Fan Device Type

[Guest]

Apologies if there’s an obvious answer to my question but I searched as best I could and didn’t see this mentioned.

Is there any concept of a “fan” device type in HomeSeer? I’ve noticed that my Z-Wave fan controllers all behave like lights in terms of their icons and the fact that they display a continuous dimmer versus a speed section. While this isn’t overly problematic (other than for the perfectionist part of me), it becomes and issue when devices go over to Alexa because the fans now appear as a light in Alexa even though Alexa has support specifically for fans. This means that if I ask for the living room lights to turn on, now the fans turn on as well because Alexa believes they’re lights.

Is there a way for HomeSeer to treat my fan controllers (I’m using Enbrighten) as fans and—more directly—for the devices sent to Alexa to be reported as fans?

[jgreenberg01]

Unless you tell Alexa that it's a light, it looks at it as just a switch. You can name it anything you want in Homeseer, and you can edit the name in the Alexa app as well.

Change the name to "Living Room Fan" and Alexa shouldn't get confused which device it should control.

Are your Enbrighten switches fan switches or just regular Z-wave switches?

FWIW, I used Enbrighten, well, Jasco switches for my ceiling fans. After about a year, 2 of 3 switches burned out. GE/Jasco replaced them even though they said the fans were likely drawing to much power for the switches.

I replaced them with HomeSeer HS-FC200+ switches, which is a much better solution for me. The Homeseer device screen also changes the Status/Graphic to a fan icon as well.

[Guest]

Thanks—and that’s good to know about the switches. I’m past the return period but if I have any issues I’ll take a look at that one.

Right now anything with either “Is Light” selected or any kind of dim control it sent to Alexa as a light, but this is not how it has to be. Alexa supports fans—for example when I added my Bond device for a different fan in the house to Alexa directly it shows as a fan, has fan speed controls that make sense, and doesn’t think it’s a light when I ask it to turn on the lights.


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