Multizone Mini Split?

[740GLE]

Everything is DIY if you have enough knowledge and tools ?

Over the life of a unit, the higher price of the 38 seer will pay for itself.

 

[Badfrogg]

Going from Central AC to 3 individual mini-splits I can tell you what I wish I would have known.

I wish I knew that I could not control the ones I got without a cloud service and very intrusive phone apps. I have nothing against China. I love all people, but I don't want a cloud service that communicate a bunch of sensitive information from my phone. Why does my AC need permissions to all my contacts and my microphone? (Have you all checked your phone app permissions lately?)

So I am stuck now with trying to hack the UART control (which is very secret) so I can remote control my AC.

The units I got do not support a wall mounted thermostat. So the unit measures the air at the indoor unit and it does a poor job of regulating the temperature.

Besides that, the AC is quiet, efficient, inexpensive, and if one dies then I have two others and I don't have to panic. Florida mentality.

 

[740GLE]

Unless you want to micro manage everything I’ve heard it’s best to just leave the mini splits in auto fan and the temp set for your desire.

They will ramp up and down slowly as needed for temp, versus going full bore.

I also have Celio unit for remote access control, which seems painless, it does have a remote sensor that can adjust fan speed as needed. Not sure what someone could do knowing I adjusted my fan speed from low to auto.

 

[400bird]

Going from Central AC to 3 individual mini-splits I can tell you what I wish I would have known.

I wish I knew that I could not control the ones I got without a cloud service and very intrusive phone apps. I have nothing against China. I love all people, but I don't want a cloud service that communicate a bunch of sensitive information from my phone. Why does my AC need permissions to all my contacts and my microphone? (Have you all checked your phone app permissions lately?)

So I am stuck now with trying to hack the UART control (which is very secret) so I can remote control my AC.

The units I got do not support a wall mounted thermostat. So the unit measures the air at the indoor unit and it does a poor job of regulating the temperature.

Besides that, the AC is quiet, efficient, inexpensive, and if one dies then I have two others and I don't have to panic. Florida mentality.

What brand do you have?

 

[Badfrogg]

Unless you want to micro manage everything I’ve heard it’s best to just leave the mini splits in auto fan and the temp set for your desire...

I sooo wish that were the case. In auto it will swing from 68 to 74. night to day.

I do not want to micromanage anything, I wanted to just get a thermostat for the wall. But the only ones have to integrate with the cloud. I don't like that.

 

[Badfrogg]

What brand do you have?

Pioneer WYT series. No known serial protocol has yet been fully reversed engineered. I am working on it though.

 

[hwy17]

I agree the air intake temp sensor sucks. It's just a bad location for it compared to a wall thermostat. Bad enough for cooling and even worse for heating.

Biggest weakness of every mini split imo.

 

[Shimmy]

Pioneer WYT series. No known serial protocol has yet been fully reversed engineered. I am working on it though.

Yeah, I will stick with Mitsubishi for that reason; easy to hook up an ESP32 to the CN105 port and adjust from there. Unfortunately you can't micromanage it though; I would like to manage latent cooling / coil temperature to control to my personal comfort zone. As it stands it pushes to 50% RH, and wastes a lot of energy at low loads. (Only 60% can be maintained without the compressor running all the time.)

 

[400bird]

Pioneer WYT series. No known serial protocol has yet been fully reversed engineered. I am working on it though.

Best of luck to you!
In the meantime, I'll just remove pioneer from my list.

I thought most mini-spits has some external temp sensor, maybe in the remote.

 

[1201]

I sooo wish that were the case. In auto it will swing from 68 to 74. night to day.

I do not want to micromanage anything, I wanted to just get a thermostat for the wall. But the only ones have to integrate with the cloud. I don't like that.

Mine have remote thermostats and it does that too

 

[Bob in Tucson]

I agree the air intake temp sensor sucks. It's just a bad location for it compared to a wall thermostat. Bad enough for cooling and even worse for heating.

Biggest weakness of every mini split imo.

Some brands can use remote wall controllers (with or without a temperature sensor onboard) or remote temperature sensors.

 

[hwy17]

Some brands can use remote wall controllers (with or without a temperature sensor onboard) or remote temperature sensors.

With varying levels of effectiveness. I've used the "follow me" function on my mrcool and I find it extremely unreliable, and that's basically all the mrcool mini stat is. If it's just a wall mounted remote without a temp sensor then that's no better than the remote at all.

 

[Bob in Tucson]

With varying levels of effectiveness. I've used the "follow me" function on my mrcool and I find it extremely unreliable, and that's basically all the mrcool mini stat is. If it's just a wall mounted remote without a temp sensor then that's no better than the remote at all.

I agree that without a remote temperature sensor then it's just a remote.

The options I know best are for Mitsubishi units, which, according to reviews, work as expected. I have one but have not yet installed it, so we'll see. The down side of the Mitsubishi stuff is the price, so I have been hunting eBay with some success.

 

[hwy17]

LG is one that actually offers an affordable wired thermostat. I would probably go with them next time for that.

LG PREMTC00U Simple Remote Controller Wired

Buy LG PREMTC00U Today. Check the LG Simple Remote Controller Wired ratings before checking out.

www.ecomfort.com

 

[400bird]

LG is one that actually offers an affordable wired thermostat. I would probably go with them next time for that.

LG PREMTC00U Simple Remote Controller Wired

Buy LG PREMTC00U Today. Check the LG Simple Remote Controller Wired ratings before checking out.

www.ecomfort.com

$167 isn't quite as affordable as I'd hope. But I also don't have reference for what other manufacturers charge. Plus I'm looking at 6 rooms, so $167 * 6 adds up pretty quickly for me.

 

[hwy17]

$167 isn't quite as affordable as I'd hope. But I also don't have reference for what other manufacturers charge. Plus I'm looking at 6 rooms, so $167 * 6 adds up pretty quickly for me.

Yeah, I mean Pioneer is $119 per and that's the cheapest. Mitsubishi like $350 or $450.

And I think you have to buy the brands proprietary thermostat or you lose the variable speed control.

 

[400bird]

Yeah, I mean Pioneer is $119 per and that's the cheapest. Mitsubishi like $350 or $450.

It's all about perspective, thanks

And I think you have to buy the brands proprietary thermostat or you lose the variable speed control.

Probably, I don't think it's as universal as a thermostat as central heat/air. There may not be good universal answers.

I'm thinking I'll be better off integrating something with Home Assistant or Node-red and controlling based on external temp sensors.

 

[Bob in Tucson]

To be clear, the remotes work okay, so I use them for two zones, a bedroom and a garage. There's no real need for wired remotes, but they do a better job at gauging temperature. I bought one only because I wanted a wall control for the main living space.

 

[740GLE]

Pioneer WYT series. No known serial protocol has yet been fully reversed engineered. I am working on it though.

Mitsu head units have a built in IR sensor to measure the room temp, no external tstat needed..

I guess that’s the difference between bargain basement units and feature rich products.

 

[hwy17]

Mitsu head units have a built in IR sensor to measure the room temp, no external tstat needed..

I guess that’s the difference between bargain basement units and feature rich products.

I'm skeptical. Pointed internally to measure the air stream or externally to measure across the room?