Once it's set up you get a nice climate control in Home Assistant, the only drawback is that the state displayed in HA will go out of sync if you use the physical remote.
[1] https://github.com/smartHomeHub/SmartIR/blob/master/docs/CLI...
You just point your remote to it and it can capture the data that you can just replay..
Ended up setting it up as a virtual thermostat along with a Zigbee temperature sensor and letting HA manage the the whole thing. After a few months of hacking and tweaking, it works pretty well!
But, there were a few problems with this approach:
* The IR code to turn on and turn off were the same code (which makes sense if you look at the unit, there's just an on-off toggle button)
* No temperature control. On the heater itself, you can adjust the temperature as well as a high/medium/low setting. The remote didn't have these settings, so I couldn't capture them using an IR receiver sensor. Thankfully, these settings persist when the unit is off so I just set them once and called it good enough. And I eventually got around the need for this by setting up the virtual thermostat with a Zigbee temperature sensor in the room.
But the biggest problem is that I had no way to know if the unit was actually ON.
The codes sometimes wouldn't work unless the IR blaster was pointed directly at the unit, and even then they will sometimes randomly fail. I ended up plugging it into a Zigbee plug with power monitoring, so I could tell from the power draw if it was on, and try to re-send the commands a few times if it failed to turn on.
Overall, it was kind of a fun way to make a dumb device smart, but what OOP is doing is way cooler.
I actually have more than one LED on my device. It's in the opposite corner and points to the air-conditioning unit that is fixed. In this scenario I can't ever recall it not working 100%.
My automation is in nodered and I heat or cool the bedroom to 18C and turn the the unit off.
But this project is definitely nicer! But I don't fully understand how do I connect the ESP32 to the aircon. I see you can buy a cable on Tindie but... oh wait, I know see a badly illuminated part of the attached YouTube video where he does open the thing up and connect the cable but really, it's not that clear to me (especially considering there are a gazillion slightly different Daikin split models out there).
Any help appreciated (even if it's just a pointer to RTFM)
In my case it was more hassle to look up how to dismantle the unit to get to the motherboard (I recommend looking up your unit's service manual), attaching the module and routing the cable are trivial.
He also runs an excellent ISP in the UK called AAISP which I can highly recommend (https://www.aa.net.uk)
AAISP build their own core & customer networking devices/routers from scratch (not Linux based) in the UK. They are fascinating to use - a completely different evolutionary tree to any other networking kit I've used. Some unique features.
Which kernel are they using?
- Every line of code in the firmware, including building an operating system from the ground up with device drivers and IP stack.
- The FireBrick's hardware platform is not used in any other devices and the FireBrick's codebase / firmware is not used in any other hardware.
Given the feature set I'm a little dubious that it's all in-house. There are a ton of man-years of code in there.
It would be interesting to know the history of the software.
It's absolutely wild to think about a suite of software this sophisticated that exists outside the realm of Unix, Windows, or any of the long-term players in the embedded networking device market. I know there are boutique embedded IP stacks out there but it still boggles my mind that a small company like this has had sufficient revenue to keep up with the "churn" in the networking space for 20+ years w/o leaning on free/open-source software.
I wish I had a reason to interview RevK about the Firebrick code. I think it would be an immensely interesting topic.
https://github.com/DomiStyle/esphome-panasonic-ac
I've got two of these running in my Panasonic Heat Pumps and it's excellent.
There is also a project for the esp32 which allows you to control it locally from Home assistant instead of the cloud based integration (https://github.com/JanM321/esphome-lg-controller)
Edit:
Looks like the ESP32 project is mostly tailored for hard-wired installations, but I just have a couple of floor units...
At least some Della mini splits are manufactured by Align, and they use a Tuya networking module.
- the wifi module and temperature sensor are right next to each other, which was causing the unit to read temperature 2-3 celcius higher than actual due to wifi sensor heat (measured by another temperature sensor on the other side of the unit). This was fixed in a software update, but seems like poor design
- it looks like the original wifi module uses a lot of power, at least according to the app readings. Didn't verify this one, but it tracks with how much it heats up even if the unit is completely off
- no way to connect an external temperature sensor, so even with a software fix to the temperature sensor reading, my room is consistently 2-3 degree celcius colder than the set temperature
- there are no release notes for the official firmware updates so you never know what can break if you update (but an update did fix the wifi module heating issue)
- the (new) app had power usage data for the past couple of years. Now they decided to only store a year? Or maybe just deleted the old data. Either way, now it's lost without any notice or way to archive it
---
That said, how likely is it that Faikin causes a hardware failure in an indoor or outdoor unit in case of a software bug? I'll definitely try it but I'm a bit uneasy with an open source software designed for what seems like a massive range of devices, and no way for the maintainers to accurately test against each one
1: https://github.com/SwiCago/HeatPump
2: https://github.com/echavet/MitsubishiCN105Esphome
I've got this running on several units and it works great. If you buy ESP32 development boards with pre-soldered pins, you can even build the boards without soldering.
I recently had a Mitsubishi heat pump installed, and I'm underwhelmed by the 1999-esque stock thermostat, but the vendor swore on the proverbial stack of Bibles that it was the only one that could properly run the unit as it was designed given all the proprietary control laws and so on.
https://blog.bschwind.com/2016/05/29/sending-infrared-comman...
Daikin's Japanese units have support for EchoNet, a "source available" protocol.
Is anyone able to test if any of the international units have this enabled?
EchoNet Home Assistant: https://github.com/scottyphillips/echonetlite_homeassistant
twtran•6mo ago
There are two caveats to going the Faikin way: you need to source or build your own cable that's compatible with your unit, and there's no access control (that I could find) for the web interface so you need to firewall and proxy it properly.
ragingroosevelt•6mo ago
The faikins are really awesome. I have mine set up in Home Assistant and I have automations for them to do stuff to turn off if the outdoor and indoor temps are both pleasant. I also have it set up to turn off if any of my windows or exterior doors are left open for more than five minutes. But you can program them to do so much. The stock firmware does mqtt so it's quite versatile.
ohopton•6mo ago
denismi•6mo ago
Which ones?
My Alira X from a couple of years ago is currently talking directly to Home Assistant over WiFi. For a year or so I've been unable to update firmware without losing the functionality, but it looks like the community has a fix pending verification: https://github.com/home-assistant/core/issues/99251
I have another old unit that I'll have to replace eventually, and ideally it could be Daikin and would work natively without involving external hardware.
twtran•6mo ago