Ecobee and Australian ducted HVAC, Aircon, Samsung

Hardware
1

Hi All,

New to Home Assistant here, but been reading a fair bit about Ecobee and Nest air conditioning controllers for Australian systems.

Aim is to:

  1. Automate on/off for when I arrive/leave home

  2. Have a second thermostat that allows the aircon to adjust for bedroom temperatures, which is a second zone in my system. Bedrooms are hotter/colder than living area, so I’m constantly adjusting temperatures and switching zones on/off

  3. Easy to use Scheduling: the current controller is extremely not user friendly

I have a Samsung ducted air conditioning system with two zones ie not a split system that uses an IR remoted.

Initial thoughts so far is to use an Ecobee to replace my current Samsung aircon controller. But my reading so far is that our Australian systems are more sophisticated than American systems that products like Ecobee and Nest are designed for. So do not work correctly without an interface. I found one air-con supplier in Canberra that has built their own interfacing device, but currently does not support Samsung systems (as of last year) links:

My smarthome setup is based on Apple’s Homekit platform, with Home Assistant used to integrate non-Homekit devices (eg. GRIDConnect, Kasa)

Questions are

  1. Do others have this experience with EcoBee in Australia? Is CMS services correct?

  2. Does anyone know of any alternative solutions for Samsung ducted aircon systems.

Thanks in advance and looking forward to seeing other projects and setups.

Cheers
Davis

2

Also just found the Samsung wifi kit MIM-H03
https://www.samsung.com/au/air-conditioners/ac-acc-mimh03n/MIM-H03N/

Anyone tried intergrating this Samsung wifi kit with Home Assistang?

3

If you are / know someone who is handy with a multimeter and soldering iron, this can be done for less than $20 with some limitations.

A few years back I was looking for a similar solution for my Daikin ducted system.
Daikin have their own wifi solution, but they want ridiculous $$$, and as you mentioned, off the shelf solutions for US markets are not compatible with Australian systems.

I got a little curious and started looking at my Daikin wall mounted controller and quickly realised that I could simulate button presses with a simple relay, allowing me to turn the system on and off.
Feedback as to whether the system is on or off is by looking at the voltage across the power led on the controller, and I’ve fed this straight into the A0 pin of a nodeMCU.
The same nodeMCU controls the relay to turn the AC on or off.

4

Interesting option @jivesinger. I guess, I could use HA to do all the smarts and control the AC with a simple on/off.

So looks like your understanding is that EcoBee off the shelf is not an option without further work.

Anyone else tried EcoBee or Nest?

5

It certainly wasn’t for me.
Daikin have proprietary comms between the controller and main unit

6

Looks like here’s a HA solution using Samsung’s proprietary wifi controllers.

7

Hi just wondering if you got this to work?? I am about to do the same…