I’m finding it really difficult to tell whether a particular air conditioner is supported by Home Assistant, since all the ones I’ve seen in stores don’t seem compatible. I mean, I’m probably wrong in that, I’m sure that with enough work anything will work, but I didn’t see any integrations with Midea air conditioners, for example.
All my windows in my house slide sideways, so most of the in-wall air-conditioners won’t work, and I rent the place, so I can’t make large alterations. This pretty much limits me to portable ACs, which don’t tend to have much smart home functionality.
Any help would be appreciated, as I’m pretty new to using Home Assistant in general, and I’m still trying to figure out how things work. I only bought my Home Assistant Yellow last year, and I don’t yet have any smart appliances to connect it to.
Doesn’t really apply to your setup, but I just got a u-shaped window AC from midea and it works well with home assistant. I didn’t expect it, but it also has an outside temp sensor I can read. I’ve been graphing outside temp all summer. Purple is the AC, blue is openweathermap. Ignore humidity, that is for a tropical/moss tank.
They have an indoor unit with the same wifi capability, linky so that one might work.
EDIT: you’re right, Midea compatibility isn’t standard in home assistant, nor advertised , but I added it with a custom integration. It’s been working great this summer.
Anything with a variable speed compressor and two tubes to the window. The variable speed is quieter. The two tubes mean it doesn’t steal cool air from inside and exhaust it outside.
I still think they are all loud trash, but that’s the best you’ll get for your situation.
Two tubes still means it pulls in hot air from the outside that it then needs to cool down first. The split ACs are basically the only sane ones (but expensive).
While it does pull in hot air from outside, it is not cooled, but rather heated. AC units are divided with a cool side that lowers temp in a room and a hot side that extracts heat.
Warm air is used by the condenser (a radiator that collects the heat from the room) and sent back outside hotter than it sucked in.
The air on the cold side of the AC unit is recirculated into the room.
So they have two airflows? Then I assume in contrast to the ones with just one exhaust they need two fans? One for circulating (and cooling) the air from the room and one to circulate the air from (and to) the outside?
Then I assume that would make them even noisier then the single exhaust ones, right? (More moving parts.)
Yup, two fans. The increased noise is compensated by them not needing to run as much due to the increased efficiency.
