RF Hacking My Cloud-Controlled Ceiling Fan
The author reverse-engineered the Dreo ceiling fan's cloud-dependent RF remote protocol by capturing signals with an RTL-SDR, decoding the OOK modulation, and building a custom Arduino-based transmitter to control the fan locally without internet access.
Background
- Dreo is a brand of Wi-Fi/cloud-connected home appliances (fans, heaters, etc.) — part of the "smart home" market where devices are controlled via mobile apps and the internet rather than local remotes.
- Many such devices use the 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi band but also contain a sub-1 GHz RF (radio frequency) receiver for physical remotes; the author reverse-engineered that RF link to bypass the cloud dependency.
- "RF hacking" here means capturing and analyzing the radio signals sent by the Dreo remote, then replaying them with a cheap USB radio dongle (like an RTL-SDR or HackRF) — a common technique in hardware hacking communities.
- The broader significance: cloud-controlled devices can become non-functional if the company's servers shut down or if internet access is lost; hacking the local RF control restores offline, private operation.
- This is part of a growing "right to repair" / local-control movement, where enthusiasts tear apart IoT gadgets to remove their cloud dependency and regain direct hardware access.