ESPHome-gea — GE Appliances on the local bus (dishwasher, washer, dryer, oven)

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42

I solved this problem by dynamically pulling chunks of the erd documentation formatted as jsonl at runtime based on what Erds are present on the device, then having the MQTT topic payloads generated. Having a zero-configuration device where everything is controlled by one device is so nice--no integration required. I don't think it's possible to do that without using MQTT autodiscovery.

My branch(es) have been in flux for a while but I need to get a good clean release out that's stable. I have been trying to get the core functionality really robust first (I was having some random crashes), but I need to retest the HA autodiscovery generation.

Your note about different languages--that one is not one I'd thought about. Maybe there could be a translated version of the erd-documentation? but that may get tricky.

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This is a cool project. Thanks for working so hard on it.

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Jumping in on the single-subscription behavior @joshua.longenecker mentioned above — I’ve got a fully characterized case and I’m hoping someone has found a way past it.

Setup: GE PVD28BYNFS (4-door French door fridge, board dated 2021), running @mguaylam’s esphome-gea component on an ESP32-C3 tapped on the RJ45 service port. It’s GEA2 and my adapter at 0xE4, the WiFi module at 0xBF, main board at 0x00.

I’ve confirmed on the bus:

  • With the WiFi module plugged in, my adapter gets zero link-ACKs from the MC. Every F2 subscribe / F0 read / F1 write exhausts retries and drops. It’s not collision or timing: a single lone read into an otherwise-silent bus (passive-only, no re-subscribe flood) still gets no ACK.
  • Pull the module, and the adapter immediately works fully. It reads compartment temps (0x1004), writes setpoints, the whole ERD set.
  • So the module is holding the one subscription slot and the MC won’t service a second external client at all is what I’m thinking.

My adapter (0xE4) queues a read of 0x1004 (compartment temps):

[23:50:08.615][D][gea:965]: Queued read ERD 0x1004
[23:50:09.743][W][gea:915]: Request cmd=0xF0 id=0x08 exhausted retries, dropping

…no link-ACK ever came back. Same result every retry cycle:

[23:50:28.574][D][gea:965]: Queued read ERD 0x1004
[23:50:29.651][W][gea:915]: Request cmd=0xF0 id=0x09 exhausted retries, dropping
[23:50:48.576][D][gea:965]: Queued read ERD 0x1004
[23:50:49.677][W][gea:915]: Request cmd=0xF0 id=0x0A exhausted retries, dropping

Meanwhile the WiFi module (0xBF) is the ONLY external node the MC talks to.

It re-registers its subscription every ~5s and gets answered every time:

[23:50:09.742] SNIFF dest=0x00 src=0xBF : 00 08 BF F3 D2 BF # module → MC: F3 subscribe
[23:50:11.585] SNIFF dest=0xBF src=0x00 : BF 51 00 F3 18 00 07 … # MC → module: 24-ERD sub list
[23:49:55.449] SNIFF dest=0x00 src=0xBF : 00 0B BF F0 01 D0 07 02 0B # module → MC: read 0xD007
[23:49:55.488] SNIFF dest=0xBF src=0x00 : BF 10 00 F0 01 D0 07 04 .. # MC → module: answered

Passive snoop works great alongside the module. I get everything the module itself polls (doors, door-in-door, energy, filter, ambient) read-only. The catch: the module never fetches 0x1004, so compartment temps are simply never on the bus for me to snoop. That’s the one value I actually want, and it’s unreachable as long as the module owns the session.

My question: has anyone gotten both running simultaneously on one of these single-subscription appliances? The WiFi module (for the SmartHQ app) and a second client for HA read/write? Any appliance-side angle, a different address/role the MC will grant a second session to, a service-tool handshake, something in the GEA2 layer, or is it fundamentally one-client-or-the-other on this vintage?

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Would you be able to try the code here? GitHub - joshualongenecker/home-assistant-bridge-esphome · GitHub

I’m at a release candidate version, it’s working on all of the GE Appliance configurations I have access to, but this is an interesting case. My adapter should detect GEA2 and automatically switch to a polling configuration which should be supported in your case.

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I flashed this firmware on my Firstbuild adapter to use on my GE washer, but I keep having issues with the adapter staying connected in HA. It will lose the HA connection and ESPhome says disconnected, but Wifi will still remain connected. Any experience here on how to troubleshoot this? My washer is on the compatibility list (GFW850SPN5RS).