How to wire a Hunter remote ceiling fan to a Lutron Fan control and light switch

Question

How can I wire a Hunter ceiling fan with factory receiver/remote to a Lutron Fan control and light switch. I want to turn on fan or light with Lutron wall switch and use the factory remote to turn on/off the fan or light.

Answer 1

The answer is quite possibly you can't do that.

A typical fan/light remote takes a single hot wire in (plus neutral, ground, but hot is the relevant piece here as it is the one that can be switched), which powers the remote receiver, which in turn passes power to the fan and light. In this situation, that hot wire is basically expected to always be left on. That seems like a waste of a switch, since a typical fan/light replaces an existing switched light. However, it allows for easy DIY installation, or for less expensive than would otherwise be needed professional installation, because it doesn't require new wires/cable as is traditionally needed for independent fan/light controls.

Many, but not all (by design) fan/light combination devices can instead be wired directly to two separate switches with fan and light each having their own switched hot wire. This is generally done by removing (or at least bypassing) the remote receiver. If this is done then:

• The remote transmitter is useless
• A larger cable (minimum 3 wires plus ground, but sometimes 4 wires (hot/switched hot 1/switched hot 2/neutral) is required, which can be hard to do in a retrofit installation
• If you want light dimming and/or fan speed control then you need to install appropriate switches which are more expensive than simple on/off switches
• If you want a wireless remote control then you have to use some sort of smart fan/light switch with a matching remote control

In theory, someone could build a remote receiver that would take two switched hot wires in, as well as always hot (to power itself when the switches are off) and work with both the switches and the remote to give every possible method of control. In reality, the market for this device would be relatively small and there would be some complications - e.g., two dimmers or two fan controls in the same switched hot wire would get rather complicated, if possible at all.