Are there any split aircon brands that easily work with HA? We are going to buy an aircon and want to chose a compatible brand.
In the list of suported brands I think only Daiken and Fujitsu are mentioned and Daiken look to be phasing out this suport on newer models.
Fujitsu only works with an Australian/NZ product. I am in UK.
Most people here seem to be working on issuing the right infrared commands but I’d want to do it through wifi to the manufacturer’s API.
Some manufacurers allow Alexa control. Can a HA spoof an Alexa?
I wouldn’t recommend that. You’d be at the mercy of the manufacturer still providing their (cloud) API a year or five down the line.
If you don’t want to go the IR route, there’s quite a few threads here on how to replace the USB wifi dongles in your AC with a cheap ESP board and the ESPHome integration.
Great list. I think it’s important to mention to newbies looking into this that at least Midea and Gree licensed their wifi modules to a LOT of air conditioner producers. For example I run the open source Gree wifi module on my Daizuki and TGM airco’s and I have the open source Midea module in my Comfortstar air conditioner. So the list of supported brands is WAY bigger than just those names above. In fact I’d say that most of the modern wifi compatible air conditioners are now supported. The only big brand I’m not sure of is LG.
Alternatively for airco’s using the Gree protocol, there’s also home assistant support for the original wifi module, if you don’t want to go the open source esp route: Gree Climate - Home Assistant
a) This is not my house but a village hall where I need to hand it all over to others less technically able. So anything too custom in terms of hardware or software will be hard to support long term. An IR solution might be a problem here then.
b) Any swapping of the wifi module will affect the 5 year warranty.
I don’t think it affects the warranty though. Some of my older daikin ac doesn’t include wifi dongle (optional).
Just this year I got 2 new daikin ac and they’ve included the dongle by default but i just swapped them out anyway
I try to remember the motto “You touch it, you own it.”
Setting something up for others to maintain going forward would push me in the direction of a vendor’s cloud-based solution. An HA integration would be a nice-to-have, even if it did have a cloud dependency. But I’d want the users to have someone else to turn to for long-term support.
For the record, this is the exact opposite of what I’d do in my own home.
There will be an HA hub in the building to run the gas boiler. That setup is pretty simple with no need for any specal code or any integration that does not come direct from HA. So i am fairly confident to hand that over to others.
I was just hoping to add on an extra few features that control the aircon too. Saves having to enter the weekly schedule twice, once in HA for the boiler and once in the aircon’s proprietary inteface.