Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch

https://blog.hopefullyuseful.com/blog/advantage-air-ezone-tablet-diy-repair/

by ranebo • 2 years ago

2001 478 2 years ago

blog.hopefullyuseful.com

That "not on AA hardware" error from an app running on a plain Android tablet should be criminal.

gwd3• 2 years ago

In defense of this, remember that any random person can download and install this app on any android device. It does make sense to have a clear failure mode in this case. Anyone willing to pull out a soldering iron to attach a new tablet is perfectly capable of working around this.

SahAssar• 2 years ago

If that was the motivation it should be a warning, not a hard error.

prmoustache4• 2 years ago

What is the risk here?

syntaxing• 2 years ago

I don’t quite get why snipping the data line on the PoE to USB fixed the connection issue. Is it because the USB has “two” data lines?

svieira• 2 years ago

That is how I read it.

kalleboo2• 2 years ago

The "PoE"[0] board was also a USB device wired onto the pins for the single USB port on the board. USB is not a multidrop bus - if you directly wire two devices to a single USB port it will not work, you need an active USB hub.

[0]quotes because looking at that FTDI chip though my bet is it's actually serial over Cat5...

ranebo6• 2 years ago

I think it is some sort of serial comm over cat5. My only concern was getting the thing working again :) But if still interested here is a close up of the chip side of the POE connector: https://blog.hopefullyuseful.com/blog/advantage-air-ezone-ta...

hex4def6• 2 years ago

Because USB is not a multi-tap network. It's a point-to-point between host and peripheral, or host and host pretending to be a peripheral (OTG mode).

That USB dongle was bodged on to the USB port D+/D- pins going to the tablet's SOC. If you then connect a PC to that port, you have two hosts (SOC & PC), and one peripheral on the same pair of data lines. No bueno.

I can't believe the bodge job inside that tablet. It looks like the prototype became the final product.

ornornor2• 2 years ago

That’s why the replacement is so expensive, each unit is handcrafted.

lelandfe2• 2 years ago

For whatever reason (I suspect some sort of storage failure) everyone’s tablets die around the same time.

What a fun, completely coincidental quirk that that time appears to fall outside the warranty window, hey?

irjustin• 2 years ago

knowing a lot of these companies. it wouldn't really matter if it fell inside of the warranty. they would simply screw a lot of people over until there's a class action lawsuit (or whatever equivalent is in that country) where they get a slap on the wrist for not honoring warranty claims.

KennyBlanken• 2 years ago

Carrier back in the 2000's had a problem with their heat exchangers in their gas furnaces failing far more often than they should. They were sued, settled, and part of the settlement was an extended warranty of the heat exchanger, including labor.

Great, right?

The local carrier dealer lied and said the unit wasn't under warranty. They lied again when reminded of the class-action settlement, claiming only part were included and said would cost a fortune in labor.

When I called Carrier and told them what their factory authorized gold/preferred/whatever-they're-called dealer was pulling, Carrier confirmed I was correct and even verified the unit's serial number and said that if the dealer had checked the SN, they would have found it was covered.

The dealer then said 'fine, but those parts are going to take weeks to get from the warehouse' knowing damn well I had no heat, in the winter. They had us over a barrel and they fucking knew it, and I didn't have any way to prove that claim wrong.

kmoser• 2 years ago

My A/C unit is fairly new but there are signs the condenser unit fan is starting to go. Since it is still under warranty for parts (not labor) I thought I would be able to just get a replacement fan and install it myself. But no, the manufacturer will only deal with a "certified technician," who of course charges an outrageous amount of money (many hundreds of dollars) to replace the fan. When I asked the technician why the labor cost so much, they gave me some song and dance about how the prices were set by their central office (true) and that the cost also included filing the paperwork to make a warranty claim (seriously?).

At the end of the day, I could probably buy an aftermarket fan off the Internet and install it myself, spending far less than the certified technician would charge to install the "free" OEM replacement part.

Lammy• 2 years ago

Very convenient for them and also easy to accomplish by buying the cheapest parts. It's probably eMMC-based and writing a logfile constantly. Source: every Android that has ever died on me in this exact way (four and counting)

girvo2• 2 years ago

Yep this is nearly guaranteed. Kills so many IoT things, logging the world and eMMC write limits being garbage.

windowsrookie• 2 years ago

I recently had to fix the radio in my car for the same reason. Pioneer installed the firmware onto a cheap SD card that they have hidden inside the radio and requires disassembly to replace. Of course they don't offer the original firmware anywhere, luckily someone online has backed it up and I found the file on reddit.

rx_tx• 2 years ago

It's been a big pain for Tesla as well, where their tiny 8GB emmc on the center screen would fail since they logged to it too much... 134,000 vehicles recalled eventually after they denied it was an issue.

https://www.tesla.com/support/8gb-emmc-recall-frequently-ask...

amiga-workbench3• 2 years ago

Surely it can't cost much more to go for a larger eMMC chip and have it massively over-provisioned with plenty of space for wear levelling?

The underlying flash memory is trash and the controller already does a ton of heavy lifting to keep the data coherent.

nairboon3• 2 years ago

I recently had an otherwise perfectly fine eMMC-based Samsung phone degraded to unusable floppy disk speeds.

My guess is that their "RAM Plus" feature (aka swap) combined with the memory hungry modern android apps turned out to be a nasty timebomb. Which has or still is bricking millions of smartphones after a few years of usage.

boopdewoop• 2 years ago

I wonder if it could be they are logging and not clearing the logs, filling up the storage - since its happening around the same time for everyone.

grishka• 2 years ago

Maybe not filling up but wearing out the flash chip itself. If it was filling up, then a factory reset should've helped.

1024core• 2 years ago

I wish he had poked around the Java code and looked for what might be triggering that.

thaumasiotes• 2 years ago

What a fun, completely coincidental quirk that that time appears to fall outside the warranty window, hey?

Isn't that the point of the warranty? They tell you they think the product will last for X years, and then it lasts about X years, just like they warranted.

thayne• 2 years ago

HVAC systems are usually advertised as lasting at least a decade, but the warranty is usually only a year or two.

Honestly, I think something needs to be done so that companies are held liable for expensive products failing and needing expensive repairs after a year or two.

TrackerFF• 2 years ago

Component failures happen.

I had a Phillips 4K LED TV I purchased on sale in April 2021. The TV was glitchy, and I'd get all sorts of weird problems with it - but nothing really terrible.

Then two weeks into January this year, the picture suddenly becomes a jumbled mess of vertical stripes. One second it's fine, the next second it's broken.

Luckily we have a general 5 year warranty period here in Norway, and TVs are expected to last for at least 5 years. I called the shop, and they told me to just bring the TV.

When I get there with the TV, I notice two other identical TVs. I check out the note that hangs on them, and see that they are broken, with the same symptoms as mine. Both had purchase dates around March / April 2021.

I can only assume some component failure.

poidos• 2 years ago

What a waste. Real great for the environment for this company to (probably) just be junking a ton of hardware in perfect working order every couple years to make a buck.

Fun read otherwise and wonderful to see someone stick it to them this way, but that type of thing really pisses me off.

redact207• 2 years ago

I love that this man resurrected his blog after 10 years just to write this. Anger and spite are strong motivators.

ranebo6• 2 years ago

You have no idea how true this is :). I had to upgrade everything, the old site didn't even have SSL. But this annoyed me so much I wanted others to know how to fix it.

randmeerkat• 2 years ago

You have no idea how true this is :). I had to upgrade everything, the old site didn't even have SSL. But this annoyed me so much I wanted others to know how to fix it.

People like you are the ones that make the internet worth logging on for.

runnr_az• 2 years ago

Super fun read. Reminds me of the old software cracking days… totally appreciate you sharing it, even though i likely will never have one of those AC units.

anfilt• 2 years ago

Glad you did! Nice read as well.

mst3• 2 years ago

My best open source work is pretty much entirely in the 'Rage Driven Development' category.

(solid post, also solid rant, mate)

skinkestek• 2 years ago

Hopefully this costs the company that tried to fleece you even more money in backlash and also as more people see that is possible to fix this.

dclowd99014• 2 years ago

I made my daughter’s bed from scratch out of anger and spite toward IKEA.

unkulunkulu• 2 years ago

IKEA? Thats a surprise, what happened?

jamesholden2• 2 years ago

I have some freak brain (and IKEA experience) which usually let's me do IKEA pretty well. What was it that happened in your case? I'm curious what brought you to that point.

reaperducer• 2 years ago

I made my daughter’s bed from scratch out of anger and spite toward IKEA.

I would have used wood and nails. You must have terrifically strong emotions!

mst3• 2 years ago

Meanwhile they had to fire their DBA because they kept dropping tables.

bitcharmer• 2 years ago

I love it too but this only becomes worthwhile if you manage to promote this post in social media somewhere. If you don't already have a strong social media presence or don't personally know anyone who does you can forget about it. And here on HN you really have to get lucky, post at the right time and hope the flagging gangs don't get you.

Etheryte• 2 years ago

This is only the case if you blog for social media clicks and likes. Most people who write blogs don't do it for that reason.

JohnFen• 2 years ago

I could not disagree more. This sort of thing is a public service. Even if only a dozen people find it valuable, it can be exceedingly valuable to them. It's worth putting this sort of thing on your website for that reason alone.

gary_0• 2 years ago

Anyone remember the movie Brazil? This fellow better watch his back.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=dht_3NziwSw

canadaduane• 2 years ago

Sounds like there could be a niche business here. "$300 and we'll send you a new on/off switch, shipping included."

Nursie10• 2 years ago

Well that's getting a bookmark!

We had an Advantage Air system installed last year, and the cheap, low-powered nature of the tablet was immediately obvious. Nice to know it can fairly easily be replaced with any old device or phone as and when it craps out.

bsder• 2 years ago

I would probably replace it now while everything is working.

You know that tablet is cheap and is going to die. Figure out the procedure to replace it with something that doesn't suck before you've lost your heat/air conditioning.

Nursie10• 2 years ago

Right now we're still in warranty but you're right, it's probably a good plan to get the contingency in place before it becomes a problem.

0cf8612b2e1e• 2 years ago

Reaffirming my belief that I want nothing “smart” controlling critical infrastructure in my home. What if it were dead of winter, would he have been able to control the heat?

boardwaalk• 2 years ago

There are thermostats, among other things, that use standard protocols and still work in a “dumb” way if not connected. You just need to do some homework.

maxerickson2• 2 years ago

The thing in the article is a thermostat-zone controller system, where the tablet is part of the multi-zone controller, and there aren't really separate thermostats.

In the US, it's common that the input to each zone controller is just a open/close contact, so in the worst case you can call for heat by shorting the right wires together.

I have a smart thermostat that I use the provided app to control, but one of the reasons I went with it is that there's also an http server in the device firmware that can be used to control it (so if they totally ruin the app or turn off the server or whatever, there's a way out).

dilyevsky• 2 years ago

There needs to be a law that any hardware/software that goes into people homes has to be gplv3. Instead we get braindead ai bills that are threatening to kill open models…

cbanek3• 2 years ago

This is when smart gets stupid. I'm a bit worried about this with my nest and other smart devices, but even with normal air conditioners there are a few stupid simple problems that will cost you hundreds of dollars!

A couple of weeks ago my AC blower fan stopped working, the compressor would run. I went up and found out that the capacitor was bad, and took a picture of it, buying a replacement. Took about 15 minutes to replace and I probably saved myself at least $400 (no AC is an emergency in the desert, and they will charge you accordingly).

Fixing household appliances can be fun too!

asah• 2 years ago

+1. Repair all sorts of stuff... Capresso burr grinder, little plastic knob broke off inside, repaired with a 10c washer and glue... worked great for years and you'd never know...

SOLAR_FIELDS9• 2 years ago

I highly recommend people who live in hot environments to keep a spare capacitor on hand. Even if you know how to fix it, if the AC dies when your local HVAC supply store is closed (eg not between 7am-7pm Monday through Saturday usually) you’re either stuck paying out the nose to a contractor who has one on hand during emergency hours or you’re sweating it out waiting for the store to open. While they are readily available components that consumers can purchase, they aren’t things that Walmart carries. But HVAC supply shops will sell them to you, you don’t need to be licensed or anything to buy them. You can also just get them on Amazon, likely for cheaper than the HVAC supply shop will sell them to you.

It really is an easy repair. Needs a screwdriver and knowledge enough to shut off the electricity to touch the wires. According to code every one of these condenser units outside has a disconnect right there so you don’t even need to turn off the power at the breaker box. Just pull that disconnect, open up your outdoor condenser unit, snap a pic of the specs on the capacitor (it’s the only thing that looks like a soda can) and order one off Amazon and stash it somewhere. It’s a tiny part. It will take like 5 minutes max and save you several hundred bucks and a lot of sweat eventually.

FWIW, when ac dies it’s usually in this order of root causes:

Float switch: your condensate drain line got clogged because it just does and you need to clear it. You can proactively prevent this by pouring bleach or vinegar down the line periodically (what clogs it is usually some sort of gnarly plant like growth from all the moisture) or if it’s clogged you need to clear it. The hvac guys will charge you 300 bucks to blow pressurized air through the pipe or you can literally just duct tape a wet shop vac to the thing and suck it out yourself. Attachments can be purchased on Amazon for reasonable price.

A capacitor issue is the second most common. If it ain’t the float switch almost always it’s the capacitor. You can increase your capacitor longevity and also decrease your electric bill by changing your air filter regularly but also hosing down the outside condenser coils every few months or so. Almost everyone knows about the air filter but few people know about hosing down the coils. This makes a HUGE difference. We are talking like 20-30% of your electric bill in hot climates if you don’t do it. Just take a hose and spray downward on the grates and get all that dust and dead grass from mowing out of there. You won’t hurt the thing. Why does this help? Well, it’s better to think of AC not as adding cool air. There’s no such thing as adding cool air. Only removal of heat. How does heat get removed out of your house? Through that condenser unit. If those grates are clogged up the heat cannot escape and the unit must work harder to do less effective job. So keep those coils clean.

Everything else after that is way less common. Yeah compressors do die. Motors die. Refrigerant leaks. Computer components die. Thermostats fail. However it’s very rare that the issue is something other than these two things in comparison. Like probably 80% of all HVAC residential calls are probably the above two things I mentioned.

biggc• 2 years ago

How big can these capacitors be? Does replacing it require any safety precautions besides turning off the power?

teslabox2• 2 years ago

But HVAC supply shops will sell them to you, you don’t need to be licensed or anything to buy them.

My local HVAC supplier doesn't sell to non-licensed people. I think they don't like dealing with returns from people who don't know what they're doing. I needed a 24vac transformer once. My dad used the same HVAC company for his office for a long time, they still remembered him, and had the part I needed in stock.

My brother's capacitor went out, but we found the part he needed at a local Grainger branch. https://www.grainger.com/category/motors/motor-capacitors

Two summers ago my AC didn't sound right. IIRC the outside unit was clicking on and off. I pulled the breaker. Eventually I decided the problem was with the contactor (a switch controlled by 24vac). I took pictures of where the wires were connected and pulled the contactor. For no particular reason I started taking the old contactor apart, and found a cricket in the middle. I removed the bug, cleaned out the cricket residue, put the contactor back together, and returned it to the outside unit. My AC system resumed working perfectly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contactor

downut2• 2 years ago

I want to emphasize for others how important this comment is. I live in suburban Atlanta and last month the AC failed. Can you guess what day and time it failed? Yep, 8AM on 96F/70% humidity SUNDAY. And we moved into this f*cking old house a year earlier after moving across the country so no local knowledge of contractors. After about 15 minutes in google maps I call up my best guess based entirely on internet vibes. After some hemming and hawing which is best described as a verbal biopsy of my wallet ("it's going to be $200 for showing up") the dude shows up. We get to talking as one does (I DIY everything) and he says I'll show you how to fix it, it's very likely the capacitor is the problem.

So he unscrews the panel, pulls off the leads, puts in the new capacitor and voila. Then the guy says basically exactly what the above para starting with "A capacitor issue...", including hosing down the coils.

So in 10 minutes I learned another mandatory skill on a Sunday morning, and it only cost $675. (Yes I know better than to place my tongue across the capacitor connectors)

Last year I fixed the condensate drain line clog myself, by uh, well, I was in a hurry, blowing into the pretty grotty drain line. I did purchase the exact model pump for a spare.

I still need to buy a spare capacitor though!

sidewndr462• 2 years ago

It's actually worse than that here in Austin. The was only 1 store that would sell me a individual capacitor when mine failed. That one failed about 3 days later. I did some research online and apparently there was just a massive production run of capacitors that were imported to the US and are known to be bad. Supply houses were just looking to offload them.

Now I could take it back for a warranty replacement, which would give me the same defective unit.

As a result of this, I don't even recommend buying components locally any more. The capacitor from amazon cost about $12 and is still working years later.

Nursie10• 2 years ago

The great thing about Australia is that that is probably illegal here.

We've got some pretty fucked up protectionist rules about what you can and can't do in/to your own home. It's nuts.

Now, nobody is actually watching most of the time, so you're usually fine, but it's as stupid as being illegal to replace a tap or existing light fitting. Every so often state governments review the rules and get swamped by trade associations who say the rules are there to prevent people being 'scammed' by untrained 'handymen' and are there for your own protection. This regulatory capture means that legally you need to complete a four year apprenticeship before you're allowed to change a plug! And another one if you want to do any basic water plumbing.

I wouldn't be surprised if what the guy did in this blog is strictly speaking illegal - for instance when it comes to data cables, you need to be a qualified electrician with data specialty to install them. You can plug ethernet cables into your computers yourself (wow! such privilege!), but if you install them even by getting some stick-on plastic conduit and passing the cable through that, you're in contravention and could potentially be fined, up to thousands of dollars. For sticking some plastic tubes to the wall in your own house.

SOLAR_FIELDS9• 2 years ago

Reminds me how, in USA, it’s the only civilized nation I’ve been to where you must have a prescription to purchase contacts and glasses. Everywhere else I’ve been will just sell you whatever magnification you need at the pharmacy.

Obviously there is some acceptable line here, but I think the States handles this decently well enough. In Austin where I live you can get what is called a “homeowners permit” in a lot of cases. Meaning the city will come look at your work and as long as it’s up to code you get a legal permit just like a contractor would get (https://www.austintexas.gov/page/homeowners-permit). You can only do this to your own home so it’s not a shortcut to running a chuck in a truck business without a license.

jamil72• 2 years ago

Australia is definitely one of the most rule-obsessed countries, even in comparison to Germany, where I’ve lived for the last decade or so. Parts of my parent’s house back home are heritage listed, some rules make sense and some are bizarre, especially regarding the garden.

XorNot3• 2 years ago

The nice thing about my Mitsubishi Heavy Industry units is I've got a bunch of MHI-AC-Ctrl[1] modules tucked into them talking to the service interface with Home Assistant. The neat thing is it doesn't just control it, it also makes all the internal sensors and codes available.

What I think we really need to do though is make publishing these control standards mandatory under right-to-repair laws - no one should need to be reverse engineering them, you bring a product to market you have to provide the complete spec for it's software interface and data.

Do that, and I bet we'd find in a few years every new appliance would support a common serial port standard and come with a code page in the manual for it (ironically the prevalence of Tuya-smart stuff has come very close to making this happen, but they go to absurd lengths to lock you out of the wi-fi microcontrollers).

[1] https://github.com/absalom-muc/MHI-AC-Ctrl

cbanek3• 2 years ago

I'd love this, but right now I'd be happy with a team reverse engineering these things and not getting hit with some kind of IP lawsuit from whatever company. I think there's going to be a lot of abandoned-ware IoT stuff, mostly because the company wants to turn the software off because they don't make money from supporting old products.

My fitbit wifi scale, which I love and has been doing a great job for the last 10 years has now lost support to pair it with the new fitbit app, thanks Google!

girvo2• 2 years ago

Oh hey, thats neat. I have two MHI split systems in my house! Definitely going to have a play with this, very nice.

kbouck• 2 years ago

Network-connected home Mitsubishi units can be controlled with the MELCloud API (same api used by mobile app) which makes it easy enough to write scripts that grab current temp, settings, power usage.

Perhaps someone has already made a home assistant plugin that does this?

refurb2• 2 years ago

I did something similar for a clothes drier. The thing was ancient (mid-80’s) but was fantastic. It was huge and you could dry maybe 3 comforters under an hour.

It stopped heating and it turned out there are solenoids that control the natural gas flow. Quick disassembly (back when products were made for easy repair) and swapping out two $8 solenoids from Amazon and I was back in business.

jamiek88• 2 years ago

And doesn’t it feel great?

Unironically one of the proudest moments of my life was when I fixed the the belt on our dryer.

A $10 rubber belt and YouTube and voila!

Scoundreller3• 2 years ago

Gas hot water heaters will often foul the flame detection sensor over time.

Simple YouTube video to unscrew the thing, sand off the crud and back in action.

ApolloFortyNine• 2 years ago

Everyone reading this should find out what capacitor they need and buy one off Amazon, they're all <$20.

I've done this repair myself, it takes maybe <15 minutes and is almost impossible to mess up. Even if you were find spending a couple hundred dollars to have someone come out and do it, you'd still go hours at least without AC. Which depending on the time of year can be miserable.

Scoundreller3• 2 years ago

and is almost impossible to mess up

Just don’t cook yourself with the remaining good capacitance.

Personally, I wonder what could be done to temporarily get the capacitor to “kick” for a few more times to get your home temperature down as you get your replacement. Chill the capacitor?

quickthrowman3• 2 years ago

Please don’t suggest buying electrical parts off Amazon, that’s criminal negligence. On second thought, please do not give any electrical advice on the internet.

Buy it from McMaster Carr or Grainger, please!! If you do this repair yourself, short the contacts of the capacitor (ideally with a correctly sized resistor) to discharge it before handling it so you don’t electrocute yourself.

Start caps: https://www.mcmaster.com/products/motor-starter-capacitors/

Run caps: https://www.mcmaster.com/products/run-capacitors/

bityard3• 2 years ago

You have to be careful with Amazon/eBay caps, as they can be cheap chinesium garbage. I look for name-brand caps when I can and try to get them off eBay, Grainger, or Repairclinic.

You don't need the same model number as the original cap, it just has to have the same voltage rating, capacitance, and number of terminals. You might have to get creative with the mounting solution if the new cap is different than the old one in terms of shape or size.

Also, pro-tip: when you replace a the cap in the outside unit, install it upside-down so that water doesn't pool on top of the cap and rust it out from the top.

I have a gas furnace and I also keep a spare ignitor handy. It's not a matter of "if" those go bad, it's "when."

dfox5• 2 years ago

Don't buy electronics components from marketplaces of any kind. There are reputable parts suppliers and for things that are common and in stock it will probably even be cheaper and faster than buying the same thing (of unknown provenance and quality) from who knows what seller on random marketplace.

ehhthing• 2 years ago

It's unlikely that the company itself makes these tablets, they probably buy bulk off Alibaba or something and they all probably fail at the same time because the were all made at the same time.

The real problem is that the quoted replacement price is so high, given that we know the tablets themselves are like $30 each.

BizarroLand3• 2 years ago

I bet it's the POE part that is the issue.

They could control the whole system over POE with a bog standard usb to ethernet adapter, make the app easily run on any android device and charge the customer less for a better more reliable product, but rather than do that they rigged up some janky interface and built a custom enclosure hired out to an overseas manufacturer who bought the parts for $20 and charged the middleman $100 for them, who then charged the dealer $250 for them, who then charged the installer $600 for them, who then charged the customer $1600 for them. (Got to get that 2.5x margin on hardware every step of the way, after all!)

If they had gone with a POE system, wiring would have been cheap, replacement parts plentiful, and customer satisfaction would be sky high. Sure, you would sell fewer full systems, but to me that is a small price to pay for having the most useful and interesting systems on the market with fans creating all sorts of mods and integrations for your equipment and becoming customers for life.

nyanpasu642• 2 years ago

The original ezone tablet had been running Android 6.0, this Samsung was still on 5.0 but I didnt think that would cause any issues so I got started on doing what was clearly missing: The required apps. All ezone apps are available both on the Advantage Air website and the apkpure site. I only learned of the apkpure site from a post claiming he had been directed to it by a AA tech support person.

Redirecting your customers to a third-party/pirate APK redistributor of unknown authenticity... reality defies parody.

Benjamin_Dobell• 2 years ago

The apps are signed, so it's possible to compare signatures against the originals. I haven't seen any reports of signatures not matching from Apkpure, though certainly possible.

But more importantly, what's the actual threat vector here? This isn't his personal phone. Just don't connect the tablet to your Wi-Fi. What's it going to do, sneakily increase your temperature by 1 degree?

Nursie10• 2 years ago

AFAICT you need to have it connected to the internet so that their phone app can connect (presumably via cloud servers) to the control tablet and provide controls from your phone in and out of the house.

Also if you want to integrate the air-con with general smart home stuff.

nyanpasu642• 2 years ago

Android doesn't surface app signatures beyond requiring that updates share the same signature while the original is installed. I thought a potential app could exfiltrate data, voice, do crypto mining, act as an unauthorized VPN exit node for commercial VPNs or cyberattacks, etc.

userbinator2• 2 years ago

It's not too dissimilar to Blizzard using BitTorrent for their software updates --- a clever way of avoiding bandwidth costs.

As the sibling comment mentions, they are signed files.

gambiting• 2 years ago

I was just reading an official Volvo technical bulletin for an issue that can occur in a latest XC90....the manual literally says "download this patch, load it into the patching software, you will get a warning about the patch not being signed and invalid for this car, click ignore and then click proceed anyway".

Why even build those warnings in, if you're going to make your own mechanics ignore them.

sidewndr462• 2 years ago

Isn't this exactly what SolarWinds did when someone bypassed their build system and inserted a backdoor? Made a tweet about how users could just accept the unsigned build?

system2• 2 years ago

We must have an open-source policy for hardware like this. Billions if not trillions of dollars are being wasted every year because of these shitty companies. I know I am dreaming but maybe in 100 years, humanity will evolve.

stacktrust• 2 years ago

awesome-vendor-repairability index?

devsda• 2 years ago

Unfortunately, if/when someone from the manufacturer knows about it their first thought will not be "How do we make it easier for our customers".

It will most likely be "How do we restrict this hack" and will eventually get into more restricted/quirky hardware & software.

zekrioca• 2 years ago

Yes, which is very sad. Nearly all things go into this direction. I still remember the old days of jail breaking the iPhone, and the cat and mouse chase with Apple.

Gabrys12• 2 years ago

I don't think they'll care about this. Probably only 1% of their customers are capable of "hacking" this. As long as the tablet replace is cheaper than getting a new AC unit from another company it's fine for them.

OccamsMirror• 2 years ago

Not even 1%.

It would be interesting if someone already in AC repair made it part of their business though. That's when you'd see the teeth come out.

stuff4ben2• 2 years ago

Until someone decides to sell their fix at a cheaper price. Then lawyers will get involved and everyone will end up unhappy.

lawgimenez• 2 years ago

They would have to put the condition inside shared library .so and use Android JNI. Make it complicated and hide the string tablet model throughout the code, just enough time to frustrate whoever is decompiling the so file.

rocqua2• 2 years ago

If they want to really do it wrong (or right, from their PoV), they require the communication with the base station to be signed with a certificate signed by their root CA, and put the private key of that certificate in the TPM.

nehz4• 2 years ago

Any idea if that "POE board" has a FTDI USB to UART chip on it ?

kalleboo2• 2 years ago

The dialog he got when he plugged it in mentioned FTDI and "Vinculum" which appears to be a programmable USB interface chip with serial and SPI support https://ftdichip.com/products/vnc1l-1a/ https://ftdichip.com/software-examples/vinculum-projects/

Since it's not just a generic non-programmable serial chip I assume it's also doing something more. But it doesn't do Ethernet so I bet it's not actually PoE but like... power+serial over Cat5

gstar11• 2 years ago

It's an FT312D, which is a purpose-built android thingy that presents a serial port and allows the tablet to charge.

MrBuddyCasino• 2 years ago

Yeah given that USB doesn’t work over long distances there is probably a simple serial protocol waiting to be reverse engineered.

alliao• 2 years ago

this guy should sell it.....

gotten09• 2 years ago

ha, I thought the same thing.

RockRobotRock• 2 years ago

Badass! I wonder if anyone has done work to reverse engineer the USB serial connection and integrate it with Home Assistant.

Nursie10• 2 years ago

It seems like you can already integrate Home Assistant with tablet - https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/advantage_air/

dbetteridge3• 2 years ago

Mate! You forgot the tried and true tradition of threatening them with the ACCC and making a stink to "A current affair" ;)

Nice write up though

WheatMillington• 2 years ago

I love this kind of content, and the level of detail is just perfect for tech-adjacent people like me.

fein2• 2 years ago

Forcing customers to replace an entire system just because the cheapest component failed might be really profitable

Just had to deal with this recently. My gas oven control panel died and one would think to replace the control panel ($300 ish part), but I had my doubts. Pulled everything apart and hooked up a meter to what should be the power coming from the cord, no continuity. Took apart everything on the top two levels of the stovetop to find a thermal switch buried under there that had failed. That thermal switch is forever OOS (was $35 at least for a replacement if you could find one), so I hopped on amazon and bought a 5 pack of microwave thermal safety switches with the same cutoff temps for $6 that fit the push connectors. 10 year old higher end gas oven was fixed for about $1 in parts.

Probably would have been at least $200 from an appliance repair company just for the labor of having to take apart the entire stovetop to get there. Not sure how many people would even bother although it was about $2k new.

kelnos2• 2 years ago

Probably would have been at least $200 from an appliance repair company just for the labor

How many hours did you spend taking it apart diagnosing the problem, though? I'm guessing at least 2? $100/hr for that seems pretty reasonable to me.

(Granted, I agree with you in that I'd prefer to figure it out and repair it myself, even if it would take me 5x as long as someone trained to do it.)

fein2• 2 years ago

Had I been able to work on it for an entire day, it probably would have been around 3-4 hours, but took longer because I had about 30-45 mins a night and then had to clean up so the kids didn't get into the mess. The oven was down for about a week as a result, but you can make do with an air fryer and a toaster oven for quite a bit.

For an experienced tech I assumed at least $50 for the house call and then a few hours for the disassembly and reassembly.

hunter2_9• 2 years ago

My old tablet’s model name was on a sticker on the inside of the case, but looking at the code I saw it needed the -EZ identifier tagged to end. So the string I was to return was “PIC7KS6-EZ”.

The code seems to allow for both "PIC7KS6-EZ" and "PIC7KS6" unless I'm misreading it.

ranebo6• 2 years ago

You are correct this was actually and error in my re-collection. I remembered when writing that it was missing something but mistakenly thought it was the EZ. In fact the model number on the case was "PIC7KS" without the 6. Good spot.

hunter2_9• 2 years ago

Ah, in that case you were free to add any of {"6", "6-EZ", "-EZ"} because the code includes "PIC7KS-EZ" as well; you probably did choose "-EZ" after all!

gstar11• 2 years ago

OMFG; I am in Perth, I have the same system, the very same problem and solved it almost the same way and was in the process of writing it up.

The system uses RS422, with a base64 encoded AES key in the aaservice binary, and I was contemplating building an esp32 based open source implementation of the controller.

That's a crazy weird coincidence.

gstar11• 2 years ago

Incidentally, if you root your tablet you can just change the build.MODEL to "MyAir5" and everything will work on a third party tablet.

gstar11• 2 years ago

Oh, and you just need one of these and a TTL to RS422 converter off aliexpress to replicate the interface:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005918675239.html

The connectors on the small RJ45 daughter board are JST-SH 1.0

The yellow lead puts out 4.2v to replicate a Li-Ion battery (as far as I can tell). You can ignore this.

Red is positive

Black is negative

Green is usb d+

Blue is usb d-

ranebo6• 2 years ago

Oh wow, that is crazy! That sounds awesome so please still write it up and I will link. myreal.name@gmail

thrtythreeforty• 2 years ago

What the hell, why does a control system need an AES-secured control channel at all? The only possible intention is to make interop more difficult. If they wanted security then they wouldn't use a hard coded AES key.

gstar11• 2 years ago

It 100% is designed so that you have to use their hardware.

marcus0x62• 2 years ago

Anti circumvention laws don’t require good locks to provide the manufacturers a legal cudgel to use against anyone with the temerity to think they have the right to use and fix things they have paid for. The law (DMCA in the US, it looks like something called the Digital Agenda Act in Australia) is the real lock, not that AES key.

c_o_n_v_e_x• 2 years ago

In theory, connected devices that control large energy loads ("large" on a household level of energy consumption) can be coordinated at scale to "attack" the power grid via instantaneously switching 1000's of units on and off at the same time.

That being said it's more likely the hardware mfg is just trying to claw in more margin.

dbetteridge3• 2 years ago

For a small place there's a lot of sandgropers on HN somehow

TechDebtDevin• 2 years ago

For those also wondering:

https://www.quora.com/Why-are-West-Australians-called-sandgr...

marcus_holmes4• 2 years ago

Timezone effect, I think. Just us and the whole of East Asia online now. The Poms and Europeans are just about to wake up, and the Americans have logged off for the night.

gstar11• 2 years ago

Speaking of sandgropers, I do understand Advantage Air are based in WA - so it's fairly likely they're reading this!

mst3• 2 years ago

I'm sure the timezone will tick over to the sheepshaggers instead shortly.

ivraatiems• 2 years ago

Almost like all the tablets fail around the same time because they're made in the same shoddy way, forcing system replacements every so many years...

Cthulhu_3• 2 years ago

They skimped on the tablet, grabbing a <$100 device for cheap. It should be a ruggedized / semi-industrial device with an expected lifetime as long as the device it controls, so at least 15-20 years.

virtue3• 2 years ago

sounds like the memory storage is failing on some sort of logging systems for these to be going down at the same time-ish (same number of logs per day written etc over cheap flash).

Shame on this manufacturer.

sumtechguy2• 2 years ago

It is a conversation I have had with many a jr dev. 'ok you are logging this how much space is that going to take? how long do you want to keep it? what is your rotation schedule?'

I usually get the 'oh did not think of that' because logging is a serious afterthought in many cases. It is boring and you just drop in log4j and log away right?

FLT85• 2 years ago

I've got one of these systems too. Mine hasn't died yet, touch wood, but I was concerned enough about the possibility that I went as far as documenting the comms protocol and starting to design a pi hat to talk to the main control board.

I should really write that up at some point too.

jamesholden2• 2 years ago

Do it! I don't live in Australia or have on of these systems, but I was intrigued by how the OP had gone around the company to save themselves 1500! I'm curious to see how people are resolving things like this, so that if I have issues myself sometime, I have ideas on where to start or what is necessary :)

radicalbyte2• 2 years ago

Reading the original post, wouldn't be a super cool idea to make a little ESP or RPI based system which acted as a controller for the airco and a network bridge? Then literally anything could interface with it. You wouldn't even need to wire it up. No need to install some shitty app from a company who are quite clearly c*ts.

stavros2• 2 years ago

What evidence do you have that the company is composed of cats?

squarefoot2• 2 years ago

I'm sure that they made things more difficult by employing proprietary hardware wherever they can (also to discourage competition), but yes, there are a bunch of sensors and actuators in there and any board with the appropriate i/o capabilities should be able to interface to them, however writing a working firmware would be next to a nightmare: how do you find developers who want to spend months reverse engineering an AC and also know enough about ACs to put together something that works? Replacing household appliances brains with open counterparts would be a heck of a business opportunity to revive or prolong the life of dead/obsolete products, however I guess finding people who are interested enough to do that with FOSS, essentially selling only hardware and installation services would be really hard.

rpearce9• 2 years ago

In case it's helpful to anyone, I put this together to drive our Advantage Air system:

https://git.nethack.net/rob/aircon

Essentially it just talks to the android tablet API to do things so it's no help if (when) the tablet dies, but it means I can do things like:

- have the entire unit turn on/off as needed based on average zone temperatures

- open/close vents based on room owners' devices being online, or temperatures of nearby zones

- dump zone temperatures to influxdb

lelandfe2• 2 years ago

Nice use of Telegram as a cheap logging tool

f1shy• 2 years ago

fatcow• 2 years ago

another perthian! w00t

tetrisgm• 2 years ago

How good is the on/off switch though?

nikolayasdf123• 2 years ago

wish there was an open-source aircon, and heater, and microwave, and so on,

antisthenes2• 2 years ago

A nice solution to a completely self-inflicted problem.

Next time just get a dumb thermostat, or perhaps, if you're so inclined, something cheap off-the-shelf like an ecobee.

dbetteridge3• 2 years ago

It's funny because if that was an option people would do it, but most installers have their control system included when the install and setup the system.

You don't get asked what you want or a choice in changing it to a different device...

kelnos2• 2 years ago

Unfortunately a lot of the new variable-speed heat pumps require a proprietary thermostat. You can use a dumb thermostat with them, but then the unit runs at full tilt all the time, which is inefficient (more costly to run) and probably increases wear on it.

Fortunately there are some heat pumps that allow you to use any old thermostat; they figure out the right speed to run at using their own temperature sensors.

Regardless, this wasn't really the thermostat: this was a control system that monitors temperatures in each room/zone, and opens and closes the vents to hit the temperature targets in each zone. Pretty sure no dumb (or even generic smart) thermostat can handle that.

antisthenes2• 2 years ago

At that point it's easier to just get mini-splits for every major room in the house.

zb• 2 years ago

You must be American.

In Australia there are exactly zero heat pumps on the market that you can use an ecobee with. It just isn’t an option. There are no off-the-shelf options.

You don’t have to pay $1700 for this garbage $50 tablet, but it is the default that every installer will offer you without mentioning any other options (and the only options are the manufacturer’s proprietary controllers). In this case his builder procured it for him without even telling him the price. He may not even have been given a choice. You have to be extremely motivated to stay on top of every decision like this along with the thousands of other decisions involved in building.

johnobrien1010• 2 years ago

My fridge stopped working last year. We called a repair technician, who swapped out the whole PCB and charged us a few hundred dollars. In retrospect, I think it was one bad relay on the board...

Next time it dies I plan to try to find the defective relay, desolder and resolder it myself. Imagine how much better it would be if there was a read out with an error code on a fridge with easily removable relays you could unplug and replace. I know it is not a priority to make these kinds of things repairable, but I wish it was.

mlhpdx• 2 years ago

I wasn’t lucky enough to have a “repairable” refrigerator according to the repair man. An 8 cent capacitor had dried out and failed, which I discovered with a $150 tool.

bb88• 2 years ago

The contacts in a socket can oxidize and go bad. Or the relay can get jostled out of the socket during a move.

It would be cheaper to ship a replacement PCB with the fridge.

wincy• 2 years ago

I’ve had a fan die TWICE now in my fan. It blows the cold air from the bottom freezer up to the top refrigerated portion, so it’s catastrophic when it happens. At this point I just have a third fan in the garage in a box in reserve so I don’t lose $100+ in groceries. It’s ridiculous how poorly made these “durable goods” are. And how expensive these repairs would have been if I wasn’t the smallest bit handy.

nerdile• 2 years ago

I'm thankful my husband knows I would never allow such a system to be installed in my home.

cyberax6• 2 years ago

Ugh. The whole "smart aircon" industry needs a good-sized asteroid wiping them out of the existence.

There is a very real need for modern variable-speed units, and vendors just keep fucking it up by using proprietary protocols locked into their ecosystem. TRANE in the US is similar.

And this is really annoying because variable-speed pumps solve all the problems with short cycling and oversized systems.

datahack• 2 years ago

You think this is bad? Try swimming pool equipment.

pzlarsson• 2 years ago

I think home EV charging equipment is heading in the same direction as well. Very few have local and open APIs and instead depend on the vendors cloud service for control.

knowaveragejoe• 2 years ago

Both of these examples, and others, sound like an underserved market.

relaxing• 2 years ago

Tell us about that!

sarchertech• 2 years ago

You think that’s bad? Try tanning bed control equipment.

jwalton• 2 years ago

I just spent an afternoon recreating the custom threads on a Hayward chlorinator for my dad so I could 3D print a temporary replacement part. These don’t even use standard pipe fitting thread. -_-

riskable• 2 years ago

At least swimming pool equipment is mostly just turning things on and off. If you look at the controller board for any given pool "timer" it's just a bunch of relays (for the pump, lights, and valves/servos).

Temperature sensors are all standardized for the most part (well, they don't seem to be anything special) but I'm not sure about chlorinators... Mine has a strange (electrical) connector and 100% proprietary threads on the PVC connectors (that were easy enough to reverse engineer in OpenSCAD: https://www.printables.com/model/24144-t-cell-cleaning-stand).

Fortunately there's plenty of 3rd party competition for things like that. Even though I had a Hayward system I was able to purchase a compatible chlorinator off Amazon for a fraction of the price Hayward was charging.

liminalsunset2• 2 years ago

The problem with having standards for this kind of thing is that different units have different needs for communication and different levels of being smart. For example, some units want 2 temperature sensors and some want 3. The method used to control the system can be relatively complex - some systems are using physical models of the characteristics and positioning of sensors to do fancy control, and there are probably at least 5-15 data points involved in a typical system.

While it would be nice for the protocol to be documented (would realistically only be used by a very small number of users), the only real way you would be able to get a standard for something like this to work is if you went the Bluetooth route and did generic scenario-based profiles (e.g. HFP, A2DP, SPP), and optionally some "GATT" or "generic attribute" parameters. However, as we see with Bluetooth LE, everyone just uses GATT and implements their own little proprietary thing over it and you're back to the same problem.

Some of these systems attempt to be "smart" and just use the 24V C/W/Y1/Y2 etc protocol as a "standards compliant fallback". You don't necessarily lose ALL of the smarts, but the unit has to essentially use physics magic to make an educated guess about the information (for example, if you use a on-off thermostat, you can't really measure the temperature of the setpoint, so you don't know how close you are unless you somehow make an observation over many cycles.

I think that reasonable attempts to address this problem could involve some kind of extension to the old 24V interface - say, by offloading the actual "policy" part of system control to the "thermostat" i.e. have something that goes from 0-10V where 5V is off, 0V is full cooling and 10V is full heating. This allows you to choose your own temperature sensor situation, but complicates setups where more than one zone or thermostat is required. Of course, it will be very difficult for the industry to settle on a solution to this. Qualcomm's Quick Charge 2.0 was a very simple protocol similar to this, which was essentially self-documenting and not something that needed versioning, but of course, needs changed, 3.0 came and went, 4.0 came and went, and by the time USB C and USB PD came around you ended up with a full on data protocol API with all the OSI layers and of course, vendor specific extensions.

You could define some complicated protocol where you don't conform to a standard but you publish an API for your system (of course, there is no incentive to do this), and larger vendors like Control4 or Lutron, Crestron can program their products to interface with it. Unfortunately this doesn't allow the customer full choice over thermostats, because now you have to deal with N vendors x N thermostat vendors, which isn't scalable and you'll end up in dependency hell.

The closest thing I can think of to a standard, and the way it is solved in larger buildings, is through something called BACnet. It appears to use the Bluetooth model of "scenario based profiles", with all of the disadvantages that come with that, but the primary disadvantage is that it has to be to some degree manually configured to route data where it needs to go - and I don't think this is something installers are currently equipped to do at home scale.

Realistically, the "thermostat" is just a vestigial component in modern terms and really, it's just a user interface and thermometer now. Without getting into the wish to have open sourced app control or whatever, it's hard to define what the "thermostat" does and what the "system" is doing, and whether the device that sits on the wall is really a "thermostat" deserving of being interchangeable anyway. I have heard from a friend that does home automation integration that many clients don't like the default thermostat because it doesn't look very aesthetically pleasing. In this case, I'm definitely sympathetic to the need for customizability but it seems difficult to achieve in practice.

Hendrikto• 2 years ago

Are you a lobbyist? You spent so much effort arguing for something OP has shown to be just plain false.

Any tablet worked. The only reason it die not work ootb were completely arbitrary restrictions.

The control boxes can do whatever complicated things they want. But the interface to control them should and can be standardized.

TeMPOraL6• 2 years ago

Make it a certification requirement (UL or whatever) for the manufacturer to maintain a gold-level OSS Home Assistant integration, and all those problems would solve themselves in a heartbeat.

Alas, vendors that interface with customers do not sell appliances - they sell "solutions", specifically solutions to the problem of their own making, i.e. them inserting themselves between the buyer and the appliance they're buying.

smolder• 2 years ago

The idea of anything with permanence involving Bluetooth gives me a brain cramp.

cyberax6• 2 years ago

The problem with having standards for this kind of thing is that different units have different needs for communication and different levels of being smart.

There really is nothing complicated there. I have some background in lift (elevator) systems, and they have similar requirements. Modern lift systems use variable frequency drives for smooth start/stop, and they came up with compatible protocols that allow users to mix-and-match controllers.

In the end, there just needs to be a simple protocol to command the motor to run at a certain speed. It can be CAN-based, it can be based on RS-485, etc. For additional smarts, throw in readings from the sensors inside the AC units (pressure, coils temperatures).

Then the control units can be made by third parties. They can do all kinds of prediction-based logic, complicated PID controllers, whatever.

Some of these systems attempt to be "smart" and just use the 24V C/W/Y1/Y2 etc protocol as a "standards compliant fallback". You don't necessarily lose ALL of the smarts

You actually do with TRANE units. They become completely dumb, not even 2-stage emulation.

The closest thing I can think of to a standard, and the way it is solved in larger buildings, is through something called BACnet.

I have BACnet at home, for wired temperature/humidity sensors, the same RS-485 network is also used for Somfy shades ( https://github.com/Cyberax/py-somfy-sdn ). BACnet is a low-level system, and it needs higher-level profiles. But yes, exposing the motors and the sensors inside the AC units over BACnet would be a great start.

kokey2• 2 years ago

I think there's probably a case for some regulation to force at least a minimum set of open standards, because that would make it possible to e.g. switch between systems based on intermittent renewable generation etc.

yard20102• 2 years ago

No need for an asteroid. Just a few salty lawyers.

bloomingeek• 2 years ago

Also there's the variable-speed furnace/AC fan. These heavy bastards, with an add-on brain, are very expensive when they go bad. In my case, the brain part was fine, but the fan motor died. They wouldn't sell me just the motor, just the combo for $900US! And, if I install the combo, it voids the warranty. (I did install it, I'm the homeowner not a repairman.)

I was also told if my unit was a Trane, they weren't allowed to sell me the combo! (My unit is a Goodman.) What a rip off!

rpcope13• 2 years ago

I am looking at replacing my A/C system, and having worked on the single stage single speed one that's currently installed, and looking at the insane shit everyone ships that's more complicated than your basic gas forced air furnace coupled with a single stage 16 seer A/C unit, there's no way I would ever buy something else. Every parts house has got inexpensive replacements in stock for the simpler units and service is easy; good luck if you have go find the unobtanium variable speed motor or control board that Lennox or Trane just happened to stop making the moment your unit stopped working.

cyberax6• 2 years ago

Yep, and it's annoying because variable speed units themselves are _better_ than the old classic one or two-speed units. They are more economical, quieter, and mechanically more reliable.

But the insane control systems compensate for it.

tracker13• 2 years ago

Largely my take as well... I just want the simplest thing that works at this point... I'm heading in that direction as I need to replace appliances as well. So far this year, the microwave, range and dryer have all died. The microwave was the single biggest safety hazard I've ever seen, and they say you shouldn't work on them yourself... what happens when it turns on if the door is open? Or, you discover later, it's actually just on all the time even though the light is off and the fan isn't running.

I'm all about stupid, but repairable appliances now.

DCH3416• 2 years ago

It just takes time for all this stuff to iron itself out. Consider how long it took for practically every heating and A/C system to become largely the same.

metadat• 2 years ago

Why do they do the model checks? Is there any semi legitimate reason or is it purely protectionist anti-consumer evil?

paranoidrobot6• 2 years ago

I installed AC in my home in the last year.

I specifically went for units that were IR controlled rather than any proprietary smart B.S.

For the smarts, I used cheap IR blasters from AliExpress and hooked them up to HomeAssistant.

I just mounted cheap Lenovo tablets to the wall to do the room-dashboard thing to allow controlling lights/AC without a phone.

These kind of horror stories only serve to reinforce my decision.

35mm• 2 years ago

How did you pick cheap blasters compatible with HA?

I have a Broadcom one which works well but expensive.

paranoidrobot6• 2 years ago

Reddit and Google was how I chose which one to go with.

The Broadlinks RM4 minis were pretty cheap on AliExpress. I think I paid about $15 each? Might have to wait for specials to come up to get the lowest price.

athrun• 2 years ago

I was thinking of doing the same but IR control only allows for unidirectional communication with the unit.

Since there's no feedback mechanism, how do you solve for when the state of the unit(s) gets out of sync with HomeAssistant's?

klausa• 2 years ago

(not OP)

It just doesn't matter that much in my experience. If an issued command didn't work, it's easy to tell anyway (it's hot/cold), and you can just repeat it. HomeAssistant also has bits of special handling for items that don't communicate their state back, called "assumed state".

For the rare times I want to control my AC when being away from home, I have an air monitor nearby. I can just check if the temperature/humidity has changed, and repeat the command if it didn't work. If you _really_ cared you probably could script it to do it automagically, but I didn't feel the need to bother.

ThatPlayer• 2 years ago

Similar problem here. I've thought of getting IR receivers to also listen for the remote's IR signal, since you have to be able to encode the IR protocol anyways. But even then sometimes the AC unit doesn't get the signal from my remote, so I'm unsure if that's a remote issue or receiver issue.

The completely overkill setup would be to get a different remote control, get my DIY receiver to accept that and convert it to my AC unit's IR code, updating HA while at it. The remote's state would be out of sync still, but it'll keep the units in sync with HA.

Krssst• 2 years ago

If the message sent over IR always contains the full state, then it's only a matter of checking that the message was received.

If you are in the room, you'll know soon enough, otherwise I guess it could be possible to rely on the audio feedback (a light beep) that the AC probably emits when it successfully receives a command. (and add a temperature sensor to check that it's working properly)

mianos3• 2 years ago

The remote has no feedback. I have found Tasmota IR 100% reliable over 3 years. It sends the whole state on every transmission so the IR has no receiver.

https://tasmota.github.io/docs/Tasmota-IR/#sending-ir-comman...

prmoustache4• 2 years ago

AC is typically something you only need when you are inside the house so it is not like any freak situation would occur. If it happens only super occasionnally at worse you just set it the homeassistant state using the remote manually.

I guess you should hide those remote in a drawer and remove the batteries when you start using homeassistant

paranoidrobot6• 2 years ago

For me the only way it can get out of sync is from power failure in the AC, or someone using the remote. Putting the remote away solves the last.

I have Zigbee contact sensors that provide on/off feedback to HA by detecting if the louvers are open.

albrewer• 2 years ago

A lot of remote controlled air conditioning systems (like mini-splits and windows units) send the entire state of the remote via the IR blaster every time a key is pressed so there's no chance of the two getting de-synced.

davesmylie• 2 years ago

funny - I literally bought a broadlink ir blaster today and got it hooked up to HA about 15 minutes ago, looking to do this exact same thing.

Out of curiousity, did you have any resources you were following to set this up? I'm pretty new to HA - basic devices etc seem fine, but I'm not entirely sure where to go next!

paranoidrobot6• 2 years ago

Welcome to the club.

I'm using Broadlink RM4 Mini's I got off AliExpress. They've got a powerful enough IR signal that I've found I don't need them sitting way out in the open and obvious. One is tucked behind a TV and not quite in direct LoS, one is behind, but it reflects off the wall just fine, another behind a bedside table.

For the integration/Climate control thing I'm using SmartIR. Configuring it is a bit weird, you have to put it direct into the configuration.yaml file unlike other integrations.

    smartir:
      check_updates: true

    climate:
      - platform: smartir
        name: Bedroom AC
        unique_id: bedroom_ac
        device_code: 1293 
        # https://github.com/smartHomeHub/SmartIR/blob/master/docs/CLIMATE.md#available-codes-for-climate-devices
        controller_data: remote.mini4c_bedroom
        temperature_sensor: sensor.airquality_ikea_bedroom_temperature
        humidity_sensor: sensor.airquality_ikea_bedroom_humidity
        power_sensor: binary_sensor.contact_bed_ac

Cthulhu_3• 2 years ago

IR is fine for these things, it's not like they need much data. I have an IR ceiling fan, no issues there (even if the receiver is on a little wire that is supposed to stick to something but the sticktivity of the tape sucked), and a radio "smart" lighting system (just simple on / off switch on a plug socket). And some radio spots from IKEA, although I'm sure that can be hooked up to a "smart" system.

dfox5• 2 years ago

IKEA has consistent smart system that has the annoying feature that it works the wrong-way around for my use-case. The cheap IKEA switches can control IKEA peripherals only directly, you can't use them to control something outside of the IKEA ecosystem. As most of the things I want to control are either HomeKit native things or digital outputs on PLCs it does not work for me. So in the spirit of true overkill I have few switches that contain OrangePi Nano (I had somehow absurd quantity of these laying around as leftover from previous even more misguided project)

rich_sasha• 2 years ago

Ah, do you have some tips for someone who wants to do something similar?

I use AC units that come with IR remotes (Samsung maybe??) but the timers don't work for some reason. It would be great to hand roll some automation, but I never "hacked" IR remote/receiver systems.

paranoidrobot6• 2 years ago

Start Simple is my suggestion.

Home Assistant supports a huge range of integrations.

Personally I am using Broadlink RM4 Mini IR blasters. One in each room. They get added to Home Assistant as devices.

Then I use one of the climate add-ons that can send IR commands via the Broadlinks.

mianos3• 2 years ago

I got the Daikin for the same reason. You have to pay extra for a wifi module but after reading the reviews on their app, they mostly said, it kinda worked but largely useless.

I built an esp32 IR sender and put Tasmota IR on it. It has first class support for the Daikin. It can't receive but it seems no need as it's 100% reliable.

rlpb• 2 years ago

For Daikin, https://github.com/revk/ESP32-Faikin works well, and is tidier (and I think more featureful?) than an external IR port. Its existence is why I bought a Daikin!

mrgaro• 2 years ago

Gree HVAC units have built-in wifi which supports fully local remote control and there are OSS packages (including home-assistant).

yard20102• 2 years ago

This is the way. I'm buying stupid tech exclusively, and make it smart in my own terms.

lgats• 2 years ago

I did the same, i recommend getting the moes or similar IR blaster (tyua under the plastic). Treat yourself and get a combo temp/humidity sensor + IR.

For one of the rooms i opted for a IR/RF transmitter and the RF covers any RF enabled devices in the house (433mhz + 315mhz[i think but haven’t tested])

e44858• 2 years ago

Some units have a 5V UART port that's easy to connect to HomeAssistant and has two-way communication: https://static.xtremeownage.com/blog/2023/pioneer-mini-split...

ryankshaw• 2 years ago

I did something very similar with my Pioneer minisplit. but i used this esp module you can just buy. Super simple and cheap:

https://smartlight.me/smart-home-devices/wifi-devices/wifi-d...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6GEfzVhwCE

connicpu2• 2 years ago

I also just got AC last year, and while it doesn't have as many fancy features I'm glad I got one that works with standard 24V HVAC wiring. I built my own thermostat out of an ESP8266, I²C temperature sensor from adafruit, and three TRIAC circuits to control the fan, heat, and ac wires. Connected to MQTT and I can send control commands to it from my Home Assistant instance!

bityard3• 2 years ago

If you have the code for this publicly (or would consider making it so) I would be quite interested in it.

There are a fair number of DIY thermostat projects online, but all that I have found were one-offs by their creators, or were for specific kinds of systems like boilers.

I've been batting around the idea of starting a general-purpose IoT thermostat that only uses cheap, widely-available components that anyone can easily duplicate with a BOM and 3D printer.

BizarroLand3• 2 years ago

I have a lennox heat pump in my house and the main thermostat controller went out a few months ago.

Lennox uses a proprietary system like this one but the old school controls were visible on the control boards and due to a freak accident when an installer was levelling the floors for new flooring and cut the old wire I had a 5 wire thermostat wire installed instead of the 4 wire it came with.

Perfect.

$50 thermostat, wired it in. Powers on. Fan powers on. A/C condenser? Nada.

Official replacements were $700+, upgrades were $800.

Checked around, found an offerup seller selling the upgraded model for $400. Deal.

Met the guy, he gave strong, "I stole this, don't ask too many questions" vibes at first glance, and I was about to back out of the deal, but something clicked in my gut and I went with it.

Got it home, wired it up. Fan turns on. No AC. @#$@!#$%@#$^

On a hunch, went outside and checked the power for the heat exchanger. I had unplugged it for safety reasons but plugged it back in afterward, but gave it the snuggy test just in case.

Sparks shot out as it re-engaged. It's Alive!

The $50 one might have done the job, but no point in re-rewiring the whole shebang as the money is already spent.

If this system goes down, I'm going mini-split ductless. Forget this noise.

DarmokJalad1701• 2 years ago

I cut my teeth on Softice in DOS

Ah .. takes me back.

stonethrowaway• 2 years ago

Ranebo, post step by step instructions and full source code. Post full photos of circuit board and interconnects. Go fucking wild.

I’m contemplating writing an end-to-end manual for a set of laser machines I maintain, including missing schematics, gerber/eagle/fusion files and binaries for the MCU, how to flash it etc. Some parts which are required for servicing are only handed to manufacturer-employed technicians (I obtained those too from retired people). It’s been a riot to get everything and to learn how to disassemble, troubleshoot, fix, reassemble these machines.

But am I ever pissed at the manufacturer and the aftermarket for screwing people over. The markups on simple items are insane and they remove tags and IDs so you don’t know what the parts are. At this point I don’t care what’s proprietary information and what isn’t.

byb• 2 years ago

great read.

I have several Daikin split units and installed Faikins on them. https://github.com/revk/ESP32-Faikin

Having the PCBs made, flashing them, sourcing the connectors,and installing them was a bit involved, but setting them up in home assistant was one of the best things this nerd has ever done.

I wish there was an over-arching collective of hackers who would teach the principles, and help collaborate to decipher these protocols and help build software and microcontrollers to replace proprietary systems like the one Advantage Air has. I bet a simple ESP32 could handle this.

robk• 2 years ago

At least in the UK some enterprising soul has faikins on Amazon selling quite well. I got a couple just to stash if ever needed but for now daikins app is okay and works w home assistant. For now.

cr3ative2• 2 years ago

The seller is revk (AJK) who came up with the Faikin - it's his github :)

Sarkie• 2 years ago

OP, ". I could make the i.c() (isEzone()) function always return true"

Please do this via a script on GitHub

Then it'll make it easier for other people to use on other tablets

renewiltord3• 2 years ago

This is brilliant. Great write-up. I'm glad it's already on archive.org since this is nice and detailed. Much appreciated, man. I learned so much here:

1. PoE to USB

2. Smali debugging

Funnily, I thought it was serial over CAT5 because we have a couple of old network switches that are configured like that.

dvratil• 2 years ago

We installed Daikin AC in our house two years ago. Luckily, those units can be controlled locally (no cloud) via Daikin app (which says is unsupported and I should update to another app, but that one requires creating an account so screw that) and, more importantly, via HomeAssistant. What makes me really sad is that of all the "smart home" appliances we have, the AC is the only one doesn't go through cloud.

mianos3• 2 years ago

In case you want to connect it to HA, Tasmota IR supports my Daikin via an esp32 IR sender really well.

ctippett• 2 years ago

Great write up. Australia has pretty good consumer protection laws.. I feel like the warranty period offered by the manufacturer could/should be superseded by the Consumers Guarantee Act – it seems reasonable to expect an AC unit to operate and work for more than a few years.

  There is no specific time when the consumer guarantees no longer apply to products. They may apply even after the manufacturer's warranty period has past.

https://business.gov.au/legal/fair-trading/australian-consum...

chid• 2 years ago

I just had look and seems most have a warranty of five years, it doesn't seem there are many outliers to that. Funnily though it seems the AC unit is most likely going to operate many times longer, as the OP points out just the controller isn't working properly, and how long would a consumer be willing to fight this in the summer in Perth.

jackvalentine• 2 years ago

I’ve used the Australian Consumer Law several times at this point and most times you say to the customer service rep “The Australian Consumer Law gives guarantees of acceptable durability that I do not think this product has met. How are you planning on remedying the situation?”

They’ll then generally go to speak to a supervisor.

The’ll then come back and say they’ve been instructed to help you escalate to ‘senior management’.

A day later they’ll contact you with how to get your product fixed for free.

I’ve not had a significant delay, but you’d be spewing if it was a heat wave in summer.

ajdlinux• 2 years ago

That was my first thought - the Australian Consumer Law statutory guarantees would almost certainly come into play here, and this would be worth requesting assistance from the relevant state/territory Fair Trading.

Hawxy• 2 years ago

Came to the thread to mention this. I imagine the control system attached to an A/C system expected to last 10+ years should also last as long under the ACCC.

1116574• 2 years ago

When I read "Advantage Air" I needed to check if I am reading sequel to Cory Doctrow's "unauthorised bread" because of how dystopian it sounded

xg15• 2 years ago

Adding a simple “system” chooser to their software applications would give solutions to everyone, while the custom POE connector would ensure they still need their hardware.

Defense in depth, baby! (against customers)

Why have one proprietary component when you can have two...

BrandoElFollito2• 2 years ago

On a much, much smaller scale - this is why I insisted on having my roller covers driven by a physical button on the wall, instead of some proprietary radio.

Not only the remote would never be where it belongs, but I just had to plug in a shelly to have a full automation connected to my home assistant.

The vendors really wanted me to go for their solution until I met a guy who said sure, this is what he did too.

One of the shellies failed right after two years (warranty time in the EU) and fixing costed 20€ + 1 day. In the meantime my automation was replaced with my finger.

MaXtreeM• 2 years ago

I followed the same logic when deciding what kind of blinds control to choose building my house few weeks ago. Now I am in the planning of adding automation to it. Did you use Shelly Plus 2PM or are there any cheaper options to choose from (they seem to start at 30€ in my country shops)? Did they fit nicely in the wall switch socket?

BrandoElFollito2• 2 years ago

I initially got the Shelly 2.5, now discontinued. The one that failed was changed to a 2 PM which is 31€ on Amazon in France (you could probably get better deals (I just checked with Amazon Germany and they are at 25€).

I mounted them right next to the roller (in the roller enclosure) and if I did not have that possibility, I would have done it close to the ground to have good access. I do not have a socket per see, rather a small switch on the wall not inside the wall, this is not permitted where I am)

I had a look at cheaper solutions in the past but gave up - I do not have a lot of rollers so the cost difference is likely to be minimal. I like the fact that they work well and it is really a kind of mount-and-forget kind of setup.

jamesbfb• 2 years ago

Amazing! I love everything about this. However, also being in Australia, I would have tried my luck with Consumer Affairs. Our new house was equipped with a gas boosted solar hot was service. The gas booster died a year out of warranty and instead of replacing just their proprietary booster unit, they said the whole system would need to be replaced at a cost to me of $10'000+. A few weeks of back and forth (and limited hot water) with consumer affairs made enough noise and the company caved and replaced the booster unit for free.

Yes, it was out of warranty, but it's abhorrent that anyone should have to purchase a whole new anything when a small portion of it can be replaced independently.

LAC-Tech• 2 years ago

I'm struggling to understand why someone who knows software would think things in your house relying on android was a good idea.

Just get up and use a remote control people. It's not that hard. You really don't need an app to do it remotely. Your life will be fine.

exhilaration• 2 years ago

He was using the remote control provided by the manufacturer - it just happened to be an Android device.

shahzaibmushtaq• 2 years ago

So, this is the part where customer care stuffs say to each other "It's not a bug, but a feature" and who knows how many people get trapped in their story like they had found an old tablet in the back of a van that could be bought for $400.

DIY is the way to go, only if you know what you are doing.

urbandw311er• 2 years ago

Great story and write-up! I’m currently going through something similar myself: I bought a Meaco air con unit that uses its own proprietary app to control it over wifi, and there seems to be nothing anywhere online about that protocol or how I might integrate it with Home assistant. Model is MC Series Pro 8000 in case anybody ever cracks the case…

msnkarthik• 2 years ago

It's really impressive to see how determination and a bit of technical know-how can overcome such blatant profiteering by some companies. The effort and ingenuity put into fixing the system rather than just paying for an overpriced replacement are commendable. It's a clear reminder that proprietary smart systems can sometimes backfire, pushing customers to seek alternative solutions or even become DIY experts out of necessity!

Like some of the commenters, I've been thinking about the growing frustration with these kinds of business practices. It really makes you wonder about the balance between smart technology's convenience and the long-term costs they can impose.

What do you think would be the most effective way to encourage companies to offer more consumer-friendly solutions, especially for minor issues like this? Should there be stronger regulations, or is there a market opportunity for more open-source, user-modifiable systems?

dandare• 2 years ago

People underestimate the economic side. This person probably earns 6 figures (if not, he should). Fixing this himself probably costed more than $1697 in his time.

Now imagine a service doing this, with a manager and all the overhead.

phonon• 2 years ago

You only need to solve this once though?

ale422• 2 years ago

Is this tablet doing anything else beside the small user interface? Is that interface worth a tablet, or can it be done with 3 push buttons, a small LCD and a microcontroller?

keshet• 2 years ago

By using an android tablet they leverage the existing OS/UI/Java ecosystem to write a (fairly simple) app. Recreating that from scratch would require a lot more development.

ale422• 2 years ago

Sure, it saves development time & money. But if they anyway need some kind of custom interface... problem is, the lifetime of the tablet is way lower than a corresponding "dumb" system. I'd see the advantage of using a tablet if you have lots of controls (let's say you control the temperature for 6 rooms, you can see more info, etc.). By the way not everybody wants to have yet another touch screen in their home, but that's another story.

hellweaver666• 2 years ago

I had a similar situation with my shutter blinds. The company wanted €500 to install a "smart hub" to enable voice control instead of their little remote. To hell with that, I ordered a couple of servos and an esp8266 and 3d printed some little fingers that would press the buttons on the remote and added the whole thing to HomeAssistant via ESPHome. Cost me less than €30.

cuu5082• 2 years ago

I disassembled one of our gate opener's remotes, and hooked the button contacts to Raspberry Pi Zero's GPIO pins. Pi runs a tiny go webserver and Cloudflare tunnel. I hit an obscure HTTPS URL (via button on a phone's homescreen), gate opens.

csunbird• 2 years ago

I remember someone posting something about their garage opening whenever they open safari, as Safari replays GET requests from open tabs when it is un-suspended, although can't find the post right now.

Basically, they had your setup exactly, but they leave the tab open in Safari and whenever they open Safari to browse the internet, the garage door opens.

cr3ative2• 2 years ago

It's really pleasing to me how the "analogue loophole" continues to work. Previously, recording music through the Line Out, or what have you. Now, using a robot to press the supplied remote. It's delightful.

yurishimo2• 2 years ago

You can even buy the little robots. They're pretty affordable if you don't want to do it yourself.

https://eu.switch-bot.com/products/switchbot-bot

snickmy• 2 years ago

This post well summarises everything that is wrong with the current domotic / home automation space.

You either waste a tons of money on consumer grade product, and spend even more when they break, or you become a domain expert, hacking your way through it and running HomeAssistant (or similar)

ozfive• 2 years ago

There are so many companies that I am sure countless individuals have come along and have solved a problem for themselves that many other customers probably have. These solutions hardly ever surface.

I for one was upset when I bought a HiFi amp from Cambridge Audio (CXA-81) and it came with an IR controller. The only way to be able to control that amp through the app is by means of a DAC which costs another couple of thousand dollars. I refused to accept this as my solution. I wrote a web server that used a Raspberry Pi Zero W and an IR transmitter along with a rudimentary Android app that had a series of buttons which corresponded to the functionalities I needed.

If anyone is interested the web server (written in Go) that the Android app talks to is located here https://github.com/ozfive/CXA81-IR-Remote-Server

I will upload the the Android app source in the next week.

kokey2• 2 years ago

When our Fujitsu aircon was installed the installer said it's worth a lot of money to be able to make it wifi controllable. When I looked into what the components cost to make it do that, I saw what he meant. Fortunately I was able to use an ESP32 on the same bus as the wired remote and some code from https://github.com/FujiHeatPump/esphome-fujitsu to create my own remote interface. As a bonus it also told me what temperature the unit thought my room was at, which was always around two degrees more than reality, which allowed me to set a target temperature that worked more reliably.

mdavid626• 2 years ago

Outrageous.

lloydatkinson• 2 years ago

Android based AC control? What do you expect...

atoav• 2 years ago

Maybe it is time to establish a curated online blacklist of companies who engage in malpractise like this one.

downut2• 2 years ago

Over time a blacklist is potentially unbounded. Better a whitelist, I think.

squarefoot2• 2 years ago

I had AC installed in my new house just after putting solar a few months ago, and I was very clear that I wouldn't use anything that would depend on any external services: no apps, no connections, nothing: if I want to monitor the inverter I have to go up there to read its screen (1), and AC have to be all usable with IR remotes.

(1) I'm working on monitoring the inverter (Deye) thru a RS485 interface using a small SBC that connects to the IoT restricted VLAN. Will report here as soon as it's ready but will require time. I wonder if the same could be achieved with the AC units (Hisense). One could learn remote signals and send them say from a ESP* board through WiFi, but there would be no feedback from the AC units.

meindnoch• 2 years ago

Nice job! Fuck companies with "smart" appliances.

kmacdough• 2 years ago

Right. To. Repair.

Companies won't stop fighting it. We mustn't stop fighting for it.

pierrefermat1• 2 years ago

It seems like in this particular situation if you had a mainland chinese friend, he would have been able to source a replacement tablet panel for the cheap on 1688.com for ~50 USD.

atemerev• 2 years ago

Yes, this amount of work costs about $1697. Perhaps more, with corporate overhead included. This is why they suggest replacement parts.

tjscott• 2 years ago

Given this is in Australia, I’d have thought that a threat to enforce your rights under the Australian Consumer Law[1] would get some action from the manufacturer.

Essentially, there’s a statutory warranty that exists regardless of any warranty term quoted by the manufacturer, and the manufacturer is on the hook if the product is not fit for purpose or sufficiently “durable”.

[1] https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/buying-products-and-servic...

taneq• 2 years ago

This kind of perverse incentive driven behaviour is rife in large established businesses. At every stage you get asked “Do you want to spend money and effort solving this problem for the customer, at the cost of substantial revenue, or do you do nothing except shrug and make an excuse, and watch the money roll in?” If you aren’t deeply invested in the long term quality of the company there’s not a lot of personal incentive to do get former.

titzer• 2 years ago

The future is looking like an incredibly huge pile of crappy cloud software that no one asked for, no one understands, perpetually stops working, and no one can fix except by replacing it by an even crappier, faster breaking piece of junk.

datavirtue4• 2 years ago

Pure anarchy.

sandworm101• 2 years ago

> This control system is operated by a cheap POE powered Android tablet on the wall of the living room.
> actively monitor temperature and adjust vent opening angles and fan speed to achieve desired temperatures across multiple zones.

Who actually wants this junk? Air conditioning is a simple series of bang-bang controllers. A handful of relays turn things on and off as needed. There is no need for "vent opening angles". Vents are open or closed, pumps on or off. The thermal mass of the structure keeps everything within a narrow band as systems cycle. And then the oxymoron buzzwords like "actively monitor". No. Unless it has a little arm to spin a wet bulb, it passively reads the temperatures and sends and over/under signals as needed, something that for decades was done with a blob of mercury on a spring. The moment this system even hiccupped, I would gut it and replace with basic 4-wire thermostats in each zone.

iandanforth• 2 years ago

"I'm all for smart things ..." Root cause found. Cannot fix, pebkac.

btbuildem• 2 years ago

Great write up, and good on you for pushing through to make this work.

It's definitely predatory practice by the vendor. I wonder how much it would cost to pay someone with your skillset to do this hack -- probably comparable to what they wanted you to pay, if not more?

This almost merits an angry on-site visit, sheesh.

madduci• 2 years ago

Thanks for sharing.

This demonstrates where the new tech products are bringing us: to scrape everything and buy the entire thing again.

This is the direction of the automotive industry as well, so in the future you won't be able to repair a car easily too.

bschwindHN• 2 years ago

This is entirely too much bullshit to run an aircon, what the hell are we doing? A tablet should _never_ be required just to control the heating/cooling.

totallymike• 2 years ago

Ridiculous and arbitrary points of failure is a gigantic pet peeve of mine. See every charger unit that has the cable hardwired to it.

For any one thing, it feels like not a huge deal. Oh well, a thing is broken and needs replacement. But at scale, it feels like this is how everything ends up dying, lately.

For example, our LG microwave, oven, and dishwasher all started to fail around the same time simply because the awful membrane buttons collapse or just stop working. You'd expect to start considering appliance replacement when the actual parts that do the _work_ can't function anymore, not because you simply can't turn it on anymore.

I would love to not send three heavy appliances to the landfill just because of a few buttons that don't work anymore, but I have more money than time. What's more, how long will it be until (made up hyperbole incoming), say, the input button on a TV also fails, and then you can only use HDMI 2 until that port wears out from swapping things into it, or, <insert basically any other thing you could possibly own that can be rendered useless simply because the power button stops turning it on>.

It becomes infuriating to think of all the waste that's generated from these little stupid things.

rpcope13• 2 years ago

Why does an air conditioning system need an Android tablet? Why do people buy this sort of shit?

jdc05893• 2 years ago

To start, aircon is an incredible racket in general a lot of the time. Good companies exist, but lots of others, especially in the USA, have been bought up by big holding companies and converted in to profit maximization new-system sales machines. Techs get paid pretty poorly, and helpers get paid worse than mcdonalds/target in a lot of areas. There's not much financial incentive for someone to get really good at understanding residential a/c systems for repair/diagnosis anymore in most places.

Then to your tablet question: even on simple non-zoned systems, lots of manufacturers have totally moved away from oldschool thermostats that have simple fan/compressor/power/etc.. wires, in favor of "communicating" systems. "Communicating" means there's a proprietary protocol that their thermostats, control boards, and other misc electronics in compressor/condenser assemblies speak; for which there is no standard. A handful of modern advancements kind of necessitate this, such as variable speed compressors (yea, you could totally control that with normal electrical hardware, but....no one cares).

Couple all that with people willing to pay damn near anything to cool off when its 97f outside, and you end up where we are today.

rpcope13• 2 years ago

This is why I chose to replace my basic forced air gas furnace and basic 16 seer single speed single stage A/C unit with the same thing. Every part on these is relatively simple, largely serviceable and every parts house coming and going will have something that fits. I disagree with others that any of the more fancy stuff is any more reliable (and Dad worked as an HVAC master tech for a long time and also agrees with this) and I can't believe people pay for more complicated stuff when so far as I have ever seen it's 90%+ snake oil and drives the initial price and the cost of repairs up astronomically, and largely cools or heats the house all the same. I am well aware that Bryant, Lennox, Trane, Mitsubishi and everyone else coming and going has got the more complicated garbage that talks something more complicated, I just really don't get why you'd double or more the cost of things when you can get something that just works for less. I also don't understand the obsession with "smart" controls on any residential single family home when a basic programmable thermostat already does basically everything.

I'm sure as everyone piles onto the mini-split hype train, there's going to be even more fleecing of homeowners for maybe middling quality hardware and installs. Someone (either the HVAC company owners or the hardware manufacturers or maybe both) is making an absolute killing on this; maybe it's time for a career change.

stuff4ben2• 2 years ago

This puts the Hacker back in Hacker News! Love sticking it to the corporate man!!

bob1029• 2 years ago

I had a look at the furnace blower fan motor in my 2023 construction home.

It has some very cheap looking digital controller system with a ridiculous amount of complexity around it. There are 2 separate computers involved somehow. Just for spinning the blower. I was operating under the impression that an induction motor could be powered directly from the AC mains.

The complexity is certainly not adding to any sort of comfort, etc. The overall system is unbelievably noisy. This is all so clearly engineered to require as much maintenance as possible on purpose.

It would take me months of figuring to determine how to take 2 wires and turn them into 40. The easy part is throwing it into the plenum in such a way that the wires hang within millimeters of the rotating assembly.

justmarc• 2 years ago

Congratulations! this is a great fix.

I've had countless of times where simple/cheap part replacements have negated the need of a very expensive fix, or a complete replacement of a device, it's very satisfying.

I can vividly remember one case, almost two decades ago where a 10 cent o-ring (hardware shop price) has saved an old but otherwise fully functional Ice cube maker and has stopped me from having to buy a new one, or invest relatively too much in a workshop retrofitting it with a replacement to an old, no longer produced valve, at least according to said workshop. To top it off, it has been working perfectly ever since.

I wish there were more organized resources, as well as help forums for DIY repairs/retrofits for household appliances and other common devices. Way too much stuff gets thrown away because of simple part failures and that's just no good.

seemaze• 2 years ago

I have a Carrier Infinity heat pump, and have been running https://github.com/acd/infinitive on a raspberry pi zero flawlessly for years. Cost less than $10 and with Alpine Linux running from ram, it still has the original SD card.

lyime• 2 years ago

What a great read

Zopieux• 2 years ago

This is what the internet is for. Thanks, and fuck that company and the entire industry for that matters.

allenrb• 2 years ago

I’ve just got to say that this kind of thing enraged me. Who cares about the impact on people hit with sudden expenses? Or the environment when we dispose of e-waste? No, we want to goose profits by being despicable.

As I creep closer to retirement, I look forward to spending some of that time contributing to the fight against abusive bullshit like this.

yftsui• 2 years ago

slight off topic: I have quite a few low end Android phone bought between 2013-2017, only 1 of them is still bootable, all others cannot pass recovery like author’s tablet. Is it something related with older Android versions or just the cheap flash they used in if?

wanyar• 2 years ago

I really love this article! But I'm also confused about the fourth paragraph of "ok I'll fix it myself". Why does cutting datalines worked? My intuition is you need to cut the USB 5v lines and keep the datalines so data can be transferred without interference. I'm totally a noob about datalines and chips so could you please provide a further explanation thank you so much;)

0704227255• 2 years ago

0704227255

Muradiallaberdee@gmail.com

Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch

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