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)
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:
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.
> (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]
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.
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.
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.
