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Home Assistant is open source home automation that puts local control and privacy first. Powered by a worldwide community of tinkerers and DIY enthusiasts. Perfect to run on a Raspberry Pi or a local server. Available for free at home-assistant.io

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Looking for a portable AC with local control (lemmy.world)

submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I'm looking for a portable air conditioner (the kind with 1 or 2 hoses that go to outside air). The problem I'm running into is that every single one I find has some kind of "smart" controller built in. The ones with no WiFi connectivity still have buttons to start/stop the AC, meaning that a simple Zigbee outlet switch won't work. I could switch the AC off, but it would require a button-press to switch it back on. The ones with WiFi connectivity all require "cloud" access; my IoT devices all connect to a VLAN with no internet access, and I plan to keep it that way.

I suppose I could hack a relay in place of the "start" button, but I'd really rather just have something I can plug in and use.

I can't use a window AC; the room has no windows. I'll need to route intake/exhaust through the wall. So far, I can't find any "portable" AC that will work for me.

What I'm looking for is a portable AC that either:

Connects to WiFi and integrates with HA locally.
Has no connectivity but uses "dumb" controls so I can switch it with a Zigbee outlet switch.

Any ideas?

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Get one with a remote, then get a smart RF blaster. There's the Broadlink RM4 that I'll likely be going with in the future.

Or, you could get an ESP32 and an IR transmitter/receiver and use Esphome. Same concept, but completely local.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I use a Broadlink RM4 for exactly this! Works great once set up. Had to let it connect to the internet to set up the first time, then blocked it on my iOT vlan so only Home assistant can talk to it. Has worked without any intervention for several years.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Not exactly the same, but I use the RM-4 with a mini-split AC in place of the remote, and it has worked well for years. You do have to place it somewhere line of site for the ir blaster but it has a very wide range

Setup was choosing a make a model, and everything mapped perfectly. In my case, it even reads the status and current temperature.

The one feature that I haven’t gotten around to trying is line power. I hate using batteries. However RM-4 also had a section on powering it directly that I wanted to try. In my case I have an Ecobee thermostat that I think I can grab power off of, and just mount the RM-4 on the wall right next to. However the batteries have lasted years so I never got around to it

EDIT: or maybe not. I have a Remotec RM-4. I don’t know if it is an ancestor to the Broadlink with the same name, but it’s a beige box. It’s local-only, with no WiFi or app

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Tuya wifi devices are common and you can use TuyaLocal or LocalTuya (confusing I know) integrations to control them without cloud connectivity. You will need an API key an cloud access to first set it up, however.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

Lookup if the device is supported by LocalTuya though.

I made the mistake thinking that LocalTuya somehow acts like a proxy for a generic protocol, but it actually needs to understand the devices. Now I have a doorbell I can't use with it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Has no connectivity but uses “dumb” controls so I can switch it with a Zigbee outlet switch.

Any dumb unit can be converted into a smart one with an ESP32. If you're up to it, it just required you to wire a transistor to the connections of each physical button of the unit and then write those to the GPIOs of the ESP32. This way you can use the GPIOs to close the circuit like the physical button does and "smartify" the thing that way.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

This is looking more and more like my best option. I guess I can just buy an AC and run it with thr on-board temperature control until I have time to build and integrate an ESP board.