IR_ACRemoteESP8266

A network enabled IR AC remote controller using ESP8266!

Intro

Having a couple of aircon units in our office, we needed a solution to control them from a central location. There are 2 goals:

1. Create a web / app interface to allow multiple users to control the aircons over the network or even remotely
2. Setup some automations using MQTT and a server or some other solution, to allow the aircons to be controlled automtically based on time of day and environmental conditions such as temp / humidity etc.

The inital solution idea is to build on the ESP8266 platform and use IR to control the aircons (Serial was investigated but no easy serial port was avaliable on these units) IR decoding from the standard remotes, using the IRremoteESP8266 and other IR libraries did not yeild a recognised encoding structure. Rather the 'raw' codes will be used for now to set a predefined range of functions.

Project Layout

• Main IR sending code in IR_Sender and built using PlatformIO
• Inital Arduino Uno based IR test code in IRrecord_Arduino

Reference Links:

Inital inspiration

Lots of inspiration from:

http://rbaron.net/blog/2017/08/05/A-Slack-bot-for-controlling-the-offices-ac.html https://github.com/rbaron/st-peter-esp8266 https://github.com/krzynio/esp8266-ir-ac-remote

IRremoteESP8266 library will be providing the IR functions for now:

https://github.com/markszabo/IRremoteESP8266

Great Arduino based IR library with lots of decoders:

https://github.com/z3t0/Arduino-IRremote

Another IR lib, havn't tried this one yet

https://github.com/ToniA/arduino-heatpumpir

Future decoding of protocol:

Seems like our 'Aux' aircon units use a form of the AWIA_RC_T501 protocol, execpt 211 bytes? See IR_Codes.txt for raw data

https://github.com/z3t0/Arduino-IRremote/issues/197

IRScrutinizer seems like a great tool should we ever want to decode this protocol

http://www.harctoolbox.org/IrScrutinizer.html http://www.hifi-remote.com/wiki/index.php?title=IrScrutinizer_Guide

IR decoding ideas

http://www.righto.com/2017/12/decoding-air-conditioner-controls.html

Webserver Ideas

Particle based project with Webserver

https://www.hackster.io/yleguesse/spark-core-smart-air-conditioner-c147db

OpenHab Ideas

http://domoticforall.blogspot.co.za/2015/06/control-air-conditioner-with-openhab.html

MQTT Example of IR control:

https://github.com/zeroflow/ESPAircon