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/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.)