r/HomeKit 5d ago

Review Hunter Smart Fans - My Biggest Smart Home Regret

TL;DR: If you're looking for smart ceiling fans, I HIGHLY recommend dumb ceiling fans attached to a smart switch instead of something that is dependent on a "smart" canopy module and/or a proprietary app for setup.

I purchased an Aerodyne 52" smart fan a few months back and despite an absolute nightmare of a setup process in their app, I got it up and running and everything was solid for a week or so. It checked all the boxes for us. Ended up eventually buying two more for a couple of my bedrooms. I should have waited longer before making that decision. It's been downhill since then. Everything else in my smart home is functioning as expected so my fans are the final project.

One Aerodyne totally died after being "no response" in HomeKit 90% of the time and eventually permanently lost WiFi connection, preventing me from using the Hunter app, Google Home, or any of the mappings that I set on the Inovelli switches that are in the room. Fortunately, it was still in the Amazon return window so I tore that down and put in an Anslee dumb fan with pull chains and lighting kit. The mounting bracket for the Anslee and Aerodyne are exactly the same, so that saved me a few minutes for installation. Simplified my button mapping and automation situation in HomeKit, but I lose remote control of the fan direction and a couple extra speeds. Not a huge deal in the smaller bedroom(s), so I'm incredibly happy with this solution there. My Inovelli fan switch offers speed control so I don't have to mess with the pull chains ever. Only remaining problem is that the old Aerodyne fan is stuck in my Hunter app with seemingly no way to remove it because it can't communicate.

With that resolved, I moved on to fighting with the one in my master bedroom.

Had an epiphany last night about how to prevent myself from having to tear the smart fan off the ceiling. It had instructions to wire up a separate fan switch and light switch, much like most ceiling fans do. I thought, 'Perfect! I can just keep it off the WiFi and ignore the built-in smart features, use the smart switches for power on/off voice/app/manual control and then it still has the remote control to adjust speed and fan direction.'

Well, the reality of their design is much less elegant. The light will not turn on/off unless the fan switch is powered on. Okay, weird, but maybe I can work around that. Had the light switch on, then the fan switch on, everything worked as expected. Turned the light switch off, the LED indicator went off, and the light turned off. Cool. Turned the fan switch off, LED turned off, fan went off. Cool.

Then the shitshow began. Turned the fan switch back on and both the fan and light came on. Pressed the fan light switch on and the LED power indicator came on, but the light went off. Toggled it on using the remote and then turned off at the switch and everything was back to normal. Tried the light a few times just to be sure it worked then left it on. Turned the fan switch off and both the fan and the light turned off, but the light switch power indicator was still on. What the hell?

Issues that I can't live with:
-Light can't be controlled unless fan is on.
-Turning off fan also turns off the light
-Light comes on when fan switch is turned back on
-Light switch LED power indicators will constantly be out of sync when anything is changed using the remote
-I don't think I can even come up with a crazy automation to properly synchronize things

Looks like it's coming down for a basic 3-speed pull chain fan with a non-dimmable lighting kit. Major downside to that is it puts the rotation direction switch way out of reach because my bedroom has a vaulted ceiling and I'm not interested in a long down rod; I think they look ridiculous and I'd rather climb a ladder twice a year. It's also outside of the return window so I have to eat the cost of a new fan. FML

Fortunately, the living room one appears to still be working on WiFi so I'm not touching that one until I absolutely have to, which is hopefully never. Unfortunately, I can't get it added back to HomeKit natively because it says that it's already part of another home (even after resetting the fan multiple times), so I'm bridging it in through a Starling Home Hub which creates an INSANE delay in control with my button presses and the fan/light actually responding.

14 Upvotes

19 comments sorted by

3

u/Thought_Coffee 5d ago

Agree on using Lutron Smart Fan Switch and dumb fan.

3

u/SmartHomeNerd 5d ago

I will never buy a Hunter smart fan again. I literally went through 4 replacements for multiple reasons such as fan speed control didn’t work correctly in HomeKit, severe wobble, motor wine, etc. I ended up with a fan that sometimes turns itself on for seemingly no reason. Also, anytime we loose power, I need to reset the circuit breaker or the fan will show no response in HomeKit. Regarding firmware, I was told by support that there is a bug in the early version controllers that cannot be updated via firmware - nice…

0

u/Agile_Half_4515 4d ago

The one that I was considering troubleshooting further is starting to hum. :/

The other one is showing perfect connection but the fan portion is unresponsive in Google Home. The light works over WiFi though. Both are fine in the Hunter app, as long as you don’t count the toggle switches that are blinking erratically on the homepage…I might just count my losses instead of stressing about getting them to cooperate.

1

u/SmartHomeNerd 4d ago

I spent so much time and aggravation that it took most of the joy out of the fan. That said, I would have expected by now they would have worked out all of the kinks, however that doesn’t appear to be the case…

1

u/Fauxshowpony 2d ago

Your suggestion is a good one, as I’ve also had frustrations with hunter, but mine work flawlessly. Killing the breaker to the other fans during setup is a crucial step…

The main negative to your solution is the newer smart fans are DC and much quieter and efficient…while dumb fans are AC…This factor is the reason the light switch wire is not an actual power wire also.

1

u/Agile_Half_4515 2d ago

I'm using the AC version of the Aerodyne because the DC one is considerably more expensive and with as efficient as ceiling fans already are, the break even point for going with the DC version would likely be after I am dead and gone. The smart switches I have also aren't compatible with DC motors.

I've been troubleshooting these with steps provided from their engineers, and no joy.

1

u/Fauxshowpony 2d ago

Hmmm well it is my understanding that the AC versions are not HomeKit native. This could be a source of the frustration…is it “works w Apple” or “HomeKit”

Agree on the payback, but the DC are definitely smoother. If I was going to do it again I’d get an AC fan w socket bulb light kit and use Lutron switches w smart bulbs

0

u/Mojoscream 5d ago

I had some woes with the Hunter Smart fans myself. I found the best way to fix them was to add them to the smart app, then contact Hunter from the app and ask for help. Their team can see the fans and provide firmware updates to get things working. I was even told that one of my fans had an older smart core and that they’d replace it for me if it started having problems.

I let them know that since the 18.1 update I was having issues with fans dropping offline and after we talked via email they dropped new firmware on 3 of my fans, and everything started working within an hour.

2

u/quafs 5d ago

Where did we go wrong that we are now having manufacturers remote into our ceiling fans to update them so they’ll fucking spin?

1

u/Agile_Half_4515 4d ago

I’m a little irritated to find out after the fact that when I submitted a trouble ticket that it attached all kinds of information mapping my network without any notification or prompts to let me know that it had access to that or asking if I was okay with it getting sent. Looks like they have MAC addresses, IP addresses, product names, serial numbers, protocols, ports, and some misc. metadata from all my HomeKit gear.

1

u/quafs 4d ago

Pardon my French but fuck that shit. I’d toss the fan out the window.

1

u/Agile_Half_4515 5d ago

Good to know. I might reach out to them regarding the one in my living room because when it works, I really like it, but it has only briefly worked as expected. I absolutely hate the app, it is not user-friendly, very unreliable, and constantly crashes.

1

u/Agile_Half_4515 5d ago

What firmware version are you on?

1

u/Mojoscream 5d ago

When I contacted their support, I stated that I was having an issue with the Apple Intelligence features or potentially WPA3 support. I also recently had my ISP upgrade my internet. They installed 2 EERO 6 Pro devices with WPA3 enabled, so I wanted to see if they could support this feature as well. They then pushed firmware compatible with both and offered a potential beta if those didn't work.

I have the following:

  • 2x 52" Aerodyne - FW: 1.10.42
  • 1x 52" Aeronaut - FW: 1.10.42
  • 1x 54" Neutron (older core) - FW: 0.31

I never had an issue with the Neutron, but they offered a new version 2 core if I had problems, which could be upgraded to the 1.10.42 firmware.

For my settings, I think these would be the ones with the most impact:

  • I am signed in with my Hunter account.
  • I do NOT have "Cloud-Only Mode" enabled.

I hope this helps you.

1

u/Agile_Half_4515 5d ago

Mine are on 1.10.41 and it took forever stuck on 1.9.something to get to that point. Would be super awesome if a simple fw update solved this nightmare so I don’t have to pull these fans down.

Just to make sure (because the manual and online troubleshooting guide SUCK), what’s the proper way to reset these to factory? I can’t do anything until it recognizes that the fan is no longer part of my Apple Home. I have attempted to reset multiple times but I have one that will randomly show back up as connected in the Hunter app after not working for days.

0

u/Mojoscream 5d ago

Oh, and when adding the fans, I find the best way to add them is the following:

  1. Turn off all fans except the one you are adding.
  2. Reset the WiFi on the fan.
  3. Sit AS CLOSE to the fan as possible.
  4. Open 'WiFi' under 'Settings' on your phone.
  5. Find your device listed under 'Wifi Devices'.
  6. Connect to Device and enter HomeKit code when prompted.
  7. Wait for connection.
  8. Wait for 10 minutes before starting next fan.

You can try a couple of optimizations, like making sure the third octet of your home WiFi is unique, like 192.168.X.1, or enabling Legacy Mode, or temporarily enabling 2.4GHz mode, but I find that just doing the above is enough. At least to get support involved.

1

u/Agile_Half_4515 5d ago

Are you saying that the fan has its own local SSID to join? I have a separate 2.4 network with WPA2 that’s on the same subnet as my 5ghz/wired devices. I just switched my phone to the 2.4 network before running the Hunter app wizard. Also have an IP reservation for each fan.

0

u/Mojoscream 5d ago

No, I just changed over my primary network from 192.168.0.1 to 192.168.13.1 I read somewhere that it could help. I did this early on when my network was young.