Hi, I love Home Assistant for allowing me to integrate a lot of older equipment and not have to use cloud devices. Right now I’m having a lot of fun in integrating old CCTV cameras, sonoff switches or just upgrading my doorbell thanks to: https://frenck.dev/diy-smart-doorbell-for-just-2-dollar/
Right now I’m looking at something more serious. I just added two AC split units, one for each floor. I live in a two story building, one floor for one family. I have a gas boiler to heat radiators on both floors. But with the gas prices sky rocketing in Europe and with Solar panels on the roof I think that with HA automations I can get some extra savings with creating some automations. My idea is to have AC units heat the building if the outside temp id above 5 degrees Celsius and turn on the gas boiler if the temp is below 5 degrees Celsius.
That is just an example, over all I have many more automation ideas:
- Cooling – if people from floor one or two leave home the AC units turn off and if after one hour and the temp is above 25 Celsius to AC turns on if someone enters the city (± 5 KM radius from home)
- Heat – first of all, if outside temp is over 5 Celsius to AC unit heat the house, if below the boiler is turned on
- Heat – if people on one floor are away, the gas boiler heats both floors to 18 Celsius and on the floor that is not empty the temp to 21 is raised by AC unit
- Heat – if it’s below 5 Celsius but my solar panels are producing enough power then the boiler turns off and AC unit turns on.
I have AC units integrated with: https://github.com/georgezhao2010/midea_ac_lan
My gas boiler is an dumb on/off unit integrated with ESPHome like in this project: Dumb Cheap Smart Thermostat
For now I would like to use AC temp sensor for inside and outside, but if they proof not to be reliable I will look for something else.
I realize that HA can crash or be unavailable if there is no internet connection or power, and I have a work around for that, my boiler is a simple on/off type, so if my ESP does not work I still have my dumb thermostat connected with a lower temp set up (18 Celsius) and it will kick in.
I would like to have the option to set up temps for being home, away, night and day. I have little experience in automations, but I love HA and if the goals I want to achieve are met it would be great, and if I’ll be able to change the temp values via GUI it would be awesome!
