Carrier’s ducted units (40MBD residential and 40MBDQ commercial) are made by Midea (MEHSU and MEU models respectively). Carrier and Midea announced a joint venture in 2017, around the time when these units were bought to the market.
I got the Senville brand ducted system installed in my Attic to supply my second floor last year. I concluded that all the off brand concealed duct units are just the rebranded Midea models.
I am getting a second unit for the main floor, replacing the rest of my HVAC (furnance+A/C) in the basement so again I am looking for some Smartthings integration.
I tried to reach out to Sensibo, they said their kit is discontinued. I went to a Carrier Enterprise storefront and spoke to a regional (Northeast) agent they referred me to, again they said it’s gone.
On a long shot, I got the Carrier/Midea wifi kit (KSAIF0401AAA) on EBay and after giving up a few times struggling to have it connect to my WiFi in the app, it worked. The kit connects to the CN40 port meant for the 7 Day programmable wired controller (KSACN0501AAA). The ducted unit I got came with the basic controller (KSACN0101AAA) that had it’s own port.
After my wife kept complaining how she doesn’t want to see this ugly controller, I ordered the programmable controller, which connects to the WiFi controller.
The basic controller does not sync with the WiFi controller (being on a different port and all) so get the programmable controller to have the app show when someone changes the temp or mode by hand, and vice-a-versa.
The app will show the temp at the WiFi kit I believe (maybe the duct unit itself), so you won’t know the exact temp of the room (what shows up on the wired controller). Not a big deal for me, given I expect 5F hotter in the attic than room temp and it will probably be 5F colder in the basement.
I am using the Midea Air app, not the Carrier one. They use the same backend, even down to the account management (same log in for both apps).
I remember trying the Carrier app and found it to be worse or same, so stuck to Midea.
Midea updated their app UI since last year, but the overall app is still subpar. The scheduling feature seems to work ok. The app throws me to the log in screen when it’s put to sleep or killed, but it’s the best I got so far.
There is Midea Air to Google Home integration, but I always got “Not responding” status, and voice commands respond with Not-Available, so it was a dead end.
I just tried setting it up from scratch and it seems like it works, but when I ask for the temp it says (set 160, current 169) when I have it at (set 71, current 76), so obviously C to F mismatch for status. The temp set command works correctly (given 69F, sets 69F on app). The Fan speed and Mode status seem to work as well. That’s the best I got so far.
Hopefully someone with experience building Smartthings device handlers gets a Midea product soon… I haven’t analyzed the app traffic but I would guess it’s very basic.