my house needs a big AC replacement (in total 9 inverter units) and I would like to have these integrated in SmartThings:
Toggle on/off, set temperature, monitor energy consumption and power, set modes
What are your recommendations? (brand, model)
(I already own 2 Samsung smart ACs S45-AR12) , but these don’t integrate in SmartThings in an acceptable way, since they don’t follow the SmartThings standard concerning their states. So they work neither with Actiontiles, nor with MQTT nor with Webcore)
But there are some things I don’t like with the Sensibo “integration”:
when the user toggles the AC with the remote, Sensibo does not get aware and the status in my Apps is wrong. That’s very bad for many use cases
The signals I send from Sensibo to the ACs are not reliable. It works by 95%, which is nice, but I want 99.9%.
I can’t monitor power consumption
Sensibo is a great workaround if you have old ACs you don’t want to replace but make them smart.
But I’m in the situation to buy new 9 ACs and so I’d like to invest in native Smartthings-integrated devices for no further needing the sensibo workaround.
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RBoy
(www.rboyapps.com - Making SmartThings Easy!)
4
Have you considered using a simple smartplug to control the AC’s and an external temperature sensor with a compatible smartapp to act as a thermostat?
The downside of this approach is that you won’t get thermostat controls in your list of devices. You can measure the energy consumed from the smartplug. Same with AT, the plug, energy and temp sensors will show up as a separate devices and not an integrated unit.
The upside being that it’s simple and easy to setup with a lot of flexibility like using remote temperatures or multiple sensors and multiple units across multiple rooms to act as a single thermostat or individually for each room.
That approach typically does not allow you to change the “mode“ on the HVAC unit, which, among other things, doesn’t let you switch between, for example, “eco” mode and regular mode. So that really limits the features of the air conditioner that you can control.
In addition, many A/c’s specifically can be damaged if you are frequently cutting off the power in the middle of a compressor cycle. It’s not a problem with just a fan, and it might not be a problem with an electric heater, but it can damage an air conditioner.
Different people have different preferences in this kind of use case. Speaking just for myself, I would look for air conditioners which could be controlled by an ecobee thermostat, and then get integration that way.
1 Like
RBoy
(www.rboyapps.com - Making SmartThings Easy!)
7
True and something one should be aware of. Most modern window A/C’s have built in reset timers to avoid short compressor restarts, so definitely should check if that feature is present. We’ve been using this setup here for a few years without any issue but then again homework needs to be done to ensure it can work in that manner This is mostly helpful if you have a window/portable A/C and need to integrate it with SmartThings.
For window AC’s heres been my solution.
I have logitech harmony hubs in every room with media devices.
You add Window AC as a device in harmony hub,
Use HA Bridge to create any device specific on off modes - for e.g.
in HA bridge I have configure to have the AC power on - switch to eco mode.
the HA bridge device will show up as hue light in ST.
If you have an RF remote event better you can eliminate the harmony hub and HA bridge and just use tasmota flashed rf bridge to integrate any RF device with ST
This is mostly helpful if you have a window/portable A/C and need to integrate it with SmartThings.