Review on 52'' 5-Blade Smart Ceiling Fan with Remote Control, DC Motor and 10 Speeds, 🌀 Dimmable LED Light Kit, Smafan Apex: Compatible with Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, and Siri Shortcut by Kathy Sabo

box: the contents of the box were (mostly) packed securely and everything arrived safely. The motor comes with a shipping plate to prevent damage. I really appreciated the total absence of styrofoam - thick cardboard of various sizes was used instead. Instructions: The included printed instructions are decent but may require some work. Some steps list parts, some don't. The illustrations are too small to give a correct idea of the orientation. Construction: The construction was very simple and uncomplicated. You can even use some packing materials to hold the motor in place while attaching the arms and blades. Installation: This is where this fan starts to fall. The fan comes with a few dozen different screws, but half of them aren't even mentioned in the manual. If you are mounting this to the "box" you will need to use the screws that came with the box as they are not included in this kit - also the mounting holes were too wide for the standard screws - I also had to add washers. The control box slides into position on the suspension bracket. The instructions state that you must install the control box before installing the fan, but if you do so there is no gap to get the "ball" into the socket. However, the control box must be CONNECTED before installing the fan, otherwise the bracket cover will not leave enough space to work. The result of all this is that you have to half assemble the box, then slide it out of the way to install the fan, and then push it back in with almost no clearance. To make matters worse, the box has two mounting holes where it's presumably intended to screw into the bracket after installation, but only one of the holes lines up with the hole in the bracket and none of the two dozen. The included screws actually fit in this hole. I had to insert my own screw to secure the control box. Controls: I'm not at all a fan of those remotes that need to be "paired" with the device before they work, and this fan comes with one such remote. It's easy enough to put together, though, and I love that almost every function you need has dedicated buttons on the remote - none of those six one-button actions. The manual describes some sort of app you can download and install to control this with your phone, but my HomeLife app automatically detected the fan and I didn't even look for it. I just opened the app and it asked me to add a fan. I easily added a fan and got access to all settings including the ability to schedule actions. Scheduling note: I suspect this is just a limitation of the Home Life app, but scheduling is limited to turning features on and off. Scheduled settings cannot be changed. For example, you can turn the fan off or on at a specific time or timer, but you can't automatically switch to a different speed. Operation: The fan is very quiet and, as far as I can tell, perfectly balanced (although there's a balancing kit if you need it.). I don't hear the hum of the engine at all - just the sound of moving air. At the highest speeds, the thing moves quite a bit of air. The fan speeds are adjusted like the gears of a bicycle. You have three main settings - Normal, Natural and Sleep (which are really high, medium and low) and 10 speed levels for each. I didn't break the tachometer to see if there really are 30 different speeds or if some of them don't overlap, but there are 30 different speed settings. The light is basically just a disk of very bright LEDs. The array has both "amber" and "white" LEDs that you can control independently. The lamp cover diffuses the light well, so you don't see individual points of light when it's on. The brightness gets very high - I would estimate at least 1100 lumens. The lowest setting is still a bit bright for my liking, but I'm picky enough not to think this will be an issue for most. However, one area where I am very disappointed is the response of this fan. to a power failure. Where I installed it, the fan power can be turned on and off with the switch on the wall. When I turn off the fan, it "forgets" the light settings, and the next time I flick the switch on the wall, the light automatically turns on at full brightness. This means if I want to turn on the fan in the middle of the night and it was turned off by the switch on the wall, I would have to endure a flash of white light in my face for the fan to turn on. It's a truly terrible design that most of today's "smart" devices have overcome. Almost a deal breaker for me. My advice is make sure you install this fan in a constant current circuit and not a switched circuit. If manufacturers read: They need to do some kind of firmware update that prevents the fan light from going fully bright after a power outage. Strength. If you can save the remote pairing, you should have enough NVRAM to remember the last lighting setting. Verdict: This fan is quiet, pretty easy to install, but you'll probably have to add a few screws yourself and follow the instructions. incredulous. It's super handy to be able to control this with home automation platforms, but it's super idiotic that after a power outage the light goes all the way up instead of sticking to the last setting. I can only recommend this fan if you put it in a constant current circuit.