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Home Assistant is open source home automation that puts local control and privacy first. Powered by a worldwide community of tinkerers and DIY enthusiasts. Perfect to run on a Raspberry Pi or a local server. Available for free at home-assistant.io

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Automating a window AC (lemmy.zip)

submitted 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) by shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip to c/homeassistant@lemmy.world

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So I have my AC connected to a smart plug and I'm trying to figure out what would be the best way to go about automating it.

Currently, I have it set to run every hour on the hour for 20 minutes if the time is between noon and 8 p.m. Which covers the hottest part of the day.

However, what I could do is have it run every other hour instead and have a couple of night runs along with the daytime runs.

Doing it that way would eliminate most of the 16-hour period currently that exists between the ending of one day and the beginning of the next.

Edit: Also, is there an easy way to automate every other hour using the time pattern or would I manually have to set up triggers for 2am, 4am, 6am, 8am, 10am, etc. using the fixed values?

Edit 2: looks like i can use "/2" to accomplish that

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[–] jaharkes@lemmy.world 1 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

I have window AC units in my kids bedrooms. They stay off during the day, but turn on several hours before bedtime depending on the outside temperature. It isn't a terribly smart automation, just a "turn on at 4pm if temp over 100F, 5pm for 90F and 6pm for 80F."

Originally I was trying to do it based on delta t between the room and the outside and the target temperature and the estimated cooling efficiency, then I had to start figuring in how humidity and feels like temperature would affect things. And so after over thinking and over engineering it, I ended up at the stupid solution of just switching on at fixed times based on outside temperature being over a threshold and it works pretty well.

[–] shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip 0 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

slightly off topic but are they smart ACs or are you automating them with a smart plug and if so how much power do they use? I am using a third reality plug which is capable of 15 amps but for a brief moment right when the thing starts up it can pull 17 amps for like half a second or less before settling down and that's why I'm wondering what you're using. My AC runs at 550 to 600 watts during normal operation.

[–] jaharkes@lemmy.world 1 points 5 hours ago

Smart plugs, I have two on sonoff s31 reflashed with esphome and one on a third reality zigbee plug. These are all smaller units, about 8000 BTU.

But... I had to put the big one downstairs on a smart plug for completely different reason. It is a ge smart ac with wifi, but once in a while it gets into a state where when it tries to start up but consistently trips the breaker. So the smart plug simply cuts power for 5 minutes when it notices the ac is pulling more amps than what it is supposed to.

But yeah, I inspect regularly and try to avoid running these things when nobody is around. I had a 30amp smart switch on and outdoor outlet which would trip whenever I plugged in a weedwhacker and it ended up looking scorched, clearly rated for 30amp but not capable of doing even half that because the 16 amp breaker never tripped.