Universal Ceiling Fan Remote

Ceiling Fan Remote Kit

Gives an older ceiling fan a remote

Two pieces come in the box. A handheld remote, and a small black receiver module that gets wired inside the fan's canopy. Once the receiver is in, speed, light and a shut-off timer all move to the remote, and the pull chains stop being the only way to reach them.

The remote has four fan buttons — high, medium, low and off — one button for the light, and four timer buttons for one, two, four and eight hours. Press a timer button and the fan runs for that long and then stops on its own. That is the whole feature set, and it is worth knowing up front that it is the whole feature set.

Read this first

The receiver is wired into your mains supply

This is not a plug-in accessory. The receiver sits inside the fan's canopy, between the ceiling supply and the fan, and fitting it means turning off the circuit at the breaker, taking the canopy down, and joining line-voltage conductors — supply live and neutral in, fan live and light live back out.

If that sentence does not describe something you have done before and are comfortable doing again, have a licensed electrician fit it. Work overhead, on a circuit you have to isolate yourself, with a fan hanging off it, is not the place to learn. An electrician will also tell you in two minutes whether your particular fan can take this kit at all, which is the other thing worth knowing before you start.

We have not been able to verify a UL, ETL or CSA safety listing for this kit. The manufacturer does not state one, and we could not find one on file. Some kits in this category do carry one and say so. If a listed device is something you require — for an inspection, for a rental property, or for your own peace of mind — please buy a listed one instead of this.

What it will not do

The word "universal" gets used loosely in this category. Here is the honest version, taken from the manufacturer's own specification rather than from marketing copy.

It does not work with DC-motor fans. The quickest way to tell: if the remote your fan came with has four, five or six speeds, or a reverse button on it, you have a DC fan and this kit is not for you. Three speeds and a pull chain usually means an AC motor, which is what this is built for.
It does not reverse the fan. There is no direction control on the remote and none in the receiver. If you flip your fan for winter, you will still be doing that at the fan.
It does not dim the light. The light button is on and off only.
It does not support three-wire motors.
It is not a smart-home device. No app, no Wi-Fi, no Alexa, no Google Home. It is a radio remote talking to a radio receiver, and nothing about it touches your network.

Will it physically fit?

This is the single most common reason one of these kits gets sent back, and it has nothing to do with the brand on your fan. The receiver is a rigid block that has to live inside the canopy — the shallow dome where the fan meets the ceiling — alongside the wiring that is already in there.

Before you buy, take the canopy down and look. If there is not a clear space roughly the size of a deck of cards, this receiver will not go in, and no amount of persuasion will change that. Slim and low-profile fans are the usual casualties.

4.6 in

Receiver length

11.6 cm

2.1 in

Receiver width

5.4 cm

1.1 in

Receiver depth

2.8 cm

5.2 in

Remote length

13.3 cm long, 2.0 in wide, 0.7 in thick

Load limits, and the one that catches people

The receiver is switching your fan motor and your light fixture, so both have a ceiling. The fan side is rated to two amps. The light side is where the surprise sits: the headline wattage on this kind of receiver is quoted for incandescent bulbs, and the limit for LED and energy-saving bulbs is far lower, because those bulbs behave very differently at the moment of switch-on.

2 A

Fan motor

Rated to 300 W

1000 W

Incandescent light

Maximum

200 W

LED or CFL light

Maximum — not the incandescent figure

433 MHz

Radio

About 65 ft of range, less through walls

Figures are the manufacturer's published ratings for this receiver. Because the receiver is powered from the fan's own supply, your wall switch has to stay on for the remote to work.

In the box

One receiver module, pre-wired with flying leads and an antenna wire that must not be cut or shortened.
One handheld remote, already paired to that receiver.
One wall cradle, so the remote has somewhere to live rather than under a cushion.

The remote takes two AAA batteries and they are not included. The remote beeps when you press a button; it is quiet, but it is there, and a few people find it irritating at night.

Choosing between the two versions

The two options on this page are the mains voltage the receiver is built for, not a feature difference. Homes in the United States and Canada run at about 120 volts, so that is the version to pick here. The higher voltage version is for countries that run at about 230 volts and is the wrong one for a US home.

If you are unsure what your supply is, it is written on the label inside almost every fan.