ilovemusic:

 

why do heat pumps need wifi ?

 

a simple remote suffices here

 

😂

 

 

 

When I took my remote to work and tried turning my heat pump on at home with it I found it didn't work.

michaelmurfy:

 

I strongly recommend the Sensibo over the Broadlink.

 

Reasons:
1) Talks to AWS Sydney
2) Got an Open API (https://sensibo.github.io/)
3) Talks to Google Assistant / Alexa.

 

It also has a built in Temperature / Humidity sensor and is wall mounted (around the heatpump).

 

The Broadlink, in my opinion, is cheap but there is a reason why it is this way. It talks to a server in China (and is very very talkative) and when I last used it was over plaintext HTTP. I also found it terrible to pair to WiFi (and found it wouldn't stay connected). This may be just with my unit but I've never had a single issue with the Sensibo. It has been rock solid, the API is great and the app is very good also.

 

Like you say it is cheaper than a whole new heatpump. I just bought a house and took the Sensibo from my old flat to my new place and within a few minutes it was controlling the heatpump here (different model). Even if they're more expensive, I'd always recommend it over any other option out there as this is the only thing the Sensibo does, and it does it very well.

 

I would also recommend the Sensibo, however that is due to the broadlinks not working well with Mitsubishi heatpumps.

@michaelmurfy: The sensibo I have seems to talk to AWS Ireland, based on the whois of the 3 IP ranges I have seen. It regularly drops off the network completely, and the app says the device is not connected. Though I am blocking google's DNS, and thought I had successfully set up the redirect. I am yet to remove the sensibo from the blocked range to see if that fixes my problem.

Anyone used the Ambi?

I'm about to give one a try.... https://www.ambiclimate.com/en/

mckenndk:

esawers:

 

I bought the Mitsubishi wifi adaptor last week for $165, wasn't too hard to install. 

 

Where did you get it from?

I picked up a Mitsubishi older revision 568IF from Trademe for $80 or something which I am super happy with. It was "fairly" easy to install just opened the heatpump and plugged it into the CN105 port and then I had to find an old router that supported Push button WPA setup, so I had to turn off my existing APs and use the temporary router to get the WPA password on and then it has worked perfectly.

For the Mitsubishi's there is also a Home Assistant / Open-hab built on a custom Arduino build. https://github.com/SwiCago/HeatPump

And can't forget the excellent work done by hads from Nicegear: https://nicegear.nz/blog/hacking-a-mitsubishi-heat-pump-air-conditioner/

If I hadn't purchased the proper controller I probably would have built one of those.

sbiddle:

 

ilovemusic:

 

why do heat pumps need wifi ?

 

a simple remote suffices here

 

😂

 

 

 

 

When I took my remote to work and tried turning my heat pump on at home with it I found it didn't work.

 

We never turn ours off in Winter, treat the house like you do a fridge etc (as long as it's insulated correctly), our one senses when someone is in the room and raises temp to whatever you have it set at (21C for us), if it senses no movement it defaults back to 16C until someone enters the room again, only take a few minutes to get the heat back up. Much easier to heat from 16C to 21C then a stone cold room to 21C. And if the suns shining, the heat pump just sits there. We've tested both modes, and it's cheaper to run them like this (in Auckland at least, where to be fair, it doesn't really get that cold compared to down South).

Anyone else do this?

I've been using Tado to control my heat pump for the past two years. 

https://www.tado.com/en/ 

It compares well against Sensibo

https://smartrobotichome.com/tado-vs-sensibo/

MattEast:

 

We never turn ours off in Winter, treat the house like you do a fridge etc (as long as it's insulated correctly), our one senses when someone is in the room and raises temp to whatever you have it set at (21C for us), if it senses no movement it defaults back to 16C until someone enters the room again, only take a few minutes to get the heat back up. Much easier to heat from 16C to 21C then a stone cold room to 21C. And if the suns shining, the heat pump just sits there. We've tested both modes, and it's cheaper to run them like this (in Auckland at least, where to be fair, it doesn't really get that cold compared to down South).

 

Anyone else do this?

 

Not quite, but somewhat similar, in Wellington. We have electric kiwi free hour of power, in the winter we have it as 5-6am, at 5am both heat pumps, hot water heater, clothes drier, and dishwasher come on, along with a few random heaters. Because we have that we turn the heaters off around 10pm, though when it's really cold we'll leave them on 18 overnight. If someone is home all day we leave it on. If someone's not home it goes off when we leave, the ventilation system comes on and blows freezing cold air in to ventilate the place for a couple of hours, then heat comes on around 1pm at 19 degrees. A couple of hours before we get home it goes up to 21 / 22.

Summary of that: we have the heating on most of the time, but off strategically.

We also found when our son was a small baby and the heat was on 24/7 it didn't cost all that much more in power. We never really looked at exactly how much because the power bills were similar enough we didn't care.

If a house drops from the normal temperature to below 16 degrees overnight, at least in the north island, the insulation isn't sufficient. We have the house around 22 degrees, with all heating off it's still 17 - 20 degrees at 5am depending on the weather.

stuzz: Get a Sensibo.

Gives a non smart heat pump, some real smarts.

I am experiencing a lot of connection problems with my Sensibo. 1 out of 5 times it says "device disconnected". I can connect to my NAS without any problem at all. Just Sensibo's server I guess.

mckenndk:

esawers:

 

I bought the Mitsubishi wifi adaptor last week for $165, wasn't too hard to install. 

 

Where did you get it from?

HPAC (Christchurch)

ranjayryan:

stuzz: Get a Sensibo.

Gives a non smart heat pump, some real smarts.

 

I am experiencing a lot of connection problems with my Sensibo. 1 out of 5 times it says "device disconnected". I can connect to my NAS without any problem at all. Just Sensibo's server I guess.

We've got a Pebble which we got from Degree in Petone, comes with a handy app that even tells you the current temp of the room it is in.

sbiddle:

 

ilovemusic:

 

why do heat pumps need wifi ?

 

a simple remote suffices here

 

😂

 

 

 

 

When I took my remote to work and tried turning my heat pump on at home with it I found it didn't work.

 

I also think that the app for the wifi module gives you ore features than you get with the remote, including telling you the current room temp. However it also does lack some of the buttons that are on the remote, such as adjusting the horizontal direction of the airflow. The LCD remotes do seem rather dated.

I've got the official Daikin wifi adaptor, which I installed within the heatpump. It's been rock solid and I use Home Assistant to control it and set my schedules etc.

phrozenpenguin:

 

I've got the official Daikin wifi adaptor, which I installed within the heatpump. It's been rock solid and I use Home Assistant to control it and set my schedules etc.

 

Which Home Assistant is that?  I've got the official Daikin wifi adapter and the Daikin D-Mobile app.  The app is miserably slow and doesn't always work.