[yjftsjthsd-h]

Hm, maybe this will finally let me network my IR-controlled AC units. There are a bunch of ESP/IR projects, but for some reason I haven't gotten them to work (pretty sure it's a problem with my hand-assembled hardware, in fairness)

[jasongill]

I recently converted all of my (5 in 3 buildings) mini splits on my property to be controlled by Home Assistant. It took some research but all I ultimately needed was:

https://cloudfree.shop/product/ductless-hvac-wi-fi-module/

this USB ESP32 module which works out of the box on Midea-produced units (Carrier, Electrolux, Pioneer). I have a few units that are other generic brands which apparently are rebranded "Aux" brand units, so I re-flashed the ESP32 board above to work with Aux units by doing `brew install esphome` and then `esphome run auxminisplit.yaml --device /dev/tty.usbserial-210` where auxminisplit.yaml is https://gist.github.com/jasongill/35a13e458b6d109ca2bbefeab4...

That worked perfectly for me and should cover like 90% of all minisplits (Midea and Aux make a ton of brands units), let me know if that works for you.

[baby_souffle]

> (pretty sure it's a problem with my hand-assembled hardware, in fairness)

Certainly could be the case. I've spent more time than I want to admit chasing down what was ultimately a loose wire.

For what it's worth, you can get a cheap ESP32 module and basic IR sensor modules for a few bucks on amazon [0]. As long as you have a basic USB <-> TLL/Serial adapter, you should be able to install ESPHome on that. The module that's on that particular board does not have a ton of room so keep the ESPHome config simple and to the point.

It's a few dozen lines of yaml total to get a basic IR signal decode/dump tool: [1]

[0]: https://www.amazon.com/HiLetgo-Infrared-Transmitter-Receiver...

[1]: https://esphome.io/guides/setting_up_rmt_devices#remote-sett...

[yjftsjthsd-h]

Thanks; $17 is much cheaper than the time it would take me to fix mine:) And limited space is fine, for my use case I just need to turn MQTT or HTTP POSTs into like three different signals.

[geo-tp]

The firmware supports about 83 IR protocols, but even with that, it's not mandatory that it works with all existing devices.

[yjftsjthsd-h]

If it can run at the right speed or frequency or whatever, I'm perfectly happy for it to work purely by recording and replaying signals that I give it with my remote.

[geo-tp]

https://github.com/probonopd/irdb

See here for a very large database of IR signals that works with the firmware.

[rramadass]

Have you looked into "USB IR Toy" (both versions) ? - http://dangerousprototypes.com/docs/USB_Infrared_Toy and http://dangerousprototypes.com/docs/USB_IR_Toy_v2

[lostlogin]

What is it about AC that makes it impossible to control?

I live in New Zealand where we pretend that it’s never particularly cold or particularly hot. This might be a factor in how sloppy all the installs seem to be.

[yjftsjthsd-h]

> What is it about AC that makes it impossible to control?

Nothing; there is something about my AC and the badly hand-assembled ESP8266 and IR transmitter I made that doesn't work.

[slug]

I was able to record/playback fujitsu mini-split commands using a simple wemos d1 IR shield + wemos d1 mini (esp8266) a few years ago.

https://www.wemos.cc/en/latest/d1_mini_shield/ir.html

https://www.wemos.cc/en/latest/d1/d1_mini.html

[roger_]

ESPHome is good for that.

[nullc]

It can be informative to drop an oscilloscope probe on the transmitter.

I recently found a remote that doesn't to the 30kHz modulation-- good luck to me controlling that with anything.