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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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What Air Conditioner would you recomend between $500 and $700 CAD? (lemmy.ca)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I'm finding it really difficult to tell whether a particular air conditioner is supported by Home Assistant, since all the ones I've seen in stores don't seem compatible. I mean, I'm probably wrong in that, I'm sure that with enough work anything will work, but I didn't see any integrations with Midea air conditioners, for example.

All my windows in my house slide sideways, so most of the in-wall air-conditioners won't work, and I rent the place, so I can't make large alterations. This pretty much limits me to portable ACs, which don't tend to have much smart home functionality.

Any help would be appreciated, as I'm pretty new to using Home Assistant in general, and I'm still trying to figure out how things work. I only bought my Home Assistant Yellow last year, and I don't yet have any smart appliances to connect it to.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

While it does pull in hot air from outside, it is not cooled, but rather heated. AC units are divided with a cool side that lowers temp in a room and a hot side that extracts heat.

Warm air is used by the condenser (a radiator that collects the heat from the room) and sent back outside hotter than it sucked in.

The air on the cold side of the AC unit is recirculated into the room.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (2 children)

So they have two airflows? Then I assume in contrast to the ones with just one exhaust they need two fans? One for circulating (and cooling) the air from the room and one to circulate the air from (and to) the outside?

Then I assume that would make them even noisier then the single exhaust ones, right? (More moving parts.)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

Yup, two fans. The increased noise is compensated by them not needing to run as much due to the increased efficiency.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yup! Even units with one exhaust need 2 fans. Many standalone models even have a small 3rd fan near the condensate reservoir to re-introduce moisture, collected when chilling air, back into the exhaust so they don't have to be drained as much.

The nice thing about inverter units is they only run the pump and fans as hard as it needs to obtain its objective. Once there, it can spin down and get much quieter. I used to have floor units and hated sleeping with those. All through the night you would get fan noise and a huge CLUNK as the compressor kicks on or off. We upgraded this year and the ramp-up is so much easier to sleep through. There is still fan noise, but much quieter and becomes white noise after a while.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Thanks for filling that gap of knowledge!