I had been wanting to connect my fireplace and the large fan on my screen porch to my existing home automation for a while. My original plan was to use the dry connect wires for the fireplace to rig up a switch for it, but that wouldn't have given me full function over the additional features like the lighting and flame level, etc., which I get with the remote. Added to that was the fact that the terminals were quite difficult to reach so I wasn't really looking forward to the required effort. I also had a large fan on the screen porch and I was going to use a Innovelli Z-wave fan/light switch, but that meant moving a table and getting out the ladder to replace the existing remote receiver in the ceiling and that didn't excite me much either.Then, I found out about Bond Bridge and, while the reviews were a little spotty, and my fireplace remote was not listed as supported, I checked the FCC ID and found that it operated in the supported frequency range so I thought I'd give it a shot. Well, I'm sure glad I did because, so far, it seems to work perfectly.Now, that's not to say that I didn't have a few bumps along the way, especially with the fireplace remote. The remote has controls to of course turn the fireplace on/off, but also the lighting functions and flame height, etc., however, this is a touch remote and it doesn't exactly translate directly to buttons. Also, the first few attempts to program the remote to even do simple functions like on/off didn't work. The device showed as accepted, but then I couldn't control the device, however, I then noticed that the learned frequency was listed as 304 Mhz, when the FCC docs say 303.8Mhz. Not much difference and I thought it could be a rounding issue, but decided to use advanced settings and manually specify the 303.8Mhz for learning and indeed, after that, learning went pretty well.Once I had on/off working well, I decided to try the lights and flame level and, while it took a little bit of trial and error, I eventually managed to get the light to work, and to program low/medium/high levels for the flame by using the remote to set level 1, 4, and 7.My ceiling fan is manufactured by Craftmade and it was much easier because it's remote was in the database. As soon as programmed the first function to set fan to high speed it recognized it and let me select a test a predefined remote and it worked perfectly.Integration with Alexas and Home Assistant was super easy and, before long, I was calling out to Alexa to turn on the fireplace and set flame level, etc. Same with the fan, could easily select the three speeds and turn the light on and off.One thing I can't really say much about how much area it will cover as I notice quite a few complaints about not covering a large enough area, in my case the two devices are only about 15 feet apart, separated by a brick wall, but I had a perfect area to hide it directly in between.Of course, only time will tell how reliable this device will be, that's really the telling factor for any home automation device IMO, but so far, so good. It'll get a good workout with the fan for the summer, and then the fireplace in the fall/winter and then we'll know more about that.

After 3 years of frustration with The Shade Store’s proprietary hub, which was nearly impossible to set up, frequently lost configuration, and finally stopped working, I found the Bond Hub, and it’s been a game-changer.Setup was really easy. The Bond Hub’s app guided me through every step (I used the Rollease Acmeda option) and within minutes, my shades were up and running. Unlike the proprietary hub, there was no guessing or endless resets. Even better, it integrates seamlessly with HomeKit which allows me to control my shades with Siri or set routines.Reliability has been the biggest improvement. With the Shade Store hub, I constantly dealt with connectivity issues. The Bond Hub, however, has been rock-solid. It stays connected, responds instantly, and hasn’t needed a single reset since setup.The second biggest selling point is that the price is similar to The Shade Store’s own hub but the Bond Hub offers far superior value. It’s user-friendly, reliable, and compatible with a broader range of systems, making it a no-brainer replacement.

I am extremely technical and work in Information Technology, have won awards doing tech support in the distant past. I will go over my experience with Bond and why I am disappointed.First, setting it up was awesome! I had almost everything working in the phone app in about 20 minutes. I have 6 total fans and one of them, a Home Decorators, was not discovered with the remote. I found this odd since I have an identical remote for a different model of Home Decorators fan which worked perfectly. Using the manual button stuff, I could not get the fan or fan light to turn off and on.By itself, that would have been fairly OK since the Den, the Master Bedroom, and the Living Room all worked perfectly. So everyone is probably wondering why the two stars?The Alexa integration is the worst thing I have ever integrated with Alexa, and that is saying something. When I first turned it on, it brought over two of the three fans I had configured. For those doing the math and wondering why I previously said 5 fans worked and 1 didn't and now I say 3 fans, it is because two of the fans are sets of two that are configured on one remote control each.Anyway, Alexa ported over two of the three things and removing and re-adding the integration over and over did nothing to fix the problem. Finally, I disabled the integration, deleted all of the devices in the Alexa app, and then re-started the integration. BAM! Everything worked!Fast forward a couple weeks and now my Den fan isn't working in the app or from the voice control. This despite the Den being closer to the Bond device than the bedroom fans. Why would RF signal work one day and not the next? Who knows. I will reposition the Bond device and see if that does anything.So I am left with half of my room's fans working with voice. I am literally scared to add any new devices because it might break the devices I already configured, and I am going to have to troubleshoot why the device stopped working with my Den out of the blue.The Alexa integration needs a lot of work and that is the only reason I purchased this. I don't need to control fans from my smart phones. I need them to work with smart home. What if I was away and using automation to turn my fan lights on and off and relying upon the device?If the vendor reaches out to me and fixes the issues I would be inclined to raise the star level to 5, because, frankly, the concept is awesome and when it works it still makes me smile. But of course I didn't pay for half my room's fans to not work, and fear of adding new devices breaking other things in Alexa.------------------------------Update 10/2022Everything is now working. However, it was not due to their support helping out in any way. Trial and error. I still think the Alexa integration is missing but since everything works I will improve my rating. I use this many times a day and have been for several months. My original review was 2 stars, but I was able to fix everything afterwards.