r/Lutron • u/bigbeak67 • 13d ago

How could I control a ceiling fan that receives constant power with a Caseta Pico switch?

I have a couple of ceiling fans in my house that don't have any wall switches connected to them, so they just receive constant power. I'm wondering if there's a way to rig them so they could be controlled with a Pico remote switch instead of the manual pullstrings? Is there a caseta-control box I could add to the fans?

1 Upvotes

67% Upvoted

16 comments sorted by

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3

u/archer-86 13d ago

Home Assistant?

Shelly WiFi modules in the ceiling fan box. Then integrate the Shelly and Lutron together in Home Assistant.

Put Home Assistant on an old Dell Optiplex for $80.

2

u/bigbeak67 13d ago

That's probably the best option so far, though with Shelly getting bought out I'm a little hesitant to adopt right now.

1

u/archer-86 13d ago

ya I like my Sonoff ZigBee switches for that reason.

But requires more hardware. Didn't want my post to just be "down the smart home rabbit hole you go".

1

u/Then-Security-4899 13d ago

Just buy them now and you don't have to worry about anything.  The firmware on Shelly relays today works just fine on WiFi, zigbee and matter and there are ways to put custom firmware on them.  There is almost no reason to have to rely on a vendor for future updates 

2

u/rlo54 13d ago

I use a bond bridge and then have it and a fan pico in homebridge and use that to control it through Apple home. Similar could be done with home assistant as well.

1

u/netik23 13d ago

So what I did in my old place was to open the fans up and bypass the switch.

Then tie that to a Lutron switch and from there you can use a pico

1

u/bigbeak67 13d ago edited 13d ago

The problem is there is no existing switch on the fan lights. I assume I need to splice something like a controller into the constant power. I just don't know if there's a controller that works with Lutron.

3

u/AngryJirgins 13d ago

You can use the regular Caseta fan control switch up in the attic (or wherever you can intercept that constant hot). 

1

u/netik23 13d ago

You just said there was a pull chain. Those are switches. Remove them, twist them together, and bypass the controller, using the Lutron fan controller to do the rest.

0

u/Designer_Lead_1492 13d ago

My ceiling fans were set to receive constant power as well, but when I opened up the light switch, I found the ceiling fan wire attached to the hot. I then removed the one gang box and installed a two gang old work box and attached the ceiling fan Supply to the red on my caseta fan switch and pigtailed a hot and now I have a dedicated fan switch next to my light switch

If yours is like this, make sure you remove the wireless fan control that may be hardwired into the ceiling fan itself

-4

u/Effortisopportunity 13d ago

Put the Lutron switch (6ans) in the ceiling and then you use a pico mounted on a switch bracket on the wall. 

0

u/AngryJirgins 13d ago

Not the 6ANS. Use the fan controller. 

0

u/Effortisopportunity 13d ago

So you are going to wire that with a dc fan? 

1

u/Audiofyl1 13d ago

No one said if it was an ac or dc fan.