I am looking for recommendations on portable heat pumps. My home does not have central/forced HVAC, and has electric baseboard heaters and window air conditioning units in each room. These are wildly inefficient, so I am looking to replace them with heat pumps. Long term, I plan to have in-ceiling mini-split units installed, however, the in-ceiling ones are still relatively new, and I would like to wait until they have been proven before I drop a significant amount of money on them. In the meantime, I would like to use portable units to maintain comfort in the home. I currently have a Della branded, tuya based portable heat pump in our bedroom. This unit was very affordable when I purchased it last summer, for $250. But now, they have risen to over $500, which I cannot justify for this particular unit, although it works great, the compatibility with HA is poor.
The reason that the HA compatibility is so important to me is because my wife and I live in a relatively large home, but we do not have kids yet, so I would like to be able to keep the spare rooms at a reasonable temperature, but not necessarily as cool or as warm as the parts of the house that we live in. Our home was built in the 70s and the insulation is very very poor, so in the winter, we must run additional electric space heaters, to keep the pipes in our spare bathroom from freezing.
I am willing to spend up to $700 per unit, but I want them to be relatively compatible with HA. These units only need to provide HVAC for 250-300 sq ft. each, as my main living space has a mini-split.
I live in America, so I know my options are more limited than my european counterparts, but I believe at this point, anything will be more efficient than the baseboard heaters and window AC units, as well as more convenient.
I also have removed most of the baseboard heaters, due to their physical condition and age. I then converted the 220V run that these were powered by, to single 20a 120V outlets per room, near the window, to keep the new portable HVAC units on their own breakers.