Haier HaierAC Tuya, HI-WA164DBI Integration

Third party integrations
1

I have an Haier MRV system with no WIFI. There is a WIFI module available HI-WA164DBI.

I cannot find any information on the web about the protocol itself but it definitely looks like there is no hON enabled on the wifi.

When i google the manual for that i can find an application on the android market for HaierAC application. but this application is part of tuya Haier AC

Is there any chance this can be added to HomeAssistant? Is the tyua part anyhow applicable or it is not relevant to the topic.

I am now in final preparation for the Haier MRV installation into the building so i need to know before i buy all of the modules.

Thanks

2

Hi @mazmart,
I checked some materials available on the Internet and it looks like this controller is using Modbus RTU protocol on top of RS485. I already saw it was used by some Haier heat pumps. It is a completely different protocol in comparison to what is used for home split systems so you can’t use ESPHome Haier integration. The only relevant thing I could find is this: GitHub - ktostam/HaierPi: initial
Hope it will help.

3

Hi.

I have HI-WA164DBI unit contolling the haier MRV ac units in my house as well.

@mazmart
Did you manage to make any progress with that?

4

Same here…
Tried the hon addon but it didn’t work with my HI-WA164DBI

@GreenBlast @mazmart any luck from your side?

5

Unfortunately no.

I did decompile the app downloaded from here:
https://smartapp.tuya.com/haieracwww

Using jadx.

I believe that it is contacting the tuya cloud servers in a standard way, so breaking SSL on the device might be hard.

But still I need to find the time (Might happen someday) to sniff the network communication from the HI-WA164DBI and see if something there relevant for simulating requests which might enable local control and integration with home assistant.

6

I’m exploring the option of using IR controllers (with WiFi support) as a workaround…

Also checking if there are other controllers for Haier VRF which have better support for smart home integrations…

7

Actually I also thought about it as a workaround (Already had success with IR controllers in previous apartments where I didn’t have a device that is connected to the AC via wifi).

However, the problem with that is that the state of the AC unit will not be reflected in the IR controller info (some come with room temperature measurement, which is nice but still not perfect).

It means that if someone touches the remote control (Some rooms’ remotes are handheld and some rooms’ are screwed to the wall), the IR controller has no way of knowing that something was changed, and can only maintain state according to logic that might take this into control.

It is always possible to take the extra mile and add some logic (If room gets too cold, send turn off command again via the IR controller) or even add some camera + image recognition capabilities on the AC UI that gets the info, but it is a bit more complicated solution, and will be hard to implement for most.

Also a matter of scale, I have 7 ACs controlled by this unit, I can get 7 IR controllers, but not sure that it will be easy in the main hallway to make sure they are only transmitting to a single unit (There is a line of sight for several receivers).

Just voicing outloud considerations about this approach as well.