this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2023
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Best way to automate window AC? (lemmy.ml)
submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by [email protected] to c/homeassistant
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Hi all,

Recently got a window AC for my bedroom. It's presently using its automatic 'eco' mode, which seems to turn on around ~75 degrees F and off around ~72 degrees F.

This seems a touch excessive to me, as it seems to be on more than off.

I have the Thermal Comfort integration, which provides a range of different thermal indices.

Numeric indices: (dew point, frost point, absolute humidity, moist air enthalpy)

Bio indices: humidex, heat index.

Human perceived temperatures or “feels like temperatures”: dew point perception, humidex perception, relative strain perception, summer scharlau perception, summer simmer perception, thorms discomfort perception.

I have a broadlink IR blaster that I could toggle the AC on and off with.

Would automating off of one (or more) of these thermal indices be more optimal? Would there be a better way?

Here's a graph for some context:

Light blue: Bedroom humidex

Dark blue: Outside humidex

Red: Bedroom temp

Orange: Outside temp

Thanks so much!

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[–] WestwardWinds 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I’m not super familiar with humidex, I was going to suggest taking a look at how your values fit into a psychometric chart but it’d probably be more trouble than it’s worth, especially if you just have a single window unit. Your humidity is just going to dump every time the unit kicks on to drop the temp anyways

An easy thing you could automate would be to include time schedules as well as better temp ranges. Most of your cycling is from 1800-0600 (is this chart time offset? I don’t get why so much of your external heat gain is overnight). So you could avoid some of that by precooling below your set temp beforehand. I was going to suggest doing this at night, which is also when power prices are usually lower, but again it looks like it gets hotter outside at night so I’m not sure.

Regardless, before these periods of heat gain run the ac in a continuous cycle a few degrees below your comfort zone, which will also dehumidify the air more, extending your comfort zone time during heat gain without cycling

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Apologies, just realized I posted from my browser that's set to UTC time. I'll look in to doing it based off of time/periods of heat gain, thanks!

Below is correct timezone.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I recently added a heater on a smart outlet and toggled it on and off vs a BLE Temp / Humidity sensor from Govee.

You could do something similar based on your needs and comforts.

[–] JJGadget 10 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I would check to see the wattage/amps the heater pulls and what the smart plug is rated for. Don't want to melt it or start a fire by mistake.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

If anyone is looking for a recommendation I’ve been using sonoff s31’s for my ac unit and gaming pc’s. They track power and can easily be flashed with tasmota so you don’t need to deal with any cloud bs

Edit: autocorrect is trash

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

I'm using s40's myself! Hoping I can flash with tasmota, didn't know that was an option!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Not sure about S31, but I have a couple or TH16s (rated at 16A/~3500W), and I've read a bunch of reviews where the units can't handle the rated power and burn up. To be on the safe side, I connected it to a contactor instead of wiring directly to an appliance.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

It's all good, it's a Kasa KP200 rated at 15A / 1875W. Heater is actually only a 500W.

It's in a treehouse and I wanted something low wattage so it was safe to touch.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

I've got the same in my shop attached to an oil heater to remotely warm it up in winter

This one has two plugs which can be activated independently, is outdoor rated, and was able to be re-flashed with Tasmota. IIRC it was rated for 15A so should be able to handle an AC unit

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