Rheem Econet rs485 Integration is Possible!

Configuration
1

EDIT 9/30/2023 -

All development has been consolidated here

EDIT 7/18/2023 -

Econet heat pump water heaters are fully supported by the component.

HVAC, we have full control of the thermostat and access to a lot of diagnostic data that will make its way into sensors soon.

EDIT 5/14/2023 -

If anyone is interested. We have had a lot of success so far in decoding the protocol.

With water heaters we have been able to set temperatures and change modes with an rs485 connection including reading various sensors and pulling it into home assistant.

It would be great to get more people involved especially those with econet HVAC systems as I am currently the only one.

To join the discussion please join the discord channel.

Recommended hardware.

https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/m5stack-technology-co-ltd/K045/14318599

Recommended cable.
https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/assmann-wsw-components/AT-S-26-6-4-S-7-OE/1972674

Here’s something that can get you started with esphome yaml and a custom component made by @stockmopar on discord.

Another potentially easier yaml to setup to get started with getting logs.

Original Post 09/2022 -

Currently, there’s no local integration for Rheem econet.

However it is possible to control Rheem econet devices locally. I have done a bunch of research and found documentation on the climate talk protocol (Rheem was apart of this), and some methods of listening to rs485 Traffic and potentially controlling devices through climate talk.

Reverse engineering the protocol is way out of my league. I’m hoping someone this will be helpful for someone who’s interested in locally controlling their econet devices and has the skills to do reverse engineer the protocol but needed a starting point and testers.

I’m willing to test and pull logs. Just need to know what to do. I have a Rheem econet thermostat (heat pump) and an econet electric hot water heater.

Research Findings:

Climate Talk Specification -

Climate Talk Read/Control -

Rs485 Listener -

Openhab Climatetalk discussion (logs were posted here) -
HVAC - ClimateTalk Protocol - Home Automation - openHAB Community[quote=“Danny2100, post:1, topic:465301, full:true”]
EDIT 5/14/2023 -

If anyone is interested. We have had a lot of success so far in decoding the protocol.

With water heaters we have been able to set temperatures and change modes with an rs485 connection including reading various sensors and pulling it into home assistant.

It would be great to get more people involved especially those with econet HVAC systems as I am currently the only one.

To join the discussion please join the discord channel.

Recommended hardware.

https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/m5stack-technology-co-ltd/K045/14318599

Recommended cable.
https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/assmann-wsw-components/AT-S-26-6-4-S-7-OE/1972674

Here’s something that can get you started with esphome yaml and a custom component made by @stockmopar on discord.

Another potentially easier yaml to setup to get started with getting logs.

Original Post 09/2022 -

Currently, there’s no local integration for Rheem econet.

However it is possible to control Rheem econet devices locally. I have done a bunch of research and found documentation on the climate talk protocol (Rheem was apart of this), and some methods of listening to rs485 Traffic and potentially controlling devices through climate talk.

Reverse engineering the protocol is way out of my league. I’m hoping someone this will be helpful for someone who’s interested in locally controlling their econet devices and has the skills to do reverse engineer the protocol but needed a starting point and testers.

I’m willing to test and pull logs. Just need to know what to do. I have a Rheem econet thermostat (heat pump) and an econet electric hot water heater.

Research Findings:

Climate Talk Specification -

Climate Talk Read/Control -

Rs485 Listener -

Openhab Climatetalk discussion (logs were posted here) -

[/quote]

3 Likes
2

I am also very interested in a local interface to this RS485 port! would be so much better than relying on their cloud API that could change or be blocked at any time… I will probably try to connect up to this databus soon… But I don’t have any supported device to connect to this port and sniff the traffic of so may not get anywhere fast…

I would recommend using ESPhome to do this, it already has the code to create an RS485 listener very simple that will talk back to home assistant. I have done this with other devices. But yeah just need the time…
https://esphome.io/components/modbus_controller.html

3

There are gateways that do rs485 to Ethernet to allow you to get the data such as this:

Dual Port Server Industrial Serial RS232 RS485 to Ethernet Converter Modbus RTU to TCP Multiple Working Modes Support TCP/UDP Server/Client and HTTPD Client https://a.co/d/6bFCDe6

Here’s the current econet API discord where there has been some discussion about the API.

Happy to connect on discord as well if you decide to pursue this as I know of one other person who’s pursuing this and we can likely collaborate to finally get this done. Discord is dan1002#1958

4

The gateway may work, but the ESPhome solution is about $5 in parts(ESP32 dev board + rs485 level converter) and 5 minutes of soldering and then its all open source and locally controlled :smiley: If you haven’t already used ESPhome I cant recommend it enough… made by the same guys as Home Assistant

1 Like
5

Sounds easy enough. I have 0 soldering experience though.

Again happy to connect on discord to get this done so we have local econet control and more data available than the API allows.

The thermostat for example knows a lot more than the API shows.

1 Like
6

I am going to try start on this today maybe… What’s your username on discord?

7

It’s dan1002#1958

Seems like you found me there already.

8

I am also interested in the rs485 interface. The Discord link doesn’t appear to work. I am a novice to Discord so maybe doing something wrong!

9

What’s your discord username? I can add you to the group working on this.

10

farfarfromhome

thanks

11

Would you mind adding me as well? I’d also like to be in on this.

Thanks!

12

What’s your discord? You can join the API discord and I can find you there.

13

Also interested. Same username as here. Thanks

14

We hit a wall on the rs485 stuff. The alternative may be a local mqtt server and redirecting traffic to the mqtt server. I didn’t test this yet. It may be possible to use a self signed certificate or some other method to get the certificate to be trusted by econet before it starts communicating.

15

Did this go anywhere further? I would really like to make this work.

16

Not really. I would join the discord to see how you can help if interested in trying to make this work.

17

Could you post a new invite link? The one in this thread is expired.

18

Here you go.

1 Like
19

Danny2100: I just bought a Rheem Water heater with EcoNet and would like t to explore the ESPHome / EIA-485 connection and connect with others on Discord. My Discord: at_altitude
Thanks!

20

Easier to just join the channel here.