Airtouch 5 Integration (Aus)

Feature Requests
144

Excited to see this new integration. I have a question about the power usage.

Does it hutch ramp up the power on the compressor based on how many zones are open or s on the difference between the set temperature and the current detected temperature.

So for example, in the morning when the level of solar is low. Do I want to just turn on 1 zone first or can I turn on many zones but only 1° higher than detected

145

@aussie1497

The Airtouch has no control over what the air conditioning unit does In terms of compressor ramping. This is all done by your ducted systems logic.

Generally, the system looks at the difference between the setpoint and its return air temperature, the outdoor temperature and the suction line temperature.
It looks at this and determines at what speed it should run

I have built something that controls the compressors output Independently based on the systems return and air out temperatures and it works extremely well.

If you have any other questions just send me a message and I’ll give you my phone number.

146

@Danzel

  • Reading damper % seems unreliable, mine are showing zones fully open that definitely aren’t. I’ll probably change it so we don’t expose the damper entity if we detect you have temperature sensors. I’m interested on feedback here

I think if temperature sensors are used we don’t need the damper opening percentage, it’s good to see out of curiosity but that’s all. I think it will just create issues with people trying to alter things when they shouldn’t.

It is handy to see just for data logging purposes only.
What my damper position shows is accurate to what is happening.

147

I agree, changing damper positions controlled by temperature sensors would be bad (but can you get that information out of the AirTouch? ie which zones have ITCs?). We want to be able to see the damper position of ITC-controlled zones - but not to be able to change them.

For zones that are off, it displays the damper position that would be applicable if that zone were to be turned-on. The alternative would be to show the damper position closed if the zone is turned-off. However, this gives less information than the current situation, so I think the way it is now is good. If you really want to show the actual position rather than the set position, you can use logic to set the position to zero if the zone is off.

148

@Dawdragon Will send you a DM. You can remove the logs above I’ve got the useful part :+1:

1 Like
149

I’ve reported the issue Dawdragon encountered to AirTouch, there is a small bug on their end of the protocol.
Once AirTouch have fixed it and documented how it is meant to behave I’ll update our end to match.
Dawdragon renamed their zone and the integration is working for them now.

If you have a zone name with a single quote (or any other special character) in it and the integration doesn’t work, remove that character and try again.

2 Likes
150

Latest and expected final release is up

Changes since last release:

  • Don’t allow changing the damper position of temperature sensor controlled zones.
  • Correctly decode zone names as utf8 not ascii (fix for what Dawdragon found)

Details on the damper position value from AirTouch:

This value is the damper position setting, not the actual damper position. In temperature control mode, it is calculated to control damper, system will keep calculate this value even when the zone is off. When zone is off and no spill active, damper will keep at off position. This value shows what position damper will move to.

So if you want to graph damper position, you’ll need to use a template that sets it to your minimum when the zone is off (and not spill - I assume).

1 Like
151

Have just installed the new version and it seems to be working pretty well.
A couple of notes though:

  • Temperature can still be set from 7º to 35º in HA but only values from 16-30 are actually supported (if I try to set below or above that it automatically moves back to the closest allowed value). Would be good if this could only allow those values to be set in HA (either by autodetecting the valid range or allowing the user to input the min and max)
  • When I updated it recreated the devices and entities. For the entities I was able to remove the old ones and rename the new ones to match the old so everything was referencing the new ones but for devices it doesn’t seem possible to delete the old ones so now I am stuck with duplicates and my automations are all referencing the old (non-functional) ones
152

Can confirm that this integration works with my Airtouch 5. I had to delete the previous custom integration configuration as it had orphaned objects, but after re-adding the IP address of my console, all my objects came back with the same names they had previously.

153

Temperature can still be set from 7º to 35º in HA but only values from 16-30 are actually supported

Thanks, I was setting the wrong field. Fixed for the next release.

When I updated it recreated the devices and entities.

Did you update from a version of my integration, or the previous one?
I haven’t had this happen yet.

Could everyone using this integration please check the logbook for their “Turbo” binary sensor on their climate.ac_0 entity and see if it ever changes?
Mine is always on (Mitsubishi AC unit)
If it never changes I’ll remove it.

154

Oh, sorry it was the previous one.

My Turbo has been on since I installed this latest version yesterday. Mine is a Panasonic AC unit

155

I have temp sensors in all rooms so I don’t have the ability to change the damper percentage using this plugin (if I have understood the above posts I think that is how you have implemented it) but I do like that I can look at the entity to see the current percentage for the dampers just to see how they are behaving.

It looks like there is no history for the percentage though (only opened or closed). Would it be possible to store the percentage in the history?

156

@Dr-Inkduff i did send you my number so you could call and go over anything you want to know about all, I’m free anytime.

Generally, the zones need to stay locked to temperature control, changing too and from percentages to temperature just creates more issues than it’s worth and messes with the logic of the controller.

If systems aren’t setup properly then people start chasing things like this and wanting to see information that like damper positions when really isn’t required.

I love tech stuff but the Airtouch does its job extremely well when it’s installed and setup properly and there is nothing to play with etc. simply time the thing on and set your room temps and it will do the rest.

157

My climate.ac.0 doesn’t have a Turbo? (Panasonic unit)

image
image1004×212 14.3 KB

158

Mine shows some history (this zone linked to the AirTouch panel’s inbuilt temperature sensor)
image

159

Use a template entity. Put something like this in your configuration.yaml

template:
  - sensor:
    - name: ATD Kitchen
      state: "{{ state_attr('cover.kitchen','current_position') if is_state('climate.kitchen', 'fan_only') else 5 }}"
      unit_of_measurement: "%"
      state_class: measurement
      icon: "mdi:percent"

And repeat the - name block for each of the zones.

The 5 is what to show when the zone is off. My zones are min vent 5% so it is 5. If yours are min vent 0% then it should be 0.
(We have a lossnay system feeding in to the AC at all times so we have min set to 5%)

160

Ok, hopefully the final release now :sweat_smile:

Get airtouch5-0.2.9.zip
(Yes it’s on the same url, I didn’t need to update the core library this time)

Fixes:

  • Remove turbo entity from AC (If you are upgrading it’ll show as unavailable and you’ll need to remove it yourself)
  • Correctly limit selectable zone target temperature range.

Note that if your AC unit has different limits for heating and cooling we limit by the lowest low and highest high, so you may still be able to request invalid config. The AirTouch5 unit will ignore you when you do by the looks.

1 Like
161

Yep they don’t

162

Thanks!

Just updated and this looks good to me :+1:

163

Hi all,

I am new to the Home Assistant forum, and Home Assistant itself, though am keen to use it to automate my Airtouch 5 ducted heat pump system.

I have managed to copy and extract the airtouch5py repository in my custom_components directory, and now see at as an integration option in the list. However when I try to add it, I get the following error:

2023-08-04 23:56:22.047 ERROR (SyncWorker_4) [homeassistant.util.package] Unable to install package airtouch5py==0.2.8: error: subprocess-exited-with-error

× python setup.py bdist_wheel did not run successfully.
│ exit code: 1
╰─> [22 lines of output]
running bdist_wheel
running build
running build_py
creating build
creating build/lib.linux-armv7l-cpython-311
creating build/lib.linux-armv7l-cpython-311/bitarray
copying bitarray/util.py -> build/lib.linux-armv7l-cpython-311/bitarray
copying bitarray/test_util.py -> build/lib.linux-armv7l-cpython-311/bitarray
copying bitarray/test_bitarray.py -> build/lib.linux-armv7l-cpython-311/bitarray
copying bitarray/__init__.py -> build/lib.linux-armv7l-cpython-311/bitarray
copying bitarray/pythoncapi_compat.h -> build/lib.linux-armv7l-cpython-311/bitarray
copying bitarray/bitarray.h -> build/lib.linux-armv7l-cpython-311/bitarray
copying bitarray/test_data.pickle -> build/lib.linux-armv7l-cpython-311/bitarray
copying bitarray/py.typed -> build/lib.linux-armv7l-cpython-311/bitarray
copying bitarray/util.pyi -> build/lib.linux-armv7l-cpython-311/bitarray
copying bitarray/__init__.pyi -> build/lib.linux-armv7l-cpython-311/bitarray
running build_ext
building 'bitarray._bitarray' extension
creating build/temp.linux-armv7l-cpython-311
creating build/temp.linux-armv7l-cpython-311/bitarray
gcc -Wsign-compare -DNDEBUG -g -fwrapv -O3 -Wall -fno-semantic-interposition -fno-builtin-malloc -fno-builtin-calloc -fno-builtin-realloc -fno-builtin-free -DTHREAD_STACK_SIZE=0x100000 -fPIC -I/usr/local/include/python3.11 -c bitarray/_bitarray.c -o build/temp.linux-armv7l-cpython-311/bitarray/_bitarray.o
error: command 'gcc' failed: No such file or directory
[end of output]

note: This error originates from a subprocess, and is likely not a problem with pip.
ERROR: Failed building wheel for bitarray
ERROR: Could not build wheels for bitarray, which is required to install pyproject.toml-based projects

I am using a Raspberry Pi 2 for Home Assistant as a starting point, could it be under specd for this integration?

Update: I tried manually installing bitarray by pip install bitarray; and now I get a config flow error, though there is nothing in the core log to explain it further.

Thanks!