My old fan was loud and irritating, but the new fan on the highest fan setting makes a moderate noise. (It's rated at 80 or 110 cubic feet per minute, or CFM.) It's powered by Home Depot's Hubspace smart home platform, which I haven't had good experience with before (I've never had can add Smart lock challenge I'm testing the Hubspace app). Thankfully, the fan instantly connected to my phone via Bluetooth and my Wi-Fi network. Better yet, it also works with Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa.
I didn't install this fan in a bathroom with a shower, but I did test the humidity sensor by using my clothes steamer to remove wrinkles from my shirt. It works and starts automatically! But my favorite feature, although passive, is the motion sensor. Having a room automatically light up without pressing a single button still feels like magic and now I want to put motion sensors around my house.
Motion sensors have some disadvantages. First, you cannot customize the sensitivity of this sensor. In my bathroom, I have a mirror that looks out into the hallway outside, so that every time someone walks in past bathroom, the light is on. It's not a big deal (my wife says otherwise), but something to keep in mind. The good news is that you can set how long you want the light to stay on through the app, and I set it to one minute.
Yes, if you stay in the bathroom for that long and don't move much (yeah, you know why), the light will go off and you'll have to wave your arms around frantically for a few seconds before the light comes back on. . A small price to pay, but you can also turn off the motion sensor.
Physical control
Photo: Julian Chokkattu
Operating a wall switch can be intimidating; I recommend Read the instructions first. The power button turns the lights and fans on and off, but you can also press individual fan and light buttons to turn them off. (Press and hold the fan button for three seconds to turn the Bluetooth speaker on and off as well.) You can press the plus and minus signs to change the light's brightness, or press and hold the color button to switch between colors—I like to use Use this application more.