ESP32-Faikin: ESP32 based module to control Daikin aircon units | Hacker News Reader

ESP32-Faikin: ESP32 based module to control Daikin aircon units

github.com

151 pointstodsacerdoti67 comments

RevK's blog has a lot of interesting posts on it.

https://www.revk.uk/

He also runs an excellent ISP in the UK called AAISP which I can highly recommend (https://www.aa.net.uk)

AAISP build their own core & customer networking devices/routers from scratch (not Linux based) in the UK. They are fascinating to use - a completely different evolutionary tree to any other networking kit I've used. Some unique features.

https://www.firebrick.co.uk/fb9000/

> AAISP build their own core & customer networking devices/routers from scratch (not Linux based) in the UK.

Which kernel are they using?

Their site says:

- Every line of code in the firmware, including building an operating system from the ground up with device drivers and IP stack.

- The FireBrick's hardware platform is not used in any other devices and the FireBrick's codebase / firmware is not used in any other hardware.

Given the feature set I'm a little dubious that it's all in-house. There are a ton of man-years of code in there.

It would be interesting to know the history of the software.

This blog post has a few hints [1]. Apparently they had to rewrite a load of code when they moved to a multicore processor, so it definitely seems to be in-house software.

[1]: https://www.firebrick.co.uk/about/news/version-20/

Thanks for that link.

It's absolutely wild to think about a suite of software this sophisticated that exists outside the realm of Unix, Windows, or any of the long-term players in the embedded networking device market. I know there are boutique embedded IP stacks out there but it still boggles my mind that a small company like this has had sufficient revenue to keep up with the "churn" in the networking space for 20+ years w/o leaning on free/open-source software.

Piling-on to my own comment: Searching the site https://www.revk.uk for the keyword "firebrick" returns a ton of results detailing the development. It looks like it's exactly what it says on the tin-- a proprietary operating system with its own implementations of a ton of protocols.

I wish I had a reason to interview RevK about the Firebrick code. I think it would be an immensely interesting topic.

This is very interesting, I've been increasingly frustrated with Daikin's approach to mobile control and the incredibly poor execution of the original wifi module/automation:

- the wifi module and temperature sensor are right next to each other, which was causing the unit to read temperature 2-3 celcius higher than actual due to wifi sensor heat (measured by another temperature sensor on the other side of the unit). This was fixed in a software update, but seems like poor design

- it looks like the original wifi module uses a lot of power, at least according to the app readings. Didn't verify this one, but it tracks with how much it heats up even if the unit is completely off

- no way to connect an external temperature sensor, so even with a software fix to the temperature sensor reading, my room is consistently 2-3 degree celcius colder than the set temperature

- there are no release notes for the official firmware updates so you never know what can break if you update (but an update did fix the wifi module heating issue)

- the (new) app had power usage data for the past couple of years. Now they decided to only store a year? Or maybe just deleted the old data. Either way, now it's lost without any notice or way to archive it

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That said, how likely is it that Faikin causes a hardware failure in an indoor or outdoor unit in case of a software bug? I'll definitely try it but I'm a bit uneasy with an open source software designed for what seems like a massive range of devices, and no way for the maintainers to accurately test against each one

I just have some IR LEDs on an esp8266 in the same room as my Daikin and run tasmota. It works perfectly. I have temp control and fully remote automation.

How did you teach it the IR language it has to speak?

If it is like ESPHome, the IR sequences are included. Mostly from databases like IRDB [0]

[0] https://github.com/probonopd/irdb

It's built in: DAIKIN200 https://tasmota.github.io/docs/Tasmota-IR/#sending-irhvac-co... I didn't do anything. It just worked.

I've done the same for an AC that wasn't supported by IRDB at the time. Just went through recording every possible combination, was a boring 30 minutes but it's worked perfectly ever since.

I used one of the broadlink devices with this library a few years ago: https://github.com/mjg59/python-broadlink

You just point your remote to it and it can capture the data that you can just replay..

I tried that but the IR LEDs were too directional. In the end I got a little $7 device off Ali that connects to the Tuya API. The API works passably well (I'd rather connect directly, but eh), but the hardware is great, it works from any position in the room, even without line of sight.

This is what I did to control an DeLonghi electric oil radiator in my home office. And since it takes a couple hours to warm up, I have it connected to Home Assistant to turn on a couple hours before my workday starts - and also sync'd to my work calendar so it doesn't do it on days I'm not working. And then turn off again at the end of the day.

Ended up setting it up as a virtual thermostat along with a Zigbee temperature sensor and letting HA manage the the whole thing. After a few months of hacking and tweaking, it works pretty well!

But, there were a few problems with this approach:

* The IR code to turn on and turn off were the same code (which makes sense if you look at the unit, there's just an on-off toggle button)

* No temperature control. On the heater itself, you can adjust the temperature as well as a high/medium/low setting. The remote didn't have these settings, so I couldn't capture them using an IR receiver sensor. Thankfully, these settings persist when the unit is off so I just set them once and called it good enough. And I eventually got around the need for this by setting up the virtual thermostat with a Zigbee temperature sensor in the room.

But the biggest problem is that I had no way to know if the unit was actually ON.

The codes sometimes wouldn't work unless the IR blaster was pointed directly at the unit, and even then they will sometimes randomly fail. I ended up plugging it into a Zigbee plug with power monitoring, so I could tell from the power draw if it was on, and try to re-send the commands a few times if it failed to turn on.

Overall, it was kind of a fun way to make a dumb device smart, but what OOP is doing is way cooler.

Home Assistant supports a variety of plug-in watt meters. I have some smart plugs that have a current meter built in, you wouldn't need to use the On/Off of the plug, just have Home Assistant read the current power consumption value and branch your logic from there.

Exactly what I'm doing. I even set it up as a separate binary sensor using a template.

I have one of those little Xiaomi LCD temperature meters in the room as well.

I actually have more than one LED on my device. It's in the opposite corner and points to the air-conditioning unit that is fixed. In this scenario I can't ever recall it not working 100%.

My automation is in nodered and I heat or cool the bedroom to 18C and turn the the unit off.

Here is a happy co-incidence, seeed just added a dedicated IR sender in a box: https://wiki.seeedstudio.com/XIAO_IR_Mate_Smart_IR_Remote/

I hear so many complaints about ISPs, but Andrews & Arnold really do make the world a better place.

For those with Midea manufactured units (They white label so many brands) a great turnkey option is this dongle made by SMLight (1) that comes preloaded with ESPHome.

1 - https://smlight.tech/product/slwf-01/

Yes, I use this with my Midea window AC and it works great. Completely removes the need for a cloud account. It's hard to believe appliance manufacturers (and cars and others) are making privacy conscious users jump through such hoops in order to sever the devices they own from the cloud.

As a more general approach for making any air conditioner "smarter", there is a SmartIR integration [1] for Home Assistant. It requires an IR blaster and a configuration file that defines IR code sequences for every possible AC state (temperature + fan speed + swing + etc) that you might want to use. Many models are already configured or you can try a few models from the same manufacturer and sometimes the codes are similar enough that you'll find one that works.

Once it's set up you get a nice climate control in Home Assistant, the only drawback is that the state displayed in HA will go out of sync if you use the physical remote.

[1] https://github.com/smartHomeHub/SmartIR/blob/master/docs/CLI...

Nice project. I'm not sure about the latest models (because I don't get the Daikin naming), but usually Intesis provides a huge range of connectivity modules: https://compatibility.intesis.com/search?reference=daikin

Almost 10 years ago (damn...) I reverse engineered my air conditioner IR protocol and wrote a lengthy article about it. That being said, I was new to electronics and was doing it all on a raspberry pi instead of something embedded. Since then I've also made an ESP32 version, and many others have as well. If you're interested in more of the actual reverse engineering part, I tried to explain it from more of a beginner's perspective, because I was a beginner at electronics then:

https://blog.bschwind.com/2016/05/29/sending-infrared-comman...

Over in Panasonic land we have a similar setup.

https://github.com/DomiStyle/esphome-panasonic-ac

I've got two of these running in my Panasonic Heat Pumps and it's excellent.

This project has been a godsent! The latest Daikin indoor units have a built-in WiFi module which only allows control through their cloud infrastructure. Besides it being a privacy and/or security issue, it's very slow and buggy (e.g. I've had two units reset their credentials after a power outage).

There are two caveats to going the Faikin way: you need to source or build your own cable that's compatible with your unit, and there's no access control (that I could find) for the web interface so you need to firewall and proxy it properly.

There's an esphome config for them and esphome let's you set a password. I believe it supports encryption but I can't remember.

The faikins are really awesome. I have mine set up in Home Assistant and I have automations for them to do stuff to turn off if the outdoor and indoor temps are both pleasant. I also have it set up to turn off if any of my windows or exterior doors are left open for more than five minutes. But you can program them to do so much. The stock firmware does mqtt so it's quite versatile.

These things are great, I've managed to get them into all my indoor units without too much trouble. If you've already got them integrated into Home Assistant check out Versatile Thermostat (you can find it in HACS), if you've got temp sensors in the rooms with your AC you'll get very good target temperature tracking, much better than the auto functionality built into Faikin.

> The latest Daikin indoor units have a built-in WiFi module which only allows control through their cloud infrastructure.

Which ones?

My Alira X from a couple of years ago is currently talking directly to Home Assistant over WiFi. For a year or so I've been unable to update firmware without losing the functionality, but it looks like the community has a fix pending verification: https://github.com/home-assistant/core/issues/99251

I have another old unit that I'll have to replace eventually, and ideally it could be Daikin and would work natively without involving external hardware.

My experience is strictly with Daikin Stylish units bought a few months ago in the EU. They still have both the S21 port and a compartment for an external WiFi module, and for all intents and purposes it's plug and play. Their standard WiFi module is built in the internal unit motherboard AFAICT, and it only works with their Daikin Onecta platform (no local API whatsoever).

I was very happy to find that there are similar libraries for Mitsubishi units as well:

1: https://github.com/SwiCago/HeatPump

2: https://github.com/echavet/MitsubishiCN105Esphome

I've got this running on several units and it works great. If you buy ESP32 development boards with pre-soldered pins, you can even build the boards without soldering.

Is there any documentation on what Mitsubishi's own MHK2 units can do, how well these libs replicate it, and how third-party thermostats factor into that equation?

I recently had a Mitsubishi heat pump installed, and I'm underwhelmed by the 1999-esque stock thermostat, but the vendor swore on the proverbial stack of Bibles that it was the only one that could properly run the unit as it was designed given all the proprietary control laws and so on.

So, I do wonder.

Daikin's Japanese units have support for EchoNet, a "source available" protocol.

Is anyone able to test if any of the international units have this enabled?

EchoNet Home Assistant: https://github.com/scottyphillips/echonetlite_homeassistant

I'm considering a new heat pump (ducted) and daikin seems to require One+ Smart Thermostat to run it in most efficient way, so - cloud. I don't think this project supports plugging into it, but perhaps it's possible?

I wish there was something similar for ThinQ, as I prefer not to have Cloud-based smart devices, but alas, had to purchase some floor AC units during a heat wave.

If you're interested in home automation it looks like Home Assistant has an integration (https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/lg_thinq/).

There is also a project for the esp32 which allows you to control it locally from Home assistant instead of the cloud based integration (https://github.com/JanM321/esphome-lg-controller)

I'm running HomeAssistant and I've tried the native integration, which works fine but is missing power consumption, or there's a HACS-based integration, that is a bit painful to set up, is able to see power consumption, but cannot enable sleep mode... So it's a bit of a hit and miss with either of those. Will take a look at the ESP variant, thank you.

Edit:

Looks like the ESP32 project is mostly tailored for hard-wired installations, but I just have a couple of floor units...

Anything similar for Della? I don't even know who their OEM is.

Some recent work here: https://www.elektroda.com/rtvforum/topic4119999.html

At least some Della mini splits are manufactured by Align, and they use a Tuya networking module.

How convenient, I just got installed a Daikin not even knowing it could have WLAN capabilities, discovered that it has, that is cloud-only but it wasn't like that til long ago. Currently I'm using this bridge to their cloud Onecta for Home Assistant (https://github.com/jwillemsen/daikin_onecta) and so far it's working great.

But this project is definitely nicer! But I don't fully understand how do I connect the ESP32 to the aircon. I see you can buy a cable on Tindie but... oh wait, I know see a badly illuminated part of the attached YouTube video where he does open the thing up and connect the cable but really, it's not that clear to me (especially considering there are a gazillion slightly different Daikin split models out there).

Any help appreciated (even if it's just a pointer to RTFM)

using the S21 port (iirc). my units had a trailing wire that just plugged directly into the faikin board

The project has a page about "wiring" [1] which also has a table with the needed parts to make your own cable (that's what I ended up doing).

In my case it was more hassle to look up how to dismantle the unit to get to the motherboard (I recommend looking up your unit's service manual), attaching the module and routing the cable are trivial.

[1] https://github.com/revk/ESP32-Faikin/wiki/Wiring

I want this, but for MrCool units!

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