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Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch

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Re: Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch

#171

Post by ajdlinux »

ctippett wrote: post #155

Great write up. Australia has pretty good consumer protection laws.. I feel like the warranty period offered by the manufacturer could/should be superseded by the Consumers Guarantee Act – it seems reasonable to expect an AC unit to operate and work for more than a few years. There is no specific time when the consumer guarantees no longer apply to products. They may apply even after the manufacturer's warranty perio…

That was my first thought - the Australian Consumer Law statutory guarantees would almost certainly come into play here, and this would be worth requesting assistance from the relevant state/territory Fair Trading.

Re: Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch

#172

Post by skykooler »

Krssst wrote: post #166
athrun wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking of doing the same but IR control only allows for unidirectional communication with the unit. Since there's no feedback mechanism, how do you solve for when the state of the unit(s) gets out of sync with HomeAssistant's?

If the message sent over IR always contains the full state, then it's only a matter of checking that the message was received. If you are in the room, you'll know soon enough, otherwise I guess it could be possible to rely on the audio feedback (a light beep) that the AC probably emits when it successfully receives a command. (and add a temperature sensor to check that it's working properly)

Not all state is necessarily transmitted over IR. For example, my unit has a button on the remote to turn the LED on or off; over the air this is just a toggle, only the AC knows which state the LED is in. (That said, that particular issue is easy enough to handle since changing any other parameter turns the LED back on, putting it back in a known state; there's no way to keep it off.)

Re: Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch

#173

Post by TeMPOraL »

gstar wrote: post #138
dbetteridge wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a small place there's a lot of sandgropers on HN somehow

Speaking of sandgropers, I do understand Advantage Air are based in WA - so it's fairly likely they're reading this!

Hopefully. Shame on them.

Also, good morning from Poland, EU :).

Re: Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch

#174

Post by MaXtreeM »

BrandoElFollito wrote: post #168

On a much, much smaller scale - this is why I insisted on having my roller covers driven by a physical button on the wall, instead of some proprietary radio. Not only the remote would never be where it belongs, but I just had to plug in a shelly to have a full automation connected to my home assistant. The vendors really wanted me to go for their solution until I met a guy who said sure, this is what he did too. One…

I followed the same logic when deciding what kind of blinds control to choose building my house few weeks ago. Now I am in the planning of adding automation to it. Did you use Shelly Plus 2PM or are there any cheaper options to choose from (they seem to start at 30€ in my country shops)? Did they fit nicely in the wall switch socket?

Re: Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch

#175

Post by iknowstuff »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #123
dbetteridge wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a small place there's a lot of sandgropers on HN somehow

Timezone effect, I think. Just us and the whole of East Asia online now. The Poms and Europeans are just about to wake up, and the Americans have logged off for the night.

Barely 11PM in California, prime reading time

Re: Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch

#176

Post by domh »

happyopossum wrote: post #73
SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me how, in USA, it’s the only civilized nation I’ve been to where you must have a prescription to purchase contacts and glasses. Everywhere else I’ve been will just sell you whatever magnification you need at the pharmacy. Obviously there is some acceptable line here, but I think the States handles this decently well enough. In Austin where I live you can get what is called a “homeowners permit” in a lot of c…

> Reminds me how, in USA, it’s the only civilized nation I’ve been to where you must have a prescription to purchase contacts and glasses Anecdotally this is far from true. Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, and the UK for example require a prescription for anything more complicated than reading glasses. There are plenty of reasons why, mostly summed up by your comment about “whatever magnification you need” - eyegl…

I'm not sure that's true about the UK and prescription glasses. When I moved back here I packed my glasses up in storage so was going to be without for 6/8 weeks before our stuff arrived. I went onto Glasses Direct[1] and ordered 2 new pairs of glasses for £50 by putting in my prescription details from another country. The glasses themselves are regulated as medical equipment, but you could go on there and buy any prescription you want and nothing will stop you.

[1]: https://www.glassesdirect.co.uk/

Re: Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch

#177

Post by jamesbfb »

Amazing! I love everything about this. However, also being in Australia, I would have tried my luck with Consumer Affairs. Our new house was equipped with a gas boosted solar hot was service. The gas booster died a year out of warranty and instead of replacing just their proprietary booster unit, they said the whole system would need to be replaced at a cost to me of $10'000+. A few weeks of back and forth (and limited hot water) with consumer affairs made enough noise and the company caved and replaced the booster unit for free.

Yes, it was out of warranty, but it's abhorrent that anyone should have to purchase a whole new anything when a small portion of it can be replaced independently.

Re: Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch

#178

Post by davesmylie »

paranoidrobot wrote: post #108

I installed AC in my home in the last year. I specifically went for units that were IR controlled rather than any proprietary smart B.S. For the smarts, I used cheap IR blasters from AliExpress and hooked them up to HomeAssistant. I just mounted cheap Lenovo tablets to the wall to do the room-dashboard thing to allow controlling lights/AC without a phone. These kind of horror stories only serve to reinforce my decisi…

funny - I literally bought a broadlink ir blaster today and got it hooked up to HA about 15 minutes ago, looking to do this exact same thing.

Out of curiousity, did you have any resources you were following to set this up? I'm pretty new to HA - basic devices etc seem fine, but I'm not entirely sure where to go next!

Re: Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch

#179

Post by arrowsmith »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #126
jamil7 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australia is definitely one of the most rule-obsessed countries, even in comparison to Germany, where I’ve lived for the last decade or so. Parts of my parent’s house back home are heritage listed, some rules make sense and some are bizarre, especially regarding the garden.

I moved back to Perth from Berlin last year, and yeah, agree completely. Germans have a reputation for being rule-obsessed but they're lax compared to the Aussies, who have a reputation for being larrikins that is almost completely undeserved. It's all "beer & bbq on the beach" until you find out that's illegal and the police will pour out your beer on the sand and fine you for the bbq.

larrikin:

1. (Australia, New Zealand, slang, dated) A brash and impertinent, possibly violent, troublemaker, especially a youth; a hooligan.

2. (Australia, slang) A high-spirited person who playfully rebels against authority and conventional norms.

Today I learned a new word.

Re: Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch

#180

Post by Nursie »

XorNot wrote: post #61
jamil7 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australia is definitely one of the most rule-obsessed countries, even in comparison to Germany, where I’ve lived for the last decade or so. Parts of my parent’s house back home are heritage listed, some rules make sense and some are bizarre, especially regarding the garden.

Heritage listing is it's own thing. What I hate is the rules surrounding...essentially any home services. Like it took me a long time to realize when people in the US were saying they "needed to get something up to code" what they meant was, that they themselves didn't feel up to doing the work and it would cost them. But like...you can. You can just call the guys and double-check what needs to be done and do it your…

Yeah it's not like the work done by the trades is always a shining example of competence.

I can and often do do a better job on things myself, because I have more time and I care about getting it right. And with the apparent trade shortage (at least in part caused by how much you need them for real basic shit), it's expensive and half the time the bastards won't answer the phone or don't show up to appointments. So stuff gets done on the down-low or it just doesn't get done at all.

Gotta love the signs at the hardware store saying "You can buy this stuff but if you even think about installing it yourself, that's illegal!"

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