Any Support for Midea A/C?

Thank you very much :slight_smile:

Sorry guys,
I feel I may need some more info on the development of this.
So, I’m actually using the USB Wifi for my Midea-like AC (it’s a Giatsu but the Midea integration works with it).
I managed to get the ID of my split (splits actually, as I got two) but most of the times it’s offline (also in the nethome plus app).
What I want to do is to get rid of the wifi dongle itself and use a CC2531 instead (I use another CC2531 as coordinator already).
I read a user said some months ago they managed to do it. Any info about this?
The CC2531 would be an extremely cheap and available alternative (it costs around 3.5€ at the moment).
What do you reckon?
Thanks!

https://easyeda.com/aceindy/midea-open-dongle

This uses a ESP01 dongle, over wifi;
So it doesn’t use cloud nor zigbee nor RF433

my ESP01 + voltage converter was a whopping €2.38 :yum:

Hey @aceindy,
Thanks a lot for the info!

So, if I got this right, I should buy an ESP01 dongle AND a voltage converter.
Would something like this be what I need?
eap01

Or maybe you can share a link to get both items?

Thanks a lot! :slight_smile:

@kokuo81
Oh, the esp01 alone was €2.81…sorry abt that…total was €4.35…
ESP8266 ESP-01 WIFI Transceiver Wireless Module With Adapter Module

And you can also go fancy by ordering the pcb’s made by Dudanov and Klootwijk (follow links on previous posts)

@aceindy Thanks a lot!

I’m very bad at components and stuff but I suppose this is the same and would work fine (the 3rd choice):


Also, how do I program it? Sorry for the questions but I’m really new to all this.

Whenever you confirm me, I’ll buy it :slight_smile:

Thanks again!

Hmm, I never managed to get the ESP01 into programming mode with that USB dongle;
I used this one: USB Serial Adapter CH340G 5V/3.3V USB to TTL-UART to program it.
And is how I connected it for programming:

And the AC itself doesn’t use USB (even though it uses an USB connector), so you cannot use the programmer adapter there either, you need the 5V/3.3V Adapter.
So mine looks like this (my A/C was both equipped with USB as well as header plug, so I could choose)
image

PS:If I understood Rene Klootwijk correctly, you can order them pre-assembled, have a look here

(I just did some reading on the USB serial port adapter, and it looks like you can use it for programming, but it requires some modifications:


Also available on YouTube

@aceindy Thanks a lot for all the info once again, hugely appreciated :slight_smile:

So, to recap a bit:

  • Since I have two AC splits, I can buy two sets of the ones I posted in my previous comment + one extra ESP8266 to use as programmer.

  • I make one ESP8266 a programmer for the ESP-01.
    I found another video explaining how to join the pins to make it a programmer (no need for a button to toggle, given the price of the board, I prefer to have an extra ESP8266 just for programming :slight_smile: ): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSczkB4wYec

  • Once I have the little “programmer” ESP8266 ready, I can connect it to the PC to program both ESP-01.
    What will I need to do that? What tool (I’m on windows 10)? What file?

  • Once I’m done programming both ESP-01, since I do have a female USB plug in the AC (something like this: https://github.com/dudanov/midea-open-dongle/raw/main/images/2.png), I understand I can plug the ESP-01 into the ESP8266 (the original one, not the “programmer” one) and the ESP8266 into the female USB plug of my air conditioner.

  • At that point, I would need to configure it in Home assistant

As you can see, I still have doubts about the tool/files I need to use to program the ESP-01 and if I will indeed have to plug the whole thing (ESP-01+ESP8266) to the AC female USB plug.

Thank you once again for your patience and time (I will write a guide in ES and IT once everything is working fine on my end, I promise).

EDIT:
I’ve been reading the ESPHome guide and, if I got it right, that should actually answer my questions from above:

  1. The tool to flash the ESP-01 is, in my case, the ESPHome plugin in Home Assistant itself.
  2. What to flash in the ESP-01 comes directly from the configuration I use in ESPHome, that is basically pushed to the plugged USB by selecting the Upload option in the WebUI.

Am I right?

Thanks!

1 Like

Erm…

Yes,
2 x ESP8266 Serial Wi-Fi Wireless ESP-01 Adapter Module 3.3V 5V
2 x ESP8266 ESP-01 Remote Serial Port (with the earlier posted modification for programming)
1 x ESP01 Programmer Adapter UART

Normally ‘programming’ would be done from the ESPHome add-on


But unfortunately, the MideaAC pull request did not make it into the main git repository yet.
So until it makes it into the ESPHome addon, you’ll have to compile the required binaries manually (I also used W10) and flash it on the com-port assigned to ESP8266 ESP-01 Remote Serial Port
An example of the configuration yaml you find here.

cd c:\workshop\esphome

pip install esphome
pip install esphomeflasher
pip install --upgrade git+https://github.com/dudanov/esphome.git@midea-climate-support

esphome mideahvac.yaml wizard
esphome mideahvac.yaml compile

esphomeflasher

using the compiled C:\_workshop\esphome\mideahvac\.pioenvs\mideahvac\firmware.bin

image

Assuming you already installed python :wink:

1 Like

@kokuo81 do not use the usb male plug of the 8266, but use the voltage converter 3.3/5v…
(remember, the ac uses a usb connector, but is is not using the usb standard :thinking:)

Hey @aceindy,

It’s almost everything clear now :slight_smile:

I’ve already put in my cart the following:

2x https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4001238357707.html (option with ESP-01)
2x https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32985707091.html (just the ESP adapter, put 2 in case I do disasters while soldering the mod with one of them)

With the time I have to wait for them to arrive and the xmas break, I’m pretty sure the MideaAC pull request will be implemented into the main rep once I’m ready and all set up, so I will probably use the “programmer” embedded in the EASPHome.

Remaining doubts:

  1. Why should I mod the ESP-01 if I already mod the ESP8266 to program it?
  2. I will check if I have the other cable to connect to the AC but in case I don’t, what cable should I buy?

Thank you a billion and sorry for all the (probably dumb) questions!

  1. Only the programmers hardware is modified (to put it into programming mode).
  2. Any USB cable will do (i cut off the connector on one side)

ps, very confusing that the terms esp01, esp8266, serial programmer seems to be mixed up everywhere…

so to be clear
2x


and to program it
1x image
or with soldered links to put it into programming mode

And asking questions is never dumb…people not asking them stay dumb :wink:

2 Likes

Hi @aceindy,
Amazing!

You just cleared all my doubts! I’ve already ordered everything and will probably receive the stuff by mid January (I think).

For now, thank you a billion for all your time and patience, hugely appreciated! :slight_smile:

Just adding my interest here, seems this will help a lot as the wifi adapters tend to disconnect from the network quite often.

the esp01 still utilizes wifi, so that won’t solve a poor wifi reception…

However, i my case it did solve the poor connection with the cloud, as each evening that one seemed to be overloaded :thinking:

Hi all, I’m quite new to HA.

I was trying to connect met Midea A/C to my HomeAssistent. I have it connected on my Android phone (with the NetHome Plus app) and can control it with my Google Assistent and with my phone.
I added the midea integration on HA (added it to custom components and added it to the configuration file). I found my deviceID but I can’t find my IP number. If I log on to HA it says that Midea is not available. I already tried with Angry IP Scanner but I can’t find the IP number. Can somebody help me?

Hi Joerie,
You need to check the connected devices on your home network in your router, also you have to reserved the IP.

Yes I tried that yesterday but I can only see connected MAC addresses… (no IP address, no description, nothing…)

Okay, I found the correct IP Address but still it shows ‘unavailable’ in HA. Any suggestions?

If all is setup well then its probably an unsupported device. Either wait if someone integrates this device or follow the alternative usb stick (check aceindy’s posts) with esp