I have had a recent love affair with the Bond Wifi Ceiling Fan Controller if you haven’t noticed from my first impressions and unboxing posts, and with good reason. Whereas I was previously looking at spending almost $800 to automate my five ceiling fans, Bond solved 90% of my problems for $99.
One of the best things about Bond is that I was able to set up all five of my fans in about fifteen minutes with absolutely no wiring required. Provided your fan’s remote is compatible with Bond, you can also be up and running in no time. Below is the full setup, from plugging the unit in, to adding a device and finally setting it up in Alexa if you choose to do so.
Setting up the Bond Control Unit
Bond uses radio frequency (RF) to communicate with your fans and other devices, mimicking the signals that the handheld remotes would normally send. Since this one device may be tasked with controlling multiple fans in your home, it’s best to find an out of the way, but centrally located spot to put it. I chose to hide it under a table in my entryway, which is in the center of my home. One thing to note, for no apparent reason Bond has a very bright blue LED ring in the center that never turns off. If you are not planning to cover the light with electrical tape (as I did) keep this in mind.
- Plug in the Bond control unit
- Download the Bond app from either Google Play or the Apple App Store
- Open the Bond app and when instructed, connect to the Bond wifi network
- Follow the instructions, which will ask you to connect Bond to your home wifi (you will need your wifi password)
- Bond will automatically download any available updates
Adding Your First Device to Bond
- Tap the Add Device button
- Choose a device type (at the time of this post you can choose Ceiling Fan or Air Conditioner), then tap Next
- At the Add Function screen, you will be asked to select a function to program. Do not be intimidated by the number of buttons on this screen! Simply pick a button that you recognize from your ceiling fan remote, such as Light or Speed 1 and tap the icon for it on the screen
- The app will ask you to stand with the remote near the Bond control unit and then tap next
- The blue ring on top of the control unit will begin to flash, press and hold the button corresponding to the setting you chose in step 3 until the ring on Bond turns green
- Bond will then confirm the number of buttons on your remote (fan speeds, etc)
- You will then be shown a screen with your fan controls and asked to test your fan. Press each of the buttons and confirm that Bond is relaying the proper commands to your fan
- Name the fan so as not to confuse it with additional devices in the future. If you plan to add this to Google Home, Alexa, IFTTT or any other third party controller, this will be the name that is imported
- Select your fan’s location from the list of pre-populated locations.
- Repeat for additional fans if necessary
Adding Bond Devices to Alexa
- Open the Alexa app
- Open the main menu and then tap Skills
- Search for the Bond skill and add it
- When prompted, enter your Bond login information
- You should be prompted to return to the Alexa app by pressing the back button
- Upon returning to the Alexa app, you should be prompted to discover devices. If this does not happen, do the following
- Open the main menu
- Tap Smart Home
- Open the Devices menu
- Tap Add Device to scan for new devices
- When Alexa has finished scanning for devices, you should be notified that Alexa has found a number of new devices
- In the device list, you will find each fan and any fan light discovered as two separate devices with similar names*
- You can now test controlling the devices by voice, or adding them to routines or groups as need be
*NOTE: In my testing, I found it very difficult to control my fan lights via Alexa with the default names. For instance, having “Kitchen Fan” and “Kitchen Fan Light” would almost always match on the “Kitchen Fan” command unless I spoke very quickly. This is less a Bond limitation and more an Alexa limitation. Either way, naming your devices well from the start will avoid many voice related problems in the future. I chose to keep “Kitchen Fan” as the name of the fan, as it made sense, but changed the light to “Dining Room Light” and this solved my issues.
For more on Bond, check out my Bond unboxing video and Bond First Impressions post!
