DC fans are infinitely superior to AC fans (noise, torque, longevity, etc.), which is unfortunately why this became a thing.

There's no clean mechanism to control a fan's speed in-band on a normal AC wall switch.

> There's no clean mechanism to control a fan's speed in-band on a normal AC wall switch.

There absolutely is. If you have a fan with a light controlled by separate wall switches, you have two hots running to the fixture. Take one, and leave it unswitched always on to the fixture, and use the second switch (or fan controller) and use it as an input to the controller on the fan. Done.

Unfortunately, I haven't seen this implemented anywhere.

This message brought to you by the hours I've spent annoyed by exactly this misfeature in our new bedroom fan. Fanimation does sell a wall mounted remote that can be wired inline with a switch, so at least there's a single point for master power and a remote you can't lose. Unfortunately, there's a noticeable delay between flipping the switch and the light turning on.

> There's no clean mechanism to control a fan's speed in-band on a normal AC wall switch.

I went through this pain when I bought ceiling fans a few years ago. Various manufacturers offer switches or remotes you can attach to the wall but that take batteries - the options for actual wired switches are slim. I ended up with a few hardwired Big Ass Fans wall controllers that work pretty well - but their current-gen wall controls are hardwired bluetooth remotes, which is subpar for something that's connected via wire. (And they cost $210/each, which is pretty egregious for a wall switch.)

> DC fans are infinitely superior to AC fans (noise, torque, longevity, etc.), which is unfortunately why this became a thing.

What?

Every house I've ever lived in over my many decades of life has had ceiling fans. I've never known one to fail, never known one to be noisy, and never known one to have inadequate power. I've personally installed a couple and know those got wired straight into AC mains power... so unless they have a converter built in, I figure that every ceiling fan I've ever lived with has been AC powered.

Unless you've been working with absolute bottom of the barrel fans (and those fans are worse than I could possibly imagine), this smells like industry propaganda to me.

> There's no clean mechanism to control a fan's speed in-band on a normal AC wall switch.

OP is asking for a normal pull chain or switch... one that's attached to the fan housing, not some doodad that's embedded in the wall and needs to be specially wired into the fan electrics. I've been to the houses of a few friends that have had fans controlled with a handheld wireless controller, and I can confirm that that was -overall- way worse than hauling my ass up to pull a damn chain.