Hey dear HA community!
I just published one of my home automation projects on Github.
It is a PCB design to be used with Venta airwashers to control them using ESPHome and HA.
Find the project here: https://github.com/Alex9779/Venta-LW-Controller
~Alexander
Hi Rien,
all I can offer is empty PCBs and some of the components. Some are really expensive but maybe could be replaced with cheaper ones if the design would be adjusted, especially the power regulator. Also the design is not that perfect as I described in the Github repo so it is not really production ready or something I want to sell and be responsible for.
Alex
Ok thanks for the feedback. I probably stick to the simple on/off via a zwave device
Hi, how do you turn the device on/off using a “z-wave device”, What device are you using? Mine Venta LW 45 won’t turn on when I plug it in the elecricity, so simple socket/plug can’t be used. Thanks!
Hi @Alex9779,
it’s really nice to see what you have done and achieved in regards of your ESPHome project. Besides many Zigbee devices and a few BLE devices I do also now have more than ten devices running on ESPHome after I freed them from the original firmware. All of them now run very reliably what wasn’t always the case before, also due to badly written manufacturer firmware which e.g. caused wifi connection drops.
The remaining missing pieces to complete the hardware setup in my (smart) home are humidifiers and standing/table fans. In the past weeks I searched heavily for smart humidifiers and smart fans which turned out to be a difficult exercise. I had ordered a couple of smart humidifiers running on tuya chipsets (Realtek) and although ESPHome support was added recently to many of these chipsets I was unlucky with getting access to the firmware on these devices. One reason was that tuya has made it basically impossible to access the necessary pins in the latest releases of their microcontrollers without having to desolder them first. The reason why I eventually had enough was that their microcontrollers are not as easy to get into flash download mode like Espressif ESP32 microcontrollers. But I was also not happy with the hardware quality of these humidifiers.
Eventually I ordered a Venta AH510 Wifi humidifier of which I only became aware a couple of days ago. Since Venta is also rated by far best among all the evaporative humidifiers on the market, especially when it comes to long-term usage and how they deal with lime/minerals in the water, I started to have new hope that I would finally have found a smart humidifier that had the potential to complement my smart home setup. And indeed, when I received the appliance yesterday and I had a look inside I discovered an ESP32 (with this pinout setup https://lastminuteengineers.com/wp-content/uploads/iot/ESP32-WROOM-32-Pinout.png)! In addition the PCB is so nicely structured that everything looks really ESPHome promising. I then successfully downloaded the original firmware using esptool which was even possible without using my valuable Sensepeek PCBite equipment. Instead I could use their connection pins next to the ESP chip. Besides: When I disassembled the device I could already see the big quality difference with every single piece inside this appliance compared to all the other devices that I had ordered and checked before. What I also really like about Venta is that you don’t need to replace filters. So long-term you get superior quality + it’s nevertheless cheaper than those Tuya based alternatives.
After I had downloaded the original firmware I looked inside the binary file but the relevant memory parts with the controlling software were not readable text (no surprise). I can’t tell if the app part is encrypted or not but probably even without the original code it should be possible to set up an alternative ESPHome firmware configuration, and what you have already done in your previous efforts could possibly be of big help here.
I also checked a little bit into reverse engineering tools inspired by these excellent resources:
https://flaviutamas.com/2021/reversing-emporia-vue-2
But I didn’t really come far though I was able to start the ESP32 virtualization and read the app partition of the Venta firmware into the Ghidra debugger tool. Especially this write-up Hacking a Smart Home Device - James Warner gets really far and based on the knowledge shared therein one might be even able the retrieve the original app code of the Venta firmware. I’m just not sure if I have the necessary skills to do so since I’m not this advanced in coding stuff.
But as I mentioned before probably one could achieve the ESPHome based Venta control also without this software reverse engineering approach like also many other ESPHome project have shown (Yeelight lamps ESP32 firmware replacement, Xiaomi devices firmware replacement, etc.). So I’m confident that it’s a good idea to not send back this AH510 and look for accomplices to eventually have a working ESPHome config and I would be more than happy if you would maybe be willing to support and that’s also a reason why I wanted to follow-up on your posts here, even though some time has passed since you published your contribution. Other projects I’ve found going into a similar direction are these ones:
and these very recent ones with a non ESPHome based approach that also support newer devices like the AH510:
Btw I also spoke to a representative of Venta this week and I’m also hoping that they might actually be willing to support from their side what would of course be really great. With one of their newest releases they now seem to move towards tuya (what’s understandable from a mass market perspective and the fact that those manufacturer based isolated solutions simply don’t have a big future, both ecosystem wise but especially also quality-wise in many cases, and looking at the bad reviews of the Venta app they’re probably no exception). I had the feeling that they may have understood that their strength is the hardware side and not the software side and many professional users and many businesses also may not welcome the usage of tuya and also overall it’s not really doing justice to the Venta brand and its quality reputation.
Of course I don’t know if you’re willing and/or able to follow-up on this but since you have already contributed so much to this topic I thought I should definitely start this Venta ESPHome journey here publicly. I also don’t know yet if I should start my own github project or if it would make sense to build on an existing one.
Looking forward to hear from you if you happen to be able to respond!
Thank you and best regards,
Helge
PS: The search for a smart fan with ESPHome potential ended up in ordering a Xiaomi Mi Smart Standing Fan 2 which I will probably receive next week and which will be the other ESPHome project that I want to put my efforts into. Fortunately there has already been significant progress through this recent project GitHub - dhewg/esphome-miot: ESPHome components for MIoT devices which I discovered when I was searching for an air purifier that I could run locally .Thanks to this great project I now have an ESPHome based Xiaomi Air Purifier 4 Lite in my apartment that is both design-wise and quality-wise doing a great job (and one project less to search for an ESPHome solution 
)
Hell yes, you definately dug into this topic much deeper than I did 
Ok you have to admit the time I developed my controllers I think Venta had only the base series and the series with integrated humidity control if I remember correctly. So nothing smart yet…
Regarding the quality of Venta, yes my devices run for years now, some small problems with minerals but if you clean them twice a year properly with some acid all is fine. You can easily get spare parts directly from Venta like the gear boxes or couplers, so aside from those nothing broke.
The motors are custom by ebm-papst, really good quality.
My project is really old, today I think I would design the PCB a little different, especially the really high priced power supply for the ESP.
And maybe some level shifting for checking the LEDs.
I really hate to see manufacturers using those platform electronics which tend to close their systems more and more. So thats is why I try to get dumb stuff and make it smart on my own, hacking already smart stuff is annoying because manufactures close their systems more and more. I remember smart plugs, a few years ago you could buy any, open them and reflash, now they are glued and even if you breake them open you have no easy accessible labelled PINs.
Looking forward to see how far you can get and which solution you choose…
Thank you for your response @Alex9779 Actually only while writing my previous post I had discovered the very up to date project * GitHub - Michsior14/ha-venta: Home assistant integration for Venta devices which basically does everything I wanted to achieve in regards of
They’ve done a fabulous job analyzing and implementing the not officially document Venta http rest api and providing a flawlessly working home assistant integration throught the hacs store.
Being able to run my first Venta device with this integration the need for an ESPHome based solution has become less.Nevertheless I hope that maybe someone interested in developing this will find the collected information in these posts and hopefully benefit from it.
Nice, didn’t search and so also didn’t find that project targeting the wifi devices.
Though I don’t think I will buy one even there is a solution (at the moment).
There have been a lot of examples where this worked for months or years and then it didn’t anymore, maybe on old devices because of a forced firmware update you have to be aware of and have to take measures to not to get it or only on new devices.
As long as my Ventas run I’ll stick to my module, if I need some more I will buy the “old” basic versions which are hardware hackable and dumb in the beginning and also a lot cheaper though also not cheap in comparison to other devices. Maybe then I will make an updated version of my module making it also cheaper. We will see…
Hello @Alex9779, I own basic model Venta LW15 and I would like to add it to HA. Would you recommend me, where I can order PCB according your design? Thanks!
Hey Kristian,
sorry I have no recommendation, that project is old and I would design it different today. One major issue is the power supply circuit which uses very expensive parts. Also at that time I just ordered PCBs and soldered them myself. Today I try to design so I can order most of the small SMD parts pre-assembled if not the whole PCB and so I choose components and circuits with which I can do that as cheap as possible as most of the time I just require a few.
This is no straight forward ready to order project, sorry…
Hello @Alex9779, I read your previous replies and I am comfortable with soldering. I just wanted tip from you where to order just PCB. Local company where I am ordering PCB regullary is not able to create small spaces between lines, they use CNC method, so it is limited. So if you have any tip where I can order manufacturing of PCB according your kicad file, I will be happy. Thanks!
EDIT: You means LM2674M? It costs only 4EUR, so it is not too expensive. Total cost of components is under 40EUR, without PCB
Usually I order at JLCPCB, sometimes for prototyping Aisler, depending on the number of PCBs I need.
Considering I had much more complex PCBs fully populated for less than 5€ this is expensvie .
Hi everyone,
I decided to use the Venta Connected project for my custom ESPHome controller for the Venta LW25 humidifier, and here’s why:
I installed an ESP-12S and flashed it with ESPHome. You can find the YAML configuration and full details in my repository here:
Venta LW ESPHome GitHub Repository
By the way, I have 4 extra PCBs available because of the minimum order quantity of 5 on JLCPCB. If anyone is interested, feel free to reach out!
I am interested. do you also have the parts? i guess its pretty expensive to buy one of each.
Hi, I do have some parts, but not have all. I ordered ESP-12S and Step down buck from Aliexpress. Remaining I bought on tme.eu. I can share links, if you want.
