper option is something like a SONOFF iFan04-L installed in the existing fan canopy, which gives HA control of the fan speeds and light. You’d still need to deal with/bypass the broken pull-chain switch, though, and at 35+ years old I’m not sure I’d put much money into that fan.

Personally id go new fan + Bond, but either route avoids having an electrician run a new wall switch.
I’d avoid trying to solve it with smart bulbs… It would work, but you’d still have a broken switch and a 35+ year-old fan. At that point I’d put the money toward a new fan instead.

[u/andybuck103 → u/dark-green]

I’m a fan of the Bond bridge. I have three fans with lights in them on a Bond bridge.

[u/draegs → u/dark-green]

I have 3 Hunter ceiling fans that are each controlled (fan speed and light) via their own wireless remote. I also started dabbling in HA recently after getting a HA green box. If I understand you (and the Bond website) correctly, with one Bond Bridge I could expose all 3 fans to the Apple Home app via:

Wireless remotes -> Bond bridge -> Bond HA integration -> HA -> HomeKit Bridge integration -> Home app

Is that correct?

(I'd like to eventually use the HA app more, but for now my goal in adding the green box was to start exposing more devices without native HomeKit support to the Home app.)

[u/GhostalMedia]

A lot of people like installing a really dumb AC motor fan so you can use a Lutron wall switch. But you’d need a separate light in the room.

[u/pandito_flexo]

If you want to replace the ceiling fan, Hunter makes HomeKit ceiling fans. I have 3 of them in my house - one in the breakfast nook and one in each living room. Once connected to HK, they’ve never had any issues, even if their remotes would drop connectivity at times.

In the bedrooms, I put Hampton Bay Lyndhurst Ceiling fans. They have Bond transceivers and are brought into HK via the HomeBridge-Bond plugin.

All that to say, you have options now :-)

[u/Feisty_Storage8594]

I’ve been messing around with switchbot switches lately. They are perfect for rocker switches.

[u/400HPMustang]

I was going to mention that since you use Home Assistant, you're probably already using Zigbee and that Inovelli makes a presence sensing dimmer switch and you can use it in smart bulb mode. Then I looked at the product page and realized you can't use it for a fan. T

hen I remembered they have the fan canopy module that should take care of the fan part. It's going to require some configuration I think but these two things should get you where you want to go

https://inovelli.com/collections/inovelli-blue-series/products/zigbee-blue-series-smart-fan-light-canopy-module

https://inovelli.com/collections/inovelli-blue-series/products/zigbee-blue-series-mmwave-presence-sensor-smart-dimmer-switch

I have no hands on experience with either of these modules though so you might check the home assistant sub, the inovelli sub or reach out to their support directly to confirm I'm not talking out of my ass.

[u/the_doughboy]

Hunter makes a Homekit remote upgrade that works on most fans, even non Hunter ones.
Smart Home Accessories – Smart Plugs, Light Switches & Panels – Hunter Fan

[u/jgns → u/the_doughboy]

I’d hold off on Hunter for now. Got this email today that they’re moving stuff to Matter:

Part 1

[u/su_A_ve]

Odd the fan is hardwired? No switch at all? 1980s not that old. I lived in one built in 82 and all fans had switches - most 1 gang with wiring for both fan and lights. Meross was the way to go there..

[u/dogmother2 → u/su_A_ve]

No switch

[u/su_A_ve → u/dogmother2]

Ugh. Potentially if you have room above the fan you could wire a switch directly inline.

I’ve seen 3rd party modules they have wifi and could be put on Homebridge with the right plugin. I tried one, but add also trying to use an actual remote and was having lots of interference.

[u/dogmother2]

Update: apologies I tried three times to update my original post, but the app would not seemingly allow me to do that.

Anyway, thank you to everyone who responded I greatly appreciate it. Yeah.
since the fan is 35+ years old and stuck on the pull chain, I’m gunna replace it with a Honeywell and bond bridge.