My old fan was loud and cranky, but the new one at its highest fan setting offers a reasonable whir. (It’s rated for 80 or 110 cubic feet per minute, or CFM.) It’s powered by Home Depot’s smart home platform, Hubspace, which I previously didn’t have a good experience with (I never added a Resistive smart lock I tried the Hubspace app). Fortunately, this fan connects instantly to my phone via Bluetooth and my Wi-Fi network. Even better, it also works with Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa.

I didn’t put this fan in a bathroom with a shower, but I tested the humidity sensor by using my clothes steamer to remove wrinkles from a shirt. It works and starts automatically! But my favorite part, although passive, is the motion sensor. Having a room that lights up automatically without pressing a button still feels like magic, and now I want to put motion sensors around my house.

Motion sensing has some drawbacks. First, you can’t adjust how sensitive this sensor is. In my bathroom, I have a mirror that looks out into the hallway, so every time someone walks by PREVIOUS in the bathroom, the light was 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 be on through the app, and I set it to one minute.

Yes, if you’re in the bathroom for a long time and don’t move much (uh, you know why), the light will turn off and you’ll have to wave your arms for a few seconds before it comes on. back to. A small price to pay, although you can also turn off the motion sensor.

Physical Controls

Photo: Julian Chokkattu

Wall switch controls can be intimidating; I recommend read the manual first. The power button turns the fan and light on and off, but you can also press the 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 brightness of the light, or press and hold the color button to cycle through the colors—I prefer to use the app for this.