[HN Gopher] Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch
___________________________________________________________________
Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch
Author : ranebo
Score : 1724 points
Date : 2024-08-29 01:28 UTC (21 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.hopefullyuseful.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.hopefullyuseful.com)
| aledalgrande wrote:
| That "not on AA hardware" error from an app running on a plain
| Android tablet should be criminal.
| gwd wrote:
| In defense of this, remember that any random person can
| download and install this app on any android device. It does
| make sense to have a clear failure mode in this case. Anyone
| willing to pull out a soldering iron to attach a new tablet is
| perfectly capable of working around this.
| SahAssar wrote:
| If that was the motivation it should be a warning, not a hard
| error.
| prmoustache wrote:
| What is the risk here?
| gwd wrote:
| Consider the following scenario:
|
| 1. Someone owns one of these systems which is functioning
| perfectly well.
|
| 2. They stumble across a link allowing them to download the
| controller app, and so they install it on their normal
| tablet, expecting to be able to control the system from
| their tablet
|
| 3a. It doesn't work, so they contact technical support.
| Technical support wastes a bunch of time before figuring
| out why the app isn't working, only eventually to realize
| what's going on.
|
| 3b. They can't get the app to work, and so slag the system
| on social media.
|
| Both have costs both to the people who end up downloading
| it, and to the company -- costs which could be avoided by
| having a simple error message.
| passwordoops wrote:
| There's nothing wrong with this scenario per se, but
| there's a 100% chance this is not the reason for their
| decision
| gwd wrote:
| There can be multiple reasons to do something. It's a
| simple, effective way to avoid some legit issues that
| doesn't require much if any testing; by itself it's a
| perfectly legitimate business decision and doesn't need
| to be illegal.
|
| Paired with their attitude towards repairing the broken
| tablets, it's clearly _also_ a part of their "planned
| obsolescence" scam.
| anoother wrote:
| This is pretty simple to solve for. Eg. Have the app
| provide an ID the customer can quote to the CS rep; Have
| the app also log this ID, along with the system it's
| being run on, to the cloud/an interface that pops up an
| "unsupported system" message to the CS agent on entering
| the ID.
| majewsky wrote:
| How does this solve 3b?
| prmoustache wrote:
| But you could have a warning at the start of the app
| without rendering it unusable that would pretty much
| solve old points.
| lolinder wrote:
| You've clearly never worked in tech support. People who
| are likely to go through the steps that OP described
| aren't going to read the warning.
| syntaxing wrote:
| I don't quite get why snipping the data line on the PoE to USB
| fixed the connection issue. Is it because the USB has "two" data
| lines?
| svieira wrote:
| That is how I read it.
| kalleboo wrote:
| The "PoE"[0] board was also a USB device wired onto the pins
| for the single USB port on the board. USB is not a multidrop
| bus - if you directly wire two devices to a single USB port it
| will not work, you need an active USB hub.
|
| [0]quotes because looking at that FTDI chip though my bet is
| it's actually serial over Cat5...
| ranebo wrote:
| I think it is some sort of serial comm over cat5. My only
| concern was getting the thing working again :) But if still
| interested here is a close up of the chip side of the POE
| connector: https://blog.hopefullyuseful.com/blog/advantage-
| air-ezone-ta...
| nehz wrote:
| Cheers, I am looking at this for our system but it is still
| working so I didn't want to mess it up, but was planning
| for the eventuality... I've been reverse engineering the
| app, so your post has cleared a few things up for me :)
|
| The plan is to get rid of the tablet and put a Amazon echo
| hub or HA on a tablet that directly controls the aircon in
| the future
| gstar wrote:
| Interesting! Yours is a different rev to mine, and a
| different chip. Can you post photos of both sides please?
| hex4def6 wrote:
| Because USB is not a multi-tap network. It's a point-to-point
| between host and peripheral, or host and host pretending to be
| a peripheral (OTG mode).
|
| That USB dongle was bodged on to the USB port D+/D- pins going
| to the tablet's SOC. If you then connect a PC to that port, you
| have two hosts (SOC & PC), and one peripheral on the same pair
| of data lines. No bueno.
|
| I can't believe the bodge job inside that tablet. It looks like
| the prototype became the final product.
| ornornor wrote:
| That's why the replacement is so expensive, each unit is
| handcrafted.
| lelandfe wrote:
| > _For whatever reason (I suspect some sort of storage failure)
| everyone's tablets die around the same time._
|
| What a fun, completely coincidental quirk that that time appears
| to fall outside the warranty window, hey?
| irjustin wrote:
| knowing a lot of these companies. it wouldn't really matter if
| it fell inside of the warranty. they would simply screw a lot
| of people over until there's a class action lawsuit (or
| whatever equivalent is in that country) where they get a slap
| on the wrist for not honoring warranty claims.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Carrier back in the 2000's had a problem with their heat
| exchangers in their gas furnaces failing far more often than
| they should. They were sued, settled, and part of the
| settlement was an extended warranty of the heat exchanger,
| including labor.
|
| Great, right?
|
| The local carrier dealer lied and said the unit wasn't under
| warranty. They lied again when reminded of the class-action
| settlement, claiming only part were included and said would
| cost a fortune in labor.
|
| When I called Carrier and told them what their factory
| authorized gold/preferred/whatever-they're-called dealer was
| pulling, Carrier confirmed I was correct and even verified
| the unit's serial number and said that if the dealer had
| checked the SN, they would have found it was covered.
|
| The dealer then said 'fine, but those parts are going to take
| weeks to get from the warehouse' knowing damn well I had no
| heat, in the winter. They had us over a barrel and they
| fucking knew it, and I didn't have any way to prove that
| claim wrong.
| Marsymars wrote:
| I'd have let the dealer do the install, and then only
| brought up the fact that it was under warranty afterwards.
| kmoser wrote:
| My A/C unit is fairly new but there are signs the condenser
| unit fan is starting to go. Since it is still under warranty
| for parts (not labor) I thought I would be able to just get a
| replacement fan and install it myself. But no, the
| manufacturer will only deal with a "certified technician,"
| who of course charges an outrageous amount of money (many
| hundreds of dollars) to replace the fan. When I asked the
| technician why the labor cost so much, they gave me some song
| and dance about how the prices were set by their central
| office (true) and that the cost also included filing the
| paperwork to make a warranty claim (seriously?).
|
| At the end of the day, I could probably buy an aftermarket
| fan off the Internet and install it myself, spending far less
| than the certified technician would charge to install the
| "free" OEM replacement part.
| Gabrys1 wrote:
| This reads similarly to how with certain medical insurance
| you only pay a flat $5 (instead of the full price of $25+)
| for common meds that you can get for $1.50 outside of
| insurance...
| freetanga wrote:
| Also, likely the technicians company paid big money to be
| an official provider (or pays a % of this job up)
|
| At least Ponzi had style.
| liminalsunset wrote:
| Just as a data point for those in Canada (maybe US, but I'm
| not sure if it's the same company), I have a Senville unit,
| bought from their website, and they sent a replacement
| plastic (yes, it's a plastic bead in a piece of rubber)
| bearing for the indoor fan for free with shipping free too
| a few years ago, after providing the unit's serial number
| and the original name on the receipt. The unit was in-
| warranty. They claim that you have to have the unit
| professionally installed to get the warranty, but nobody
| asked for this at any point (could have been due to
| triviality of the part). Either way I was pleasantly
| surprised by the willingness to provide parts, even though
| the documentation of part numbers and models/generations on
| their site isn't super clear.
|
| It's now out of warranty, but most of these units are built
| by either Gree (some Trane, Tosot, Gree, some Lennox iirc)
| or Midea (MrCool, Eco-Air, Senville, Pioneer, Carrier), so
| searching for the "canonical name" of your system can be
| helpful in finding parts. (usually, its of a pattern like
| "M5OG-48HFN1-M", can be found with meticulous googling for
| catalogs). There is a lot of parts commonality between
| units. You have to be creative with finding parts on
| AliExpress as they go by any number of names that you
| wouldn't expect, and a lot of this stuff is bought by eye
| (or random dimensions, of which there are some canonical
| ones for each part) and not by part number unfortunately.
| Lammy wrote:
| Very convenient for them and also easy to accomplish by buying
| the cheapest parts. It's probably eMMC-based and writing a
| logfile constantly. Source: every Android that has ever died on
| me in this exact way (four and counting)
| girvo wrote:
| Yep this is nearly guaranteed. Kills so many IoT things,
| logging the world and eMMC write limits being garbage.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| I feel this may be natural selection at play.
|
| With bottom-of-the-barrel (and/or "value add") IoT garbage,
| hardware suppliers are a commodity, and under competitive
| pressure, the winners will be ones that can make cheapest
| hardware that _just about outlasts a typical warranty
| period_ of their customers ' products. Shorter-lived parts
| will not bring repeat business; longer-lived parts will get
| value-optimized further. Failing just after warranty period
| is _Just Right_.
| nairboon wrote:
| Depending on the particular consumer group, this could
| also backfire in the long term. With consumer warranty
| being ridiculously short. They will increasingly notice
| the pattern, that devices from brand X always brick
| shortly after warranty is over. And maybe moving to more
| trusting, but pricey brands.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Unfortunately, there are almost no "pricey brands" left
| that serve the middle range of price/quality. Most of
| them sold out to or just became replaced by bottom-of-
| the-barrel shit sellers, that are happy to continuously
| cycle through dozens of fly-by-night brands. It's still
| possible to get quality work done, but that's one of the
| few very premium brands and/or bespoke work; if you have
| to ask, you can't afford it.
|
| (Just look at Amazon marketplace if you think I'm
| exaggerating.)
|
| Customers have been "noticing" this pattern for couple
| decades now; it's not just in tech, but everywhere across
| the board - from foodstuffs, through appliances, sports
| equipment, clothing, hygiene, all the way to computing.
| Unfortunately, this is a pattern in the same sense a
| tsunami is - you notice the wave is growing and about to
| flood everything around you, but there's _fuck all you
| can do about it_.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > you notice the wave is growing and about to flood
| everything around you, but there's fuck all you can do
| about it.
|
| Depends. For some product lines there's the "commercial
| grade" stuff available - for TVs, look into Digital
| Signage product lines and add some sort of TV stick (or
| an rpi) to them for the brains, for power tools look at
| what the tradespeople use (it's probably Bosch blue
| series, Makita or DeWalt), for kitchen equipment ask your
| nearest restaurant. For computing, I'd go to Apple (if
| your ecosystem supports it), Lenovo/Dell/HPs business
| line stuff (you don't need to buy the next day on-site
| package, but you want the models that _do_ have that as
| an option because that 's the ones that are both made for
| easy repair and have better components in the first
| place) or Framework. You pay quite the hefty premium over
| Chinesium stuff, but it's worth it.
|
| Only thing I'd stay far away from if you're not trained
| on how to use them is cleaning supplies of all kinds,
| hair and body shampoo as the commercial ones are way
| stronger concentrated and you can do serious damage to
| your (or your loved ones) bodies if you, say, leave them
| on too long.
| nairboon wrote:
| > you notice the wave is growing and about to flood
| everything around you, but there's fuck all you can do
| about it.
|
| In terms of online shopping, if the distributor
| cooperates with the consumer then there is something to
| do about it. One of the largest Swiss online shop started
| to share warranty statistics of all products. That
| information is quite useful to avoid the cheap and soon
| to break stuff. Of course it's not perfect, since it only
| tracks faults within the 2 year warranty period. But it
| provides a proxy signal for quality. But maybe that only
| works in smaller markets with less incentives to game the
| statistics.
|
| See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34536344
| jeremyjh wrote:
| I think its worse than that because they don't actually
| have to log so much. This is choice a developer made, but
| it would cost nothing (except salary for competent staff)
| to make the correct choice.
| dfox wrote:
| SDs and eMMC also usually have the same feature as the
| famous IBM "DeathStar" HDDs from the 00's: the thing gets
| completely hosed when it loses power when write is in
| progress.
|
| I do not have exact statistics but I believe that this is
| the most common failure mode of SD cards in embedded
| systems that we supply (but a friend who works for certain
| ARM and PowerPC SoC vendor told me that he has statistics
| that disprove my theory, so take that with a grain of
| salt).
| windowsrookie wrote:
| I recently had to fix the radio in my car for the same
| reason. Pioneer installed the firmware onto a cheap SD card
| that they have hidden inside the radio and requires
| disassembly to replace. Of course they don't offer the
| original firmware anywhere, luckily someone online has backed
| it up and I found the file on reddit.
| rx_tx wrote:
| It's been a big pain for Tesla as well, where their tiny 8GB
| emmc on the center screen would fail since they logged to it
| too much... 134,000 vehicles recalled eventually after they
| denied it was an issue.
|
| https://www.tesla.com/support/8gb-emmc-recall-frequently-
| ask...
| consteval wrote:
| Jesus Christ are they amateurs? These are steel boxes on
| wheels and we're dealing with the same issues as shitty 200
| dollars android tablets from 10 years ago.
| xandrius wrote:
| That's because all who gets hired at these hyper-fast
| startups are fresh graduates who can do leetcode by
| heart.
|
| The people who have been in the field for a decade or
| more can't be arsed putting up with all that and so you
| get stupid issues which were solved years ago but the
| devs were not aware of them.
| OkGoDoIt wrote:
| So where do those people go to work instead? I want to
| work with them.
| amiga-workbench wrote:
| Surely it can't cost much more to go for a larger eMMC chip
| and have it massively over-provisioned with plenty of space
| for wear levelling?
|
| The underlying flash memory is trash and the controller
| already does a ton of heavy lifting to keep the data
| coherent.
| MaxikCZ wrote:
| But then you are not only making your build price higher,
| you also have less revenue as year pass. And its hard to
| market.
| jandrese wrote:
| It's a $1,700 bottom barrel android tablet, there is
| plenty of profit margin available.
| lintfordpickle wrote:
| I don't think the problem is necessarily space, but rather
| write-limits being used by superfluous logging
| user_7832 wrote:
| If I remember correctly it's also about eMMC having a
| much shorter life than UFS or similar storage. Though
| yes, unnecessary logging isn't helpful either. (Quick
| post-googling edit: apparently both use NAND, it's more
| about wear leveling apparently that makes the
| differences.)
| amiga-workbench wrote:
| That's where the wear levelling comes in, still expose
| 8GB of space to the host device, but internally have I
| dunno, twice that in cell capacity that you can move bits
| to as other cells wear out.
|
| Its a shame mobile devices don't have a SMART equivalent,
| would be nice to have some warning as something
| approaches the end of its life.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Do you even have to limit the exposed space?
|
| It's not going to write at twice the rate just because
| more space is available.
| amiga-workbench wrote:
| You do, most SSD controllers already implement this. Have
| you ever wondered why most SSD's come in slightly odd
| sizes like 100GB instead of 128GB? The extra space is put
| aside and used for wear levelling and other maintenance
| tasks.
|
| You can find out a bit more here
| https://www.seagate.com/gb/en/blog/ssd-over-provisioning-
| and...
|
| I also remember a guide a while ago on how to reprogram a
| SSD to operate in SLC mode instead of MLC. You lost disk
| capacity but gained a large performance boost and a
| reduced error rate.
| jeremyjh wrote:
| Why do you want to spend money on hardware to solve a
| software problem? The software doesn't have to write the
| logs to the SD card.
| nairboon wrote:
| I recently had an otherwise perfectly fine eMMC-based Samsung
| phone degraded to unusable floppy disk speeds.
|
| My guess is that their "RAM Plus" feature (aka swap) combined
| with the memory hungry modern android apps turned out to be a
| nasty timebomb. Which has or still is bricking millions of
| smartphones after a few years of usage.
| OkGoDoIt wrote:
| Sounds like fixing that would be really bad for Samsung's
| bottom line. Higher cost of materials initially, less
| frequent upgrades, and only a very small subset of super
| technical users even realize what the problem is.
| boopdewoop wrote:
| I wonder if it could be they are logging and not clearing the
| logs, filling up the storage - since its happening around the
| same time for everyone.
| grishka wrote:
| Maybe not filling up but wearing out the flash chip itself.
| If it was filling up, then a factory reset should've helped.
| 1024core wrote:
| I wish he had poked around the Java code and looked for what
| might be triggering that.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > What a fun, completely coincidental quirk that that time
| appears to fall outside the warranty window, hey?
|
| Isn't that the point of the warranty? They tell you they think
| the product will last for X years, and then it lasts about X
| years, just like they warranted.
| thayne wrote:
| HVAC systems are usually advertised as lasting at least a
| decade, but the warranty is usually only a year or two.
|
| Honestly, I think something needs to be done so that
| companies are held liable for expensive products failing and
| needing expensive repairs after a year or two.
| TrackerFF wrote:
| Component failures happen.
|
| I had a Phillips 4K LED TV I purchased on sale in April 2021.
| The TV was glitchy, and I'd get all sorts of weird problems
| with it - but nothing really terrible.
|
| Then two weeks into January this year, the picture suddenly
| becomes a jumbled mess of vertical stripes. One second it's
| fine, the next second it's broken.
|
| Luckily we have a general 5 year warranty period here in
| Norway, and TVs are expected to last for at least 5 years. I
| called the shop, and they told me to just bring the TV.
|
| When I get there with the TV, I notice two other identical TVs.
| I check out the note that hangs on them, and see that they are
| broken, with the same symptoms as mine. Both had purchase dates
| around March / April 2021.
|
| I can only assume some component failure.
| poidos wrote:
| What a waste. Real great for the environment for this company to
| (probably) just be junking a ton of hardware in perfect working
| order every couple years to make a buck.
|
| Fun read otherwise and wonderful to see someone stick it to them
| this way, but that type of thing really pisses me off.
| redact207 wrote:
| I love that this man resurrected his blog after 10 years just to
| write this. Anger and spite are strong motivators.
| ranebo wrote:
| You have no idea how true this is :). I had to upgrade
| everything, the old site didn't even have SSL. But this annoyed
| me so much I wanted others to know how to fix it.
| randmeerkat wrote:
| > You have no idea how true this is :). I had to upgrade
| everything, the old site didn't even have SSL. But this
| annoyed me so much I wanted others to know how to fix it.
|
| People like you are the ones that make the internet worth
| logging on for.
| runnr_az wrote:
| Super fun read. Reminds me of the old software cracking
| days... totally appreciate you sharing it, even though i
| likely will never have one of those AC units.
| anfilt wrote:
| Glad you did! Nice read as well.
| mst wrote:
| My best open source work is pretty much entirely in the 'Rage
| Driven Development' category.
|
| (solid post, also solid rant, mate)
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| I made my daughter's bed from scratch out of anger and spite
| toward IKEA.
| unkulunkulu wrote:
| IKEA? Thats a surprise, what happened?
| margalabargala wrote:
| They probably noticed the material quality.
| bityard wrote:
| Some IKEA furniture is great, some of it is terrible. 10-15
| years ago, it was where you'd go when you needed a great-
| looking nightstand or coffee table for a fair price and
| didn't overly care how long it would last. These days, you
| can expect to pay a premium for the "IKEA aesthetic" and
| shopping experience.
|
| Personally, the main thing I can't stand is that you have
| only limited ability to "choose your own adventure" and
| just go straight to the thing you're there to buy. I don't
| want to spend 25 minutes wandering through their corporate-
| curated displays to get to the kitchen faucets.
|
| I think they still have a good price on AA NiMH batteries,
| though.
|
| Edit: I am speaking to the US stores, I have no idea what
| IKEA is like closer to their homeland.
| Suppafly wrote:
| >Personally, the main thing I can't stand is that you
| have only limited ability to "choose your own adventure"
| and just go straight to the thing you're there to buy.
|
| Sure you can, just go down to the basement area where you
| pick up all the boxes anyway. You only need to browse if
| you don't know what you want.
| jamesholden wrote:
| I have some freak brain (and IKEA experience) which usually
| let's me do IKEA pretty well. What was it that happened in
| your case? I'm curious what brought you to that point.
| yurishimo wrote:
| Maybe they moved? In my experience, IKEA furniture that
| isn't solid wood (more and more of it is heading that
| direction to their credit) tends to not make it more than 1
| move.
|
| I just got done (mostly) reassembling a wardrobe. It's a
| bit more wobbly around the edges. I'm not sure if it's
| because I didn't put the shelves back in the exact spots
| (wasn't thinking and didn't label them during disassembly)
| or if it's something else, but once we decide it's not good
| enough for the room upstairs where it now lives, it's
| getting put in the dumpster.
| lolinder wrote:
| I tend to assume that IKEA furniture shouldn't be
| actually taken apart once put together, and so far that's
| worked out fine for us. There are some pieces that are
| obviously repeatable (table legs screwed into metal
| mounting brackets) but with a lot of the steps you can
| feel as you're doing it the first time that it's not
| going to work well if you have to undo it.
| abanana wrote:
| True. Adding a few 2" screws (into pilot holes) makes an
| enormous difference to the rigidity of their (e.g.)
| wardrobes and kitchen units. Even on first assembly, but
| especially if you have to take apart and rebuild.
| dfox wrote:
| IIRC when we wanted to move one of the pretty large IKEA
| dressers that had to be at least partially disassembled
| to fit through the door there was no non-destructive way
| to dismantle it. And that was not about trivial things
| like the back panel being nailed, but about fasteners of
| the actual structural parts being inaccessible once you
| put the whole thing together. One would think that going
| through the assembly steps in reverse should work, but
| for some reason it did not. I ended up breaking few
| structural braces (~18x48mm pieces of fiberboard) at the
| back of the thing to take it apart and replacing that
| with wooden beams of the same size.
| consteval wrote:
| This "trend" of furniture being made of composite
| materials makes no sense to me. They're obviously so much
| weaker. I've had nightstands that sway like a tree in the
| summer breeze. Furniture today though doesn't feel much
| cheaper. Even the "luxury" brands these days, who charge
| big bucks, sneak in composite.
| michaelt wrote:
| _> This "trend" of furniture being made of composite
| materials makes no sense to me._
|
| Solid wood is expensive, in a lot of the world.
|
| And for furniture, you can't do a good job with cheap
| wood - if it twists or bows the doors won't close right,
| or the drawer will be tight. Need a hole in a particular
| position, but there's a knot? You're going to have a bad
| time. Wood with loads of knots doesn't look great. And of
| course, some types of wood cost a lot more than others.
|
| Chipboard with veneer, though? It's super cheap. You can
| have any colour you like. It machines consistently, with
| no knots or checks like that. The response to temperature
| and humidity is even and consistent. If you need more
| strength, you can just order thicker boards. Sure, you
| can't leave it outside in the rain - but so what?
|
| The main downside to flat pack furniture is a lot of
| people don't manage to assemble it right. A nightstand
| will end up in an awful state if the person who assembled
| it forgot to nail the back on properly, or used a short
| screw where a long screw was called for, or put a part in
| the wrong way around.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| It does make the furniture much lighter and therefore
| easier to move. I once had to move a plywood dresser and
| it was an experience i'd rather not repeat. Light
| furniture on the other hand is a pleasure to work with.
| tracker1 wrote:
| It depends, a lot of composite materials are actually
| stronger than just solid wood, while being lighter and
| easier to move. Sometimes there are too many shortcuts
| though.
|
| Wood veneer over cheaper materials has been common for
| over a century at this point though.
| datavirtue wrote:
| I bought a bed that when built according to instructions
| would end up broken. I tried to blame my son, then I dug in
| on the details. Absolute garbage. Through it in the
| box,sort of, hauled it back in and demanded my money back.
| While I was waiting in line I was staring at signs
| exclaiming the policy about no refunds. Dude saw the look
| on my face and didn't say one word, just gave me money
| back. I ordered a replacement from Amazon made out of
| steel.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _I made my daughter's bed from scratch out of anger and spite
| toward IKEA._
|
| I would have used wood and nails. You must have terrifically
| strong emotions!
| mst wrote:
| Meanwhile they had to fire their DBA because they kept
| dropping tables.
| bitcharmer wrote:
| I love it too but this only becomes worthwhile if you manage to
| promote this post in social media somewhere. If you don't
| already have a strong social media presence or don't personally
| know anyone who does you can forget about it. And here on HN
| you really have to get lucky, post at the right time and hope
| the flagging gangs don't get you.
| Etheryte wrote:
| This is only the case if you blog for social media clicks and
| likes. Most people who write blogs don't do it for that
| reason.
| JohnFen wrote:
| I could not disagree more. This sort of thing is a public
| service. Even if only a dozen people find it valuable, it can
| be _exceedingly_ valuable to them. It 's worth putting this
| sort of thing on your website for that reason alone.
| Cerium wrote:
| In complete agreement, I will add an anecdote from my
| experience:
|
| I have a tiny hardly updated blog where I post stuff I do
| and assume nobody at all will ever read it. A month ago I
| got an email from somebody asking about a detail because
| her granddaughter's toy has the same problem that my
| daughter's did. It is so rewarding that some work I did for
| myself can continue to have value for people across the
| world.
| gary_0 wrote:
| Anyone remember the movie _Brazil_? This fellow better watch his
| back.
|
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=dht_3NziwSw
| canadaduane wrote:
| Sounds like there could be a niche business here. "$300 and we'll
| send you a new on/off switch, shipping included."
| Nursie wrote:
| Well that's getting a bookmark!
|
| We had an Advantage Air system installed last year, and the
| cheap, low-powered nature of the tablet was immediately obvious.
| Nice to know it can fairly easily be replaced with any old device
| or phone as and when it craps out.
| bsder wrote:
| I would probably replace it now while everything is working.
|
| You _know_ that tablet is cheap and is going to die. Figure out
| the procedure to replace it with something that doesn 't suck
| before you've lost your heat/air conditioning.
| Nursie wrote:
| Right now we're still in warranty but you're right, it's
| probably a good plan to get the contingency in place before
| it becomes a problem.
| cmcaleer wrote:
| You can also plan it out so it's a neater install if you do
| the installation now, rather than when it craps out. I know
| for a fact that if I had to do what this guy is after this
| quest with no functioning air con, that tablet is dangling
| out the wall for about 2 years until I bother to look at it
| again.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Reaffirming my belief that I want nothing "smart" controlling
| critical infrastructure in my home. What if it were dead of
| winter, would he have been able to control the heat?
| boardwaalk wrote:
| There are thermostats, among other things, that use standard
| protocols and still work in a "dumb" way if not connected. You
| just need to do some homework.
| maxerickson wrote:
| The thing in the article is a thermostat-zone controller
| system, where the tablet is part of the multi-zone
| controller, and there aren't really separate thermostats.
|
| In the US, it's common that the input to each zone controller
| is just a open/close contact, so in the worst case you can
| call for heat by shorting the right wires together.
|
| I have a smart thermostat that I use the provided app to
| control, but one of the reasons I went with it is that
| there's also an http server in the device firmware that can
| be used to control it (so if they totally ruin the app or
| turn off the server or whatever, there's a way out).
| weikju wrote:
| > (so if they totally ruin the app or turn off the server
| or whatever, there's a way out)
|
| It's not impossible that when this happens, they'd also
| first push out an update to disable the http server.
| maxerickson wrote:
| True. The remote features are somewhat focused on multi
| building commercial users, so I am not real worried that
| they will aggressively ruin it.
| dilyevsky wrote:
| There needs to be a law that any hardware/software that goes
| into people homes has to be gplv3. Instead we get braindead ai
| bills that are threatening to kill open models...
| cbanek wrote:
| This is when smart gets stupid. I'm a bit worried about this with
| my nest and other smart devices, but even with normal air
| conditioners there are a few stupid simple problems that will
| cost you hundreds of dollars!
|
| A couple of weeks ago my AC blower fan stopped working, the
| compressor would run. I went up and found out that the capacitor
| was bad, and took a picture of it, buying a replacement. Took
| about 15 minutes to replace and I probably saved myself at least
| $400 (no AC is an emergency in the desert, and they will charge
| you accordingly).
|
| Fixing household appliances can be fun too!
| asah wrote:
| +1. Repair all sorts of stuff... Capresso burr grinder, little
| plastic knob broke off inside, repaired with a 10c washer and
| glue... worked great for years and you'd never know...
| SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
| I highly recommend people who live in hot environments to keep
| a spare capacitor on hand. Even if you know how to fix it, if
| the AC dies when your local HVAC supply store is closed (eg not
| between 7am-7pm Monday through Saturday usually) you're either
| stuck paying out the nose to a contractor who has one on hand
| during emergency hours or you're sweating it out waiting for
| the store to open. While they are readily available components
| that consumers can purchase, they aren't things that Walmart
| carries. But HVAC supply shops will sell them to you, you don't
| need to be licensed or anything to buy them. You can also just
| get them on Amazon, likely for cheaper than the HVAC supply
| shop will sell them to you.
|
| It really is an easy repair. Needs a screwdriver and knowledge
| enough to shut off the electricity to touch the wires.
| According to code every one of these condenser units outside
| has a disconnect right there so you don't even need to turn off
| the power at the breaker box. Just pull that disconnect, open
| up your outdoor condenser unit, snap a pic of the specs on the
| capacitor (it's the only thing that looks like a soda can) and
| order one off Amazon and stash it somewhere. It's a tiny part.
| It will take like 5 minutes max and save you several hundred
| bucks and a lot of sweat eventually.
|
| FWIW, when ac dies it's usually in this order of root causes:
|
| Float switch: your condensate drain line got clogged because it
| just does and you need to clear it. You can proactively prevent
| this by pouring bleach or vinegar down the line periodically
| (what clogs it is usually some sort of gnarly plant like growth
| from all the moisture) or if it's clogged you need to clear it.
| The hvac guys will charge you 300 bucks to blow pressurized air
| through the pipe or you can literally just duct tape a wet shop
| vac to the thing and suck it out yourself. Attachments can be
| purchased on Amazon for reasonable price.
|
| A capacitor issue is the second most common. If it ain't the
| float switch almost always it's the capacitor. You can increase
| your capacitor longevity and also decrease your electric bill
| by changing your air filter regularly but also hosing down the
| outside condenser coils every few months or so. Almost everyone
| knows about the air filter but few people know about hosing
| down the coils. This makes a HUGE difference. We are talking
| like 20-30% of your electric bill in hot climates if you don't
| do it. Just take a hose and spray downward on the grates and
| get all that dust and dead grass from mowing out of there. You
| won't hurt the thing. Why does this help? Well, it's better to
| think of AC not as adding cool air. There's no such thing as
| adding cool air. Only removal of heat. How does heat get
| removed out of your house? Through that condenser unit. If
| those grates are clogged up the heat cannot escape and the unit
| must work harder to do less effective job. So keep those coils
| clean.
|
| Everything else after that is way less common. Yeah compressors
| do die. Motors die. Refrigerant leaks. Computer components die.
| Thermostats fail. However it's very rare that the issue is
| something other than these two things in comparison. Like
| probably 80% of all HVAC residential calls are probably the
| above two things I mentioned.
| biggc wrote:
| How big can these capacitors be? Does replacing it require
| any safety precautions besides turning off the power?
| pxx wrote:
| the capacitors are connected across the motor windings and
| are there essentially as a way to shift the phase of the
| current waveform. note that this is a two-phase power
| special; you don't need start or run capacitors if you're
| using 3-phase power (uncommon in North American residential
| settings, but YMMV worldwide)
|
| when power is disconnected they are not charged at all.
| it's not like the capacitors you might find in a CRT
| rocqua wrote:
| So what you are saying is that the capacitors are
| effectively shorted with the motor coil, and hence they
| have a drain resistor that has effectively no resistance?
| SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
| The capacitors size themselves are small. They slightly
| vary but are almost always the size of a medium Red Bull
| can. They are sized to your unit though so you can't just
| buy one without looking at the specs and expect it to work.
| But the specs are printed on the side of the can and if not
| can be derived from the specs on the unit itself.
|
| As far as their danger there really isn't any beyond
| getting shocked from dealing with live wires. Technically
| they can retain a bit of a charge so I've seen
| recommendations to wait X amount of time before touching
| them with your bare hands or to discharge it by touching it
| with an insulated screwdriver to discharge it but the risk
| is pretty low. Once the power is off (either at the breaker
| or via the disconnect at the condenser unit, power only
| goes in one way to those things so if you turn it off in
| one place there's no way you'll get a zap) it's a soda can
| with 3 wires going into it. You just disconnect the 3 wires
| from the old soda can, remove it, replace and connect the
| new one. Not that much harder than changing a light bulb.
| dexterdog wrote:
| Turn off the power or pull the local disconnect. Also,
| short out the capacitor before touching it. You can do that
| by connecting the terminals with your screwdriver. There
| are plenty of yt vids explaining the process.
| cbanek wrote:
| it's recommended to give it some time if it's been running
| and to short across the terminals with something, like a
| screwdriver that has a non conducting handle. It's nothing
| too ridiculous.
| nick__m wrote:
| to be safe short it with a screwdriver (unplug the unit
| before), unlike a lion battery it won't explode.
| bentcorner wrote:
| My A/C failed in the same way and with some help from
| youtube and a multimeter I debugged it to the same problem.
| Replaced it with this one:
| https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GSU47TQ
|
| There's a bunch of similar capacitors on Amazon (or your
| local hardware store). They're about the size of a soda
| can. I believe the "old" capacitor in your A/C can zap you
| if you don't ground the lines together when you pull it
| out, if you watch youtube videos for this repair they'll
| ground it with a screwdriver or other metal object.
| ornornor wrote:
| When I see large capacitors (for me it's more girth than my
| little finger), I have alarm bells going on. One << soda
| can sized >> can definitely kill you. It should be
| discharged before messing with it. You can buy capacitor
| drains (basically a big ass resistor) that you put across
| the capacitor's legs to drain the energy in it.
|
| Some do it with an insulated screwdriver but that's
| dangerous because it's a short, can ark, fuse the driver to
| the capacitor, and result in a bad day.
| teslabox wrote:
| > But HVAC supply shops will sell them to you, you don't need
| to be licensed or anything to buy them.
|
| My local HVAC supplier doesn't sell to non-licensed people. I
| think they don't like dealing with returns from people who
| don't know what they're doing. I needed a 24vac transformer
| once. My dad used the same HVAC company for his office for a
| long time, they still remembered him, and had the part I
| needed in stock.
|
| My brother's capacitor went out, but we found the part he
| needed at a local Grainger branch.
| https://www.grainger.com/category/motors/motor-capacitors
|
| Two summers ago my AC didn't sound right. IIRC the outside
| unit was clicking on and off. I pulled the breaker.
| Eventually I decided the problem was with the contactor (a
| switch controlled by 24vac). I took pictures of where the
| wires were connected and pulled the contactor. For no
| particular reason I started taking the old contactor apart,
| and found a cricket in the middle. I removed the bug, cleaned
| out the cricket residue, put the contactor back together, and
| returned it to the outside unit. My AC system resumed working
| perfectly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contactor
| adxl wrote:
| Bug
| SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
| I've heard of this in the past. Usually the shop will sell
| to you without a license if you're affiliated with an HVAC
| company, because you might be some unlicensed peon picking
| up parts for the installer or technician down the road. But
| they often have no way to verify whether you're a HVAC
| person for things that don't require a license vs some
| clued in homeowner, so you can give them a made up LLC name
| and say you want a cash account. It takes a fair bit of
| confidence to pull this off though. Easier and cheaper to
| order off of Amazon usually anyway
|
| FWIW there are some things that DO require licensing.
| Purchasing refrigerant requires an EPA number. Almost no
| shop will sell you full on ready to install systems without
| a contractors license. But off the shelf components like
| this don't require one and they have unlicensed helpers
| coming in all the time buying stuff, so confidently
| pretending you're one of those is usually enough in a
| pinch.
| Suppafly wrote:
| > Purchasing refrigerant requires an EPA number.
|
| Why can I buy as many cans of it that I want for my car
| then? Is the stuff used in house systems that different?
| zrobotics wrote:
| A lot of supply houses only sell to people with an account
| setup. It's not that you need to be a liscenced contractor,
| they just aren't setup for retail sale. This often extends
| to not even having a till, customers create an account with
| net 30/60 terms.
|
| A good way to check if a place does retail sale is to ask
| for the city desk when calling in.
| downut wrote:
| I want to emphasize for others how important this comment is.
| I live in suburban Atlanta and last month the AC failed. Can
| you guess what day and time it failed? Yep, 8AM on 96F/70%
| humidity SUNDAY. And we moved into this f*cking old house a
| year earlier after moving across the country so no local
| knowledge of contractors. After about 15 minutes in google
| maps I call up my best guess based entirely on internet
| vibes. After some hemming and hawing which is best described
| as a verbal biopsy of my wallet ("it's going to be $200 for
| showing up") the dude shows up. We get to talking as one does
| (I DIY everything) and he says I'll show you how to fix it,
| it's very likely the capacitor is the problem.
|
| So he unscrews the panel, pulls off the leads, puts in the
| new capacitor and voila. Then the guy says basically exactly
| what the above para starting with "A capacitor issue...",
| including hosing down the coils.
|
| So in 10 minutes I learned another mandatory skill on a
| Sunday morning, and it only cost $675. (Yes I know better
| than to place my tongue across the capacitor connectors)
|
| Last year I fixed the condensate drain line clog myself, by
| uh, well, I was in a hurry, blowing into the pretty grotty
| drain line. I did purchase the exact model pump for a spare.
|
| I still need to buy a spare capacitor though!
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| It's actually worse than that here in Austin. The was only 1
| store that would sell me a individual capacitor when mine
| failed. That one failed about 3 days later. I did some
| research online and apparently there was just a massive
| production run of capacitors that were imported to the US and
| are known to be bad. Supply houses were just looking to
| offload them.
|
| Now I could take it back for a warranty replacement, which
| would give me the same defective unit.
|
| As a result of this, I don't even recommend buying components
| locally any more. The capacitor from amazon cost about $12
| and is still working years later.
| Nursie wrote:
| The great thing about Australia is that that is probably
| illegal here.
|
| We've got some pretty fucked up protectionist rules about what
| you can and can't do in/to your own home. It's nuts.
|
| Now, nobody is actually watching most of the time, so you're
| usually fine, but it's as stupid as being illegal to replace a
| tap or existing light fitting. Every so often state governments
| review the rules and get swamped by trade associations who say
| the rules are there to prevent people being 'scammed' by
| untrained 'handymen' and are there for your own protection.
| This regulatory capture means that legally you need to complete
| a four year apprenticeship before you're allowed to change a
| plug! And another one if you want to do any basic water
| plumbing.
|
| I wouldn't be surprised if what the guy did in this blog is
| strictly speaking illegal - for instance when it comes to data
| cables, you need to be a qualified electrician with data
| specialty to install them. You can plug ethernet cables into
| your computers yourself (wow! such privilege!), but if you
| _install_ them even by getting some stick-on plastic conduit
| and passing the cable through that, you 're in contravention
| and could potentially be fined, up to thousands of dollars. For
| sticking some plastic tubes to the wall in your own house.
| SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
| 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 cases. Meaning the city will come look at your work
| and as long as it's up to code you get a legal permit just
| like a contractor would get
| (https://www.austintexas.gov/page/homeowners-permit). You can
| only do this to your own home so it's not a shortcut to
| running a chuck in a truck business without a license.
| Nursie wrote:
| Yeah in the UK where I spent most of my life, it seems like
| you do whatever you want, pretty much. Golden rule - you
| don't touch gas plumbing. And you don't mess with your
| circuit breaker board/RCDs etc. I think installing new ring
| circuits may be off limits.
|
| Anything else? Go for it. I fitted a bunch of taps and a
| toilet, changed single sockets to double+USB sockets,
| changed light fittings, fixed poorly wired lighting
| circuits, installed Cat-6 through the walls to a few rooms,
| all sorts of stuff. And none of it was anyone else's
| business. You can (should?) get a professional inspection
| and safety certificate before you sell the house, but
| that's about it AFAICT.
|
| I'd be happy enough with the situation in Austin, so long
| as the city inspections were cheap or free. I'd be happy
| enough to do a short course in the basics before getting
| some sort of permit. Where we are now is nuts.
|
| (But at least I can buy a pair of generic reading glasses
| pretty much wherever here!)
| SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
| The inspections themselves here are reasonably priced,
| but it's still annoying to deal with the city because
| they operate in 1995. There's no portal for scheduling
| inspections for homeowners, you have to call them. They
| don't tell you when they will show up on the day they
| will perform them, so you have to be available at home
| from 7-17 ready to instantly answer the door at a moments
| notice the second they knock or you will miss them and
| have to reschedule
|
| The pricing is reasonable enough - it's cheap enough to
| actually be worthwhile to do several things yourself that
| normally you'd have to pay a contractor for. I did it
| when I ran some electrical conduit to my garage to add a
| few 120V receptacles in there.
|
| My general rule of thumb is also I won't touch gas. But
| also anything like plumbing that is INSIDE walls I
| usually am looking to have a professional handle as well.
| It's harder to fix knucklehead DIY mistakes when they are
| covered up behind drywall.
|
| It does make me want more plumbing setups like I've seen
| in Europe. When I lived in Sweden I loved for instance
| that a lot of bathroom plumbing is completely exposed, so
| DIY'ing plumbing work is actually pretty accessible. Here
| where you have to dig into the walls to get at it makes
| it much less appealing since not only do you have to be a
| a decent plumber you also have to be a decent drywall
| person as well.
| eesmith wrote:
| Watching "Scrapheap Challenge" has taught me the UK has a
| lot of regulations about steam engines.
|
| One of the behind-the-scene videos was something like
| "that old steam-powered whatever they just happened to
| find in the scrapheap? Yeah, we've got the inspection
| certificate right here."
|
| Boiler explosions will do that to a country.
| happyopossum wrote:
| > 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" -
| eyeglasses for distance vision are infinitely more complex
| than "magnification" and if you're buying anything other
| than reading glasses without a proper exam and matched
| lenses, you're doing yourself harm.
|
| Unless of course you are talking about reading glasses, in
| which case you're also wrong, as you can get those for a
| couple of bucks pretty much anywhere in the US with no
| prescription.
| SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
| I am not sure about Canadas situation since that is where
| I used to order my contacts from before I got LASIK
| several years ago. I don't recall having to provide a
| script then. But Mexico and several other European
| countries I've been to (Sweden as an example) it's
| absolutely the case you can just walk into the pharmacy
| and grab the magnification you need with no prescription.
| I am actually surprised you were able to provide that
| many counter examples but I've never tried to buy
| contacts in the countries you've listed outside of Canada
| labcomputer wrote:
| > it's absolutely the case you can just walk into the
| pharmacy and grab the magnification you need with no
| prescription.
|
| I don't understand how this could possibly work. Contact
| lenses have at least three parameters to define the lens.
| It's not just "magnification".
|
| If you have an astigmatism, there are two more, and a
| further two if you have presbyopia (for a total of up to
| 7). Almost everyone has presbyopia by the age of 65, so
| it's not some rare condition.
|
| Do these pharmacies you speak of just have aisles upon
| aisles of contact lenses?
| shiroiushi wrote:
| When I was in Germany, I saw vending machines where you
| could buy contacts. Sure, there's a lot of possible
| values, but they probably only stock the most popular
| ones.
|
| Here in Japan, you can easily buy contacts from optical
| stores. They have several shelves behind the counters
| where they stock many varieties. Sometimes they even put
| a bunch of unsold/unpopular ones out front for 1/2 off (a
| lot of these are color contacts). I get mine online; I
| don't need a prescription.
|
| One thing I did notice, as someone with astigmatism, is
| that the number of possible values is less here. My axis
| back in the US was 100, but here I have to use 90; they
| just don't carry them in all the possible axis values
| here.
| SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
| Not aisles upon aisles but yeah for instance in Apotek, a
| big pharmacy chain in Sweden, there is usually a whole
| wall of them with little drawers to pick from. As sibling
| comment mentioned there isn't every combination available
| so presumably you have to special order some if you have
| some weird combination but for myself who never had
| astigmatism at all it was perfectly fine.
| domh wrote:
| 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 PS50 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/
| ossyrial wrote:
| > [...] the Netherlands, [...] for example require a
| prescription for anything more complicated than reading
| glasses.
|
| I have never needed a prescription to get (non-reading)
| glasses in the Netherlands. In fact, there are webshops
| where you can purchase any pair of glasses (obviously,
| you have to enter the values of an eye examination).
| happyopossum wrote:
| You can order glasses from web shops in the US too -
| those "values of an eye examination" come from your
| prescription.
| hunter2_ wrote:
| There's an easy hack for the contact lens (and maybe
| glasses?) situation. There is a consumer protection law
| meant to ensure eye doctors can't stop you from using any
| retailer you want (otherwise they'd essentially make
| themselves your retailer), and it works like this:
|
| You place an order with the retailer (online retailers
| typically allow you to simply type in your prescription
| values when adding lenses to your online cart; you don't
| need to show an official written prescription) and specify
| your doctor's name and phone number. Upon receiving your
| order, the retailer must call the doctor to see whether the
| doctor objects (invalid prescription). The retailer is to
| ship the order only if there is no objection (including no
| response at all) within 8 business hours. So just give the
| retailer the name and number of someone who won't
| immediately object, which is quite easy (e.g. a permanently
| closed office).
|
| Of course, you need a refraction to know your prescription
| values. But once that's done, if your vision doesn't change
| over time, this allows you to ignore the expiration date of
| the prescription.
| Xcelerate wrote:
| Oh wow... I'm totally going to try this next time just to
| see if it works
| SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
| Yeah my beef isn't around the actual requirement of
| determining your prescription. Obviously you should wear
| eyeglasses/contacts that match your vision requirements.
| I think this is especially relevant when we are talking
| about usage with a drivers license. The ridiculous part
| is the arbitrary 1 year renewal. As you imply it is
| really only necessary to recheck that often when your
| vision is changing a lot which is usually not something
| that happens after some period in your 20's.
|
| Neat trick though. I got lasik a few years ago but I
| would do this if I hadnt
| cruffle_duffle wrote:
| This sounds too good to be true. Having to get a
| prescription to get contacts is insane...
| labcomputer wrote:
| But how would you know what to order if you don't have a
| prescription?
|
| Trial and error? I guess that might work if you have a
| simple correction (no astigmatism).
| hunter2_ wrote:
| Getting a prescription when you don't know what you need
| makes sense. Getting one just because your last one has
| expired (1 year) is the off-putting aspect.
| aledalgrande wrote:
| Exactly. Mine hasn't changed for years, but I still need
| to pay this tax.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| US based online contact vendors reject orders without a
| signed prescription. The doctors intentionally don't sign
| them. The workaround is to order them from Canada
| hunter2_ wrote:
| I couldn't find a Canadian (or any foreign) retailer that
| would ship to the US, but I found tons of US retailers
| that allow self-entry (as an alternative to uploading a
| signed prescription) as I described.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| ContactsExpress ships to the US. There is at least one
| other that escapes me.
| refurb wrote:
| 1-800 contacts will write a prescription for you with a
| $20 online eye exam.
|
| Optomitrist asks if your current prescription is ok, asks
| you to stand 20ft back and read a few letters and you've
| got a script you can use wherever.
| hunter2_ wrote:
| As will several other retailers, but only in some states.
| As someone in an excluded state, I considered whether
| enabling Mock Location on my phone would get me past that
| check (I think they require you to use a native mobile
| app, so I assume they use location from that?) but then
| thought of the method I mentioned earlier instead.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Reading all that, I'm happy my part of Europe is a bit
| behind the tech curve here.
|
| I mean holy fuck, "native mobile app" and "getting
| contacts" do _not_ belong in the same sentence in any
| sane universe.
| hunter2_ wrote:
| Haha well the thing is, a vision exam requires that you
| read letters of a certain height from a certain distance
| while proctored, and presumably this is quite difficult
| to achieve in telehealth with more open computer systems.
| Of course some folks can figure out how to break anything
| (I mean, just plug a projector/TV into your phone with a
| usb-hdmi adapter and now the letters are huge?) but I
| think it keeps things easy and reasonably accurate among
| normies.
| renewiltord wrote:
| There's an even bigger hack: use photoshop to modify the
| prescription. My wife has been doing it for years. This
| is helpful since sometimes the prescription is over-
| specific and points to contacts you don't like.
| hunter2_ wrote:
| I considered that of course, but something about the
| signature on it (as opposed to self entry which has no
| signature) made me very uneasy. And doesn't the
| verification phone call (which fails unsafe, luckily)
| happen either way? Maybe not.
| renewiltord wrote:
| They must not be making this verification call since
| we've been doing this for years. Yes, it's
| straightforward forgery, so your unease is warranted. But
| I have no problem breaking pointless laws.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| I purchase my glasses from Zenni, and I don't believe
| I've ever had to give them the name of my doctor.
|
| On the other hand, maybe I typed that in when I was first
| signing up two decades ago, and the optometrist I gave
| them has long since gone out of business?
| glitcher wrote:
| I also order from Zenni and have never had to provide my
| doctor's info. They happily create lenses with whatever
| prescription I type in, and for me personally it usually
| takes a couple years for it to change enough to warrant
| new glasses. (I still get an exam annually)
| Nemi wrote:
| My first thought is - how do you get the contact
| information for a closed office?
|
| My current hack, which is not as great as yours, is to
| put a reminder on my calendar for a few days before my 1
| year prescription ends. If I order new contacts in the
| one year period for another year's worth of contacts
| (even if I am not out yet), I essentially get to go 2
| years between visits. I will try your hack next if I can
| figure out a good way to get contact info for an office
| that won't object.
| hunter2_ wrote:
| Google it. When places like this go out of business,
| local news articles get written. Or just pick randomly
| among ones still in business, worst case your order gets
| canceled?
| userbinator wrote:
| In the US, it's probably more of a "don't ask, don't tell"
| situation most of the time. Only the idiots get caught when
| they screw up.
| aledalgrande wrote:
| Canada enters the room
| jamil7 wrote:
| 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.
| XorNot wrote:
| 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 yourself and get it inspected.
|
| Whereas in Australia the answer is, it's all illegal, and
| if you're not a licensed whoever then they don't want to
| tell you how it should be done in case _gasp_ you do it
| yourself.
|
| So of course everyone _does_ do it themselves, and lies
| about it. And the quality of workmanship from the trades
| is...poor.
| Nursie wrote:
| 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!"
| marcus_holmes wrote:
| 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.
| jamil7 wrote:
| Yeah it's striking whenever I visit again. I guess
| there's that famous quote about Australians being the
| descendants of not just criminals but also jailers which
| makes sense.
|
| Germans tend to obsess over rules and processes in
| bureaucratic contexts and when it infringes on others but
| are very open with personal freedoms.
| arrowsmith wrote:
| _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.
| marcus_holmes wrote:
| check out "Wowser" - the Larrikin's mortal enemy.
|
| The Wowsers are winning :(
| Nursie wrote:
| See also "Wowser", the opposite side of the coin. At some
| point it seems the wowsers gained the upper hand.
|
| What's left of larrikinism unfortunately seems to be
| cooked in the head these days. Australian politics is
| sorely in need of some decent larrikins, but they seem to
| be AWOL.
| marcus_holmes wrote:
| agree 100%
| XorNot wrote:
| The nice thing about my Mitsubishi Heavy Industry units is I've
| got a bunch of MHI-AC-Ctrl[1] modules tucked into them talking
| to the service interface with Home Assistant. The neat thing is
| it doesn't _just_ control it, it also makes all the internal
| sensors and codes available.
|
| What I think we really need to do though is make _publishing_
| these control standards mandatory under right-to-repair laws -
| no one should need to be reverse engineering them, you bring a
| product to market you have to provide the complete spec for it
| 's software interface and data.
|
| Do that, and I bet we'd find in a few years every new appliance
| would support a common serial port standard and come with a
| code page in the manual for it (ironically the prevalence of
| Tuya-smart stuff has come _very_ close to making this happen,
| but they go to absurd lengths to lock you out of the wi-fi
| microcontrollers).
|
| [1] https://github.com/absalom-muc/MHI-AC-Ctrl
| cbanek wrote:
| I'd love this, but right now I'd be happy with a team reverse
| engineering these things and not getting hit with some kind
| of IP lawsuit from whatever company. I think there's going to
| be a lot of abandoned-ware IoT stuff, mostly because the
| company wants to turn the software off because they don't
| make money from supporting old products.
|
| My fitbit wifi scale, which I love and has been doing a great
| job for the last 10 years has now lost support to pair it
| with the new fitbit app, thanks Google!
| XorNot wrote:
| One problem I've found with a bunch of my own stuff though
| is microcontroller firmwares. Tons of devices have some
| type of microcontroller running them, and if the CPU is
| what goes (which happened on a bunch of Yamaha amps I've
| dealt with) then it goes right up in the air as to whether
| sourcing a replacement part is practical because you can't
| even get a binary blob to shoot onto it.
| girvo wrote:
| Oh hey, thats neat. I have two MHI split systems in my house!
| Definitely going to have a play with this, very nice.
| kbouck wrote:
| Network-connected home Mitsubishi units can be controlled
| with the MELCloud API (same api used by mobile app) which
| makes it easy enough to write scripts that grab current temp,
| settings, power usage.
|
| Perhaps someone has already made a home assistant plugin that
| does this?
| agos wrote:
| I keep thinking about doing this
| refurb wrote:
| I did something similar for a clothes drier. The thing was
| ancient (mid-80's) but was fantastic. It was huge and you could
| dry maybe 3 comforters under an hour.
|
| It stopped heating and it turned out there are solenoids that
| control the natural gas flow. Quick disassembly (back when
| products were made for easy repair) and swapping out two $8
| solenoids from Amazon and I was back in business.
| jamiek88 wrote:
| And doesn't it feel great?
|
| Unironically one of the proudest moments of my life was when
| I fixed the the belt on our dryer.
|
| A $10 rubber belt and YouTube and voila!
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Gas hot water heaters will often foul the flame detection
| sensor over time.
|
| Simple YouTube video to unscrew the thing, sand off the crud
| and back in action.
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| Everyone reading this should find out what capacitor they need
| and buy one off Amazon, they're all <$20.
|
| I've done this repair myself, it takes maybe <15 minutes and is
| almost impossible to mess up. Even if you were find spending a
| couple hundred dollars to have someone come out and do it,
| you'd still go hours at least without AC. Which depending on
| the time of year can be miserable.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| > and is almost impossible to mess up
|
| Just don't cook yourself with the remaining good capacitance.
|
| Personally, I wonder what could be done to temporarily get
| the capacitor to "kick" for a few more times to get your home
| temperature down as you get your replacement. Chill the
| capacitor?
| BizarroLand wrote:
| It depends on the failure mode of the cap. If it has blown
| its dielectric, then chilling it may cause the plates to
| separate enough to boost the capacitance, but it is more
| likely to just be a waste of time.
|
| Aside from that, you could strap on other capacitors as
| long as their voltage is the right value. A daisy chain of
| 50mf capacitors to shore up the blown capacitance might buy
| you a day or so of usage.
|
| Best bet, if you have an old broken microwave nearby, would
| be to pull the cap from it and wire it in.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| Please don't suggest buying electrical parts off Amazon,
| that's criminal negligence. On second thought, please do not
| give any electrical advice on the internet.
|
| Buy it from McMaster Carr or Grainger, please!! If you do
| this repair yourself, short the contacts of the capacitor
| (ideally with a correctly sized resistor) to discharge it
| before handling it so you don't electrocute yourself.
|
| Start caps: https://www.mcmaster.com/products/motor-starter-
| capacitors/
|
| Run caps: https://www.mcmaster.com/products/run-capacitors/
| jdc0589 wrote:
| McMaster will get it to your house next-day in lots of
| places too, and you don't have to deal with the local hvac
| supply house refusing to sell to a walk-in customer that
| isn't an employed hvac tech.
| bityard wrote:
| You have to be careful with Amazon/eBay caps, as they can be
| cheap chinesium garbage. I look for name-brand caps when I
| can and try to get them off eBay, Grainger, or Repairclinic.
|
| You don't need the same model number as the original cap, it
| just has to have the same voltage rating, capacitance, and
| number of terminals. You might have to get creative with the
| mounting solution if the new cap is different than the old
| one in terms of shape or size.
|
| Also, pro-tip: when you replace a the cap in the outside
| unit, install it upside-down so that water doesn't pool on
| top of the cap and rust it out from the top.
|
| I have a gas furnace and I also keep a spare ignitor handy.
| It's not a matter of "if" those go bad, it's "when."
| dfox wrote:
| Don't buy electronics components from marketplaces of any
| kind. There are reputable parts suppliers and for things that
| are common and in stock it will probably even be cheaper and
| faster than buying the same thing (of unknown provenance and
| quality) from who knows what seller on random marketplace.
| ehhthing wrote:
| It's unlikely that the company itself makes these tablets, they
| probably buy bulk off Alibaba or something and they all probably
| fail at the same time because the were all made at the same time.
|
| The real problem is that the quoted replacement price is so high,
| given that we know the tablets themselves are like $30 each.
| BizarroLand wrote:
| I bet it's the POE part that is the issue.
|
| They could control the whole system over POE with a bog
| standard usb to ethernet adapter, make the app easily run on
| any android device and charge the customer less for a better
| more reliable product, but rather than do that they rigged up
| some janky interface and built a custom enclosure hired out to
| an overseas manufacturer who bought the parts for $20 and
| charged the middleman $100 for them, who then charged the
| dealer $250 for them, who then charged the installer $600 for
| them, who then charged the customer $1600 for them. (Got to get
| that 2.5x margin on hardware every step of the way, after all!)
|
| If they had gone with a POE system, wiring would have been
| cheap, replacement parts plentiful, and customer satisfaction
| would be sky high. Sure, you would sell fewer full systems, but
| to me that is a small price to pay for having the most useful
| and interesting systems on the market with fans creating all
| sorts of mods and integrations for your equipment and becoming
| customers for life.
| nyanpasu64 wrote:
| > The original ezone tablet had been running Android 6.0, this
| Samsung was still on 5.0 but I didnt think that would cause any
| issues so I got started on doing what was clearly missing: The
| required apps. All ezone apps are available both on the Advantage
| Air website and the apkpure site. I only learned of the apkpure
| site from a post claiming he had been directed to it by a AA tech
| support person.
|
| Redirecting your customers to a third-party/pirate APK
| redistributor of unknown authenticity... reality defies parody.
| Benjamin_Dobell wrote:
| The apps are signed, so it's possible to compare signatures
| against the originals. I haven't seen any reports of signatures
| not matching from Apkpure, though certainly possible.
|
| But more importantly, what's the actual threat vector here?
| This isn't his personal phone. Just don't connect the tablet to
| your Wi-Fi. What's it going to do, sneakily increase your
| temperature by 1 degree?
| Nursie wrote:
| AFAICT you need to have it connected to the internet so that
| their phone app can connect (presumably via cloud servers) to
| the control tablet and provide controls from your phone in
| and out of the house.
|
| Also if you want to integrate the air-con with general smart
| home stuff.
| userbinator wrote:
| It's not too dissimilar to Blizzard using BitTorrent for their
| software updates --- a clever way of avoiding bandwidth costs.
|
| As the sibling comment mentions, they are signed files.
| gambiting wrote:
| I was just reading an official Volvo technical bulletin for an
| issue that can occur in a latest XC90....the manual literally
| says "download this patch, load it into the patching software,
| you will get a warning about the patch not being signed and
| invalid for this car, click ignore and then click proceed
| anyway".
|
| Why even build those warnings in, if you're going to make your
| own mechanics ignore them.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| Isn't this exactly what SolarWinds did when someone bypassed
| their build system and inserted a backdoor? Made a tweet
| about how users could just accept the unsigned build?
| system2 wrote:
| We must have an open-source policy for hardware like this.
| Billions if not trillions of dollars are being wasted every year
| because of these shitty companies. I know I am dreaming but maybe
| in 100 years, humanity will evolve.
| stacktrust wrote:
| awesome-vendor-repairability index?
| devsda wrote:
| Unfortunately, if/when someone from the manufacturer knows about
| it their first thought will not be "How do we make it easier for
| our customers".
|
| It will most likely be "How do we restrict this hack" and will
| eventually get into more restricted/quirky hardware & software.
| zekrioca wrote:
| Yes, which is very sad. Nearly all things go into this
| direction. I still remember the old days of jail breaking the
| iPhone, and the cat and mouse chase with Apple.
| Gabrys1 wrote:
| I don't think they'll care about this. Probably only 1% of
| their customers are capable of "hacking" this. As long as the
| tablet replace is cheaper than getting a new AC unit from
| another company it's fine for them.
| OccamsMirror wrote:
| Not even 1%.
|
| It would be interesting if someone already in AC repair made
| it part of their business though. That's when you'd see the
| teeth come out.
| stuff4ben wrote:
| Until someone decides to sell their fix at a cheaper price.
| Then lawyers will get involved and everyone will end up
| unhappy.
| passwordoops wrote:
| Except the lawyers
| lawgimenez wrote:
| They would have to put the condition inside shared library .so
| and use Android JNI. Make it complicated and hide the string
| tablet model throughout the code, just enough time to frustrate
| whoever is decompiling the so file.
| rocqua wrote:
| If they want to really do it wrong (or right, from their
| PoV), they require the communication with the base station to
| be signed with a certificate signed by their root CA, and put
| the private key of that certificate in the TPM.
| cududa wrote:
| I genuinely get the sense nobody there is capable of coming
| up with this on their own and are likely looking at this
| thread for ideas
| nehz wrote:
| Any idea if that "POE board" has a FTDI USB to UART chip on it ?
| kalleboo wrote:
| The dialog he got when he plugged it in mentioned FTDI and
| "Vinculum" which appears to be a programmable USB interface
| chip with serial and SPI support
| https://ftdichip.com/products/vnc1l-1a/
| https://ftdichip.com/software-examples/vinculum-projects/
|
| Since it's not just a generic non-programmable serial chip I
| assume it's also doing something more. But it doesn't do
| Ethernet so I bet it's not actually PoE but like...
| power+serial over Cat5
| gstar wrote:
| It's an FT312D, which is a purpose-built android thingy that
| presents a serial port and allows the tablet to charge.
| MrBuddyCasino wrote:
| Yeah given that USB doesn't work over long distances there is
| probably a simple serial protocol waiting to be reverse
| engineered.
| alliao wrote:
| this guy should sell it.....
| gotten09 wrote:
| ha, I thought the same thing.
| RockRobotRock wrote:
| Badass! I wonder if anyone has done work to reverse engineer the
| USB serial connection and integrate it with Home Assistant.
| Nursie wrote:
| It seems like you can already integrate Home Assistant with
| tablet - https://www.home-
| assistant.io/integrations/advantage_air/
| dbetteridge wrote:
| Mate! You forgot the tried and true tradition of threatening them
| with the ACCC and making a stink to "A current affair" ;)
|
| Nice write up though
| WheatMillington wrote:
| I love this kind of content, and the level of detail is just
| perfect for tech-adjacent people like me.
| fein wrote:
| > Forcing customers to replace an entire system just because the
| cheapest component failed might be really profitable
|
| Just had to deal with this recently. My gas oven control panel
| died and one would think to replace the control panel ($300 ish
| part), but I had my doubts. Pulled everything apart and hooked up
| a meter to what should be the power coming from the cord, no
| continuity. Took apart everything on the top two levels of the
| stovetop to find a thermal switch buried under there that had
| failed. That thermal switch is forever OOS (was $35 at least for
| a replacement if you could find one), so I hopped on amazon and
| bought a 5 pack of microwave thermal safety switches with the
| same cutoff temps for $6 that fit the push connectors. 10 year
| old higher end gas oven was fixed for about $1 in parts.
|
| Probably would have been at least $200 from an appliance repair
| company just for the labor of having to take apart the entire
| stovetop to get there. Not sure how many people would even bother
| although it was about $2k new.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _Probably would have been at least $200 from an appliance
| repair company just for the labor_
|
| How many hours did you spend taking it apart diagnosing the
| problem, though? I'm guessing at least 2? $100/hr for that
| seems pretty reasonable to me.
|
| (Granted, I agree with you in that I'd prefer to figure it out
| and repair it myself, even if it would take me 5x as long as
| someone trained to do it.)
| fein wrote:
| Had I been able to work on it for an entire day, it probably
| would have been around 3-4 hours, but took longer because I
| had about 30-45 mins a night and then had to clean up so the
| kids didn't get into the mess. The oven was down for about a
| week as a result, but you can make do with an air fryer and a
| toaster oven for quite a bit.
|
| For an experienced tech I assumed at least $50 for the house
| call and then a few hours for the disassembly and reassembly.
| hunter2_ wrote:
| > My old tablet's model name was on a sticker on the inside of
| the case, but looking at the code I saw it needed the -EZ
| identifier tagged to end. So the string I was to return was
| "PIC7KS6-EZ".
|
| The code seems to allow for both "PIC7KS6-EZ" and "PIC7KS6"
| unless I'm misreading it.
| ranebo wrote:
| You are correct this was actually and error in my re-
| collection. I remembered when writing that it was missing
| something but mistakenly thought it was the EZ. In fact the
| model number on the case was "PIC7KS" without the 6. Good spot.
| hunter2_ wrote:
| Ah, in that case you were free to add any of {"6", "6-EZ",
| "-EZ"} because the code includes "PIC7KS-EZ" as well; you
| probably did choose "-EZ" after all!
| gstar wrote:
| OMFG; I am in Perth, I have the same system, the very same
| problem and solved it almost the same way and was in the process
| of writing it up.
|
| The system uses RS422, with a base64 encoded AES key in the
| aaservice binary, and I was contemplating building an esp32 based
| open source implementation of the controller.
|
| That's a crazy weird coincidence.
| gstar wrote:
| Incidentally, if you root your tablet you can just change the
| build.MODEL to "MyAir5" and everything will work on a third
| party tablet.
| gstar wrote:
| Oh, and you just need one of these and a TTL to RS422
| converter off aliexpress to replicate the interface:
|
| https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005918675239.html
|
| The connectors on the small RJ45 daughter board are JST-SH
| 1.0
|
| The yellow lead puts out 4.2v to replicate a Li-Ion battery
| (as far as I can tell). You can ignore this.
|
| Red is positive
|
| Black is negative
|
| Green is usb d+
|
| Blue is usb d-
| ranebo wrote:
| This is all fantastic info. I have included the details and
| a link to these comments at the bottom of the post. Great
| work!
| Nursie wrote:
| Hey - As the owner of a similar system I have a question
| for you - do you use their phone app to control your
| system from your phone in/out of the house, and did it
| still work after this?
| ranebo wrote:
| I use the home assistant plugin with it personally, but I
| have tried the apps and they still work fine both locally
| and remote.
| Nursie wrote:
| Cool, that's all I needed to know, I'll be following in
| your footsteps at some point, thanks for taking the leap
| and doing all this :)
|
| Now back to connecting an orange-pi zero to the petcube
| cam someone bought me for Christmas. I've found TTL pins
| on there and I want to know what's going on...
| saylisteins wrote:
| Tiny QOL change without too much work, you could install
| something like teamviewer on the tablet, and now you're
| able to control your AC remotely from your PC, your
| phone, or anywhere!
| selcuka wrote:
| The MyAir (or e-Zone) app can already be accessed
| remotely. You install the app on your phone and pair it
| with your system by connecting to the same LAN. After the
| initial pairing it can be used from everywhere.
| emilfihlman wrote:
| Using which reverse service, though?
| selcuka wrote:
| From memory it connects to Firebase, possibly using the
| Realtime Database to sync state.
| lucioperca wrote:
| Tip: Instead of soldering I use splicing connectors with
| levers for testing stuff like this out. For example:
|
| https://www.wago.com/de-en/c/installation-terminal-
| blocks-an...
| dt3ft wrote:
| Wago has great stuff.
| nehz wrote:
| Would you have the RJ45 pinout too? Thanks!
| gstar wrote:
| No, sorry - I may be able to buzz one out of the a/c
| controller later on.
|
| I do, have 2 spare USB-C to JST-SH adapters that suit the
| round advantage air circuit board if anyone wants one
| (Perth, Free). Email in profile.
| FLT8 wrote:
| This is from my earlier notes, hope it helps some.
| Pin 1: RS422 +/B Pin 2: RS422 -/A Pin 3: ? -
| appears to be unused; connected to unpopulated pad on PCB
| Pin 4: GND Pin 5: ~14.2v DC unloaded Pin 6:
| GND Pin 7: ? Pin 8: ? Shield: GND
|
| Note: the RS422 protocol has a basic bus arbitration
| built-in to allow both ends to communicate. The control
| unit sends <U>Ping</U=xx> messages, after which it opens
| a slot for the Tablet to communicate back to it. At least
| on my system xx represents a simple CRC value that can be
| used to validate message authenticity. I haven't seen any
| AES encryption in use, messages I've seen are all
| plaintext, maybe the AES encryption was introduced in a
| later revision.
| binary_slinger wrote:
| Wouldn't RS422 need 2 TX and 2 RX?
| gstar wrote:
| I have something slightly different
|
| 1 is RS422 B
|
| 2 is RS422 A
|
| 3 & 5 - GND
|
| 4 & 6 - VCC
|
| Not sure what 7 and 8 do.
| FLT8 wrote:
| Interesting, not sure what's going on there then.. how
| recently was your system installed? Maybe they have
| updated the pinout on newer models? I'll go back and
| check though.
| gstar wrote:
| You're right! The serial bus isn't encrypted!
|
| I got inspired, and have plugged in my scope, and then an
| RS422 to serial adapter, and I'm getting XML encoded
| (weird) CAN messages, which I presume are the same as
| what's on the CAN bus exposed on some of the control
| box's ports. I'll get out the can analyser tomorrow and
| check.
|
| Now the trick will be to reverse engineer this protocol.
| Here's a tiny sample: <U>setCAN
| 0201000000236000000000000 </U=ce><U>getCAN 1
| </U=00><U>Ping</U=db> <U>ackCAN 1</U=aa><U>Ping</U=db>
| <U>setCAN </U=b2><U>getCAN 1 </U=00><U>Ping</U=db>
| <U>ackCAN 1</U=aa><U>Ping</U=db> <U>setCAN
| </U=b2><U>getCAN 1 </U=00><U>Ping</U=db> <U>ackCAN
| 1</U=aa><U>Ping</U=db> <U>setCAN </U=b2><U>getCAN 1
| </U=00><U>Ping</U=db> <U>ackCAN 1</U=aa><U>Ping</U=db>
| <U>setCAN </U=b2><U>getCAN 1 </U=00><U>Ping</U=db>
| <U>ackCAN 1</U=aa><U>Ping</U=db>
| nehz wrote:
| The AES encryption might be related to the android intent
| messages that are sent to the AAservice. I recall they
| had an encrypted mode and a "signed app" mode that
| AAservice will respond to
| FLT8 wrote:
| I have reached out to your email address (as described in
| your profile) with some additional information that I've
| been putting together. Let me know if you didn't receive
| my mail.
| gstar wrote:
| Not always - if it's used as a bus, it's 2 wire.
| upofadown wrote:
| Normally, yes. Perhaps this could be more properly termed
| RS-485 operating in 2 wire (half duplex) mode:
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RS-485
| ranebo wrote:
| Oh wow, that is crazy! That sounds awesome so please still
| write it up and I will link. myreal.name@gmail
| thrtythreeforty wrote:
| What the hell, why does a control system need an AES-secured
| control channel at all? The only possible intention is to make
| interop more difficult. If they wanted security then they
| wouldn't use a hard coded AES key.
| gstar wrote:
| It 100% is designed so that you have to use their hardware.
| Liquix wrote:
| so if the company has established they're willing to go
| that far to lock customers into their ecosystem and milk
| for $$$... it's not inconceivable that they also engineered
| (or chose not to fix) the cheap flash + chatty logging
| hardware failure for the same purpose.
| yuye wrote:
| Seems those tablets die not long after the warranty
| expires.
|
| I'm willing to bet money on that it's planned
| obsolescence, especially considering their "technology
| keeps moving forward" bullshit.
| zeroflow wrote:
| I'm offering you a different viewpoint:
|
| They made the analysis, how long the flash will live and
| saw, that it will make it out of the warranty period.
| Thus they did not opt for more durable and expensive
| flash and/or software change.
|
| I've seen this myself before. One process step before
| release of the control module was a write cycle analysis
| to make sure the unit will live for at least 10 years (i
| think) before the guaranteed write cycles of the flash
| memory were consumed.
| muppetman wrote:
| Isn't that kinda the definition of planned obselence? You
| plan so that past you point you have to care, it could
| well die/become useless?
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| _Planned_ obsolescence is when you purposefully design it
| to fail as soon as possible (but past any warranty
| period), to force repeat purchase.
| yuye wrote:
| >Thus they did not opt for more durable and expensive
| flash and/or software change.
|
| Opting out of a more durable solution when you know the
| device will break right after warranty is still planned
| obsolescence.
| audunw wrote:
| You're both missing one of the more likely explanation..
| that nobody gave much thought about how long the device
| would last. "It's solid state electronics, it'll probably
| outlast the warranty anyway".. I can imagine an aircon
| company puts a lot of effort into analyzing the air-
| conditioning unit itself to make sure it lasts at least
| as long as the warranty, with good margin. But I can
| totally see them winging it on an external control
| device, which was perhaps even a project they outsourced
| anyway.
|
| I don't think actual malicious planned obsolescence is as
| prevalent as many believe. A device breaking right after
| warranty is not a good strategy to get repeat customers.
| It's also a huge risk if you miscalculated and you
| suddenly get a lot of warranty cases. You want a lot of
| margin there.
|
| I've been involved in the design of a thing myself, where
| something the manufacturer hadn't clearly communicated -
| and we just barely caught - could have made the device
| die just around a typical warranty period for such a
| device. When we found out, of course we worked on this
| problem to make sure it didn't die prematurely.
| yuye wrote:
| Advantage Air doesn't produce ACs. They produce smart
| home solutions, including AC controllers. They're not
| winging it on an external control device, they're
| cheaping out on their main product.
|
| Also, their claim is that they're not outsourcing. If you
| check their website, it claims everything is designed and
| manufactured in Australia.
|
| Nevertheless, I'd have given them the benefit of the
| doubt if it were not for:
|
| 1. The only option being a full system replacement.
|
| 2. Communication protocol being encrypted.
|
| 3. App being locked down to certain hard-coded models.
|
| None of these give me any hope that this is a well-
| meaning company that just has some issues.
|
| Also, I think a company that sells a product most
| customers would only buy once or twice in their lives is
| not a company that expects many repeat customers.
| michaelt wrote:
| _> Also, their claim is that they 're not outsourcing. If
| you check their website, it claims everything is designed
| and manufactured in Australia._
|
| Looking at pictures like [1] and [2]
|
| I suppose it's possible they're making their own generic
| android tablet control panel,
|
| designed and manufactured in Australia
|
| and they just happened to add a camera, side-mounted USB
| charging connector, a headphone socket, microsd card
| slot, and a battery charge level indicator, loads of
| space for a battery that isn't present, a connector named
| VBAT
|
| and also a chinese-language bootloader
|
| but accidentally forgot to include the power and data
| connector they need, poking out the back of the device
|
| so they had someone bodge it on afterwards by hand with a
| soldering iron
|
| but IMHO it's more likely they mean
|
| "manufactured in Australia from components sourced
| internationally"
|
| and one of those components is a generic android tablet.
|
| [1] https://www.myplacenz.co.nz/are-you-making-the-most-
| of-your-... [2]
| https://blog.hopefullyuseful.com/blog/advantage-air-
| ezone-ta...
| yuye wrote:
| Should've added a bit more snark to that line to properly
| communicate that I absolutely don't believe their claims
| that everything is designed/made in Australia.
|
| It's very obvious they just went for the cheapest bottom-
| of-the-barrel tablet Alibaba has to offer on one of their
| main products. I wouldn't trust this company to do
| anything competently.
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| Locking in the model numbers for me is particularly icky.
| They are leveraging the Android and therefore Linux and
| open source communities efforts to make this custom
| display which would have cost them an arm and a leg to
| have custom built with half the features - then turning
| around and sticking two fingers up at those communities.
| fmbb wrote:
| Never attribute to laziness or stupidity that which is
| adequately explained by the profit motive.
| oefrha wrote:
| Having worked with clients who apparently have little
| clue about technical details of what's supposed to be
| their core tech, I'll attribute to laziness or stupidity
| unless there's ample evidence suggesting otherwise.
| jerf wrote:
| I generally treat my tablets and phones very well. I
| wouldn't trust a tablet, at scale, to last much beyond
| three years. By "at scale" that means, say, a replacement
| rate of less than 10%.
|
| By contrast ACs are on the decadal scale.
|
| Integrating a tablet can't work. It's a dumb idea from
| the outset.
|
| Similar hardware can work. There are touchscreen UIs that
| do last for a long time, especially on an AC unit where
| they're not getting used all the time. But they aren't
| tablets. In particular I'd finger the lithium ion
| batteries optimized for tablet-style usage as something
| you don't put into a system you want to last about ten
| years. Most of my tablets "die" when the battery just
| becomes unusable.
|
| And you probably want an LCD chosen for robustness rather
| than being the cheapest possible _high resolution_
| display... again, plenty of LCDs can last for a long
| time, but the trifecta of "high resolution", "cheap",
| and "lasts a long time" is asking an awful lot for a
| fleet of systems. ("Cheap" and "lasts a long time" is, by
| contrast, readily available; it just won't be pretty. But
| it'll work fine.) And by "high resolution" I don't mean
| "retina display", just anything suitable for a tablet. Ye
| Olde 640x480 is plenty for an AC display, even in
| monochrome.
|
| You want something pretty, give it a way for a real app
| to access it on the network. Except don't bother, really,
| because there's no way you're going to maintain that for
| 10 years either.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| >I don't think actual malicious planned obsolescence is
| as prevalent as many believe.
|
| Working in the electronics industry, I have never once
| heard anyone talk about this. Engineers love engineering,
| and if it was real their would be a whole field devoted
| to it. But there isn't.
|
| Also, since this board is stacked with software guys...
|
| Planned obsolescence is _way_ easier to implement in
| software. How many of you have been asked to put a time
| bomb in a warrantied product?
|
| Planned obsolescence is a term that lay people use to
| describe unfortunate breaking of things that are
| sufficiently complex to be considered "a magical black
| box". In reality it is just another apparition of
| Murphy's law.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| > I don't think actual malicious planned obsolescence is
| as prevalent as many believe.
|
| I've been saying this for a while.
|
| Consumers are insanely price-sensitive while also short-
| sighted. They'll buy a $20 blender that will die in a
| year rather than the $100 blender that will last a
| lifetime.
|
| Manufacturers know this and there's a race to the bottom
| on pricing. To get pricing as low as possible, quality
| and durability take a hit.
| WhyNotHugo wrote:
| In other words, _Never attribute to malice that which is
| adequately explained by stupidity._
|
| This device should not need to write to storage. It has
| to save settings when the user manually changes them,
| which can't be more than a few kilobytes per year. Any
| other writes are likely an oversight on the developer's
| part.
| nikau wrote:
| I'd guess they just didn't think of flash wear, like
| Tesla did in the early model s , and they got lucky they
| failed outside the warranty period.
| foobarian wrote:
| Everybody forgets the noatime thing at least once in
| their career
| raxxorraxor wrote:
| I would switch brands instantly. This is a company that
| has no customer orientation and I have never seen a
| company recover from that (they might have financial
| success, but they will never create good products again).
| They probably will sell you expensive crap. This time the
| device was fixable, but the manufacturer worked against
| the user on that.
| tracker1 wrote:
| So, you'd rather spend $12k+ to replace the entire system
| just to spite the manufacturer over making a minor patch
| to support a new tablet yourself?
| voyagerfan5761 wrote:
| Shouldn't have to replace the aircon/heat-pump
| components, only the controller hardware. OP indicated
| that a new control system would be about $1700 (I assume
| AUD), or 14-17% of their 10k-12k estimate for the whole
| build.
|
| Unless this scummy manufacturer also works with the
| aircon makers to lock those to their controllers. (That
| would be a great lawsuit to watch.)
| datavirtue wrote:
| Companies don't encrypt anything unless required. Except
| for code and databases...they encrypt and obfuscate those
| to keep people running back to them.
|
| Source: my customers
| cameldrv wrote:
| The biggest maker of garage door openers in the U.S. has
| done the same thing. For a button that goes on the wall to
| open the door, now it sends an encrypted code instead of
| just shorting two wires so that you have to use their
| button instead of a regular doorbell button like people
| have been doing for decades.
| spikej wrote:
| Which company, and which product did you see this with?
| coupdejarnac wrote:
| Chamberlain devices do this. Genie devices do not.
| cameldrv wrote:
| Chamberlain and Liftmaster do this. They're both owned by
| Chamberlain group and I believe they are the two most
| popular brands.
|
| It's caused tons of headache for people doing home
| automation stuff, especially since Chamberlain has cut
| off API access to home assistant. Then the home assistant
| people figure they'll just rig a raspberry pi or
| something to short two wires, but then they hit this
| encryption nonsense.
| Arrath wrote:
| God that's just insane.
| cyberax wrote:
| I can't recommend ratgdo (Rage Against the Garage Door
| Openers) project highly enough. It implements the
| protocol and allows you to interact with the door:
| https://paulwieland.github.io/ratgdo/
|
| The protocol itself is crazy, with obfuscated ternary
| data (instead of binary). People who reversed it are
| heroes.
| marcus0x62 wrote:
| Anti circumvention laws don't require _good_ locks to provide
| the manufacturers a legal cudgel to use against anyone with
| the temerity to think they have the right to use and fix
| things they have paid for. The law (DMCA in the US, it looks
| like something called the Digital Agenda Act in Australia) is
| the real lock, not that AES key.
| dbetteridge wrote:
| For a small place there's a lot of sandgropers on HN somehow
| TechDebtDevin wrote:
| For those also wondering:
|
| https://www.quora.com/Why-are-West-Australians-called-
| sandgr...
| marcus_holmes wrote:
| 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.
| imp0cat wrote:
| This is exactly right! Good morning from Europe. :)
|
| Also congrats to the OP! Sadly, european aircon appliances
| are usually built the same way (last only as long as the
| warranty).
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| At least there's EU legislation that's slowly improving
| as well ensuring longer term warranties and the like. I
| hope that for household appliances like aircon or solar
| panels this warranty or support is set to its expected
| lifetime of 15-20 years. In this case, it should be
| mandatory that the control system can be easily swapped
| out by an aftermarket replacement, just like central
| heating thermostats are.
|
| (in fact, replacing basic central heating thermostats
| with a tablet device has been very successful for one
| energy company in my country, see
| https://www.eneco.nl/energieproducten/toon-thermostaat/;
| it wouldn't have been possible if the thermostat data
| thing was some complicated / encrypted nonsense)
| prmoustache wrote:
| My own aircons are just simple individual items that are
| interchangeable between rooms.
|
| There is no single control for the whole house but on the
| other hand I never let it run when I am away and I am
| never in 2 rooms at the same time so I just close the
| door so I only have to keep one room cool. I fail to see
| the need of an aircon I could control remotely with a
| smartphone or any smart bullshit system that control
| every room at the same time. And I think if I ever needed
| that I would probably just control the individual aircon
| via small esp32 with irtransmitter driven by a home
| server. That way the individual remotes would still be
| usable in case of an individual failure.
| pimeys wrote:
| I have two separate aircons in our apartment. They both
| plugin to the wifi and I can control them locally from my
| home assistant instance. When hass detects nobody is at
| home, it will just automatically turn off both aircons
| with all the lights.
|
| It is also handy if it is extremely hot like now and
| we're both out to monitor if it gets over 30 inside, so
| we can remotely get it cooler so the plants, cats or
| server will not suffer too much.
| iknowstuff wrote:
| Barely 11PM in California, prime reading time
| radicalbyte wrote:
| It's that golden hour where AU/NZ are up, Californian
| nerds are up and chilling and EU/UK are getting their
| first (or second) dose of caffeine. Just missing our
| East-Coast buddies :-)
| yuye wrote:
| It's a nice and quiet time.
|
| Why do work when you can read HN?
|
| Hi from east Asia!
| gstar wrote:
| Speaking of sandgropers, I do understand Advantage Air are
| based in WA - so it's fairly likely they're reading this!
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Hopefully. Shame on them.
|
| Also, good morning from Poland, EU :).
| mst wrote:
| I'm sure the timezone will tick over to the sheepshaggers
| instead shortly.
| ivraatiems wrote:
| Almost like all the tablets fail around the same time because
| they're made in the same shoddy way, forcing system
| replacements every so many years...
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| They skimped on the tablet, grabbing a <$100 device for
| cheap. It should be a ruggedized / semi-industrial device
| with an expected lifetime as long as the device it controls,
| so at least 15-20 years.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| That would set them back at least $800 (2021 prices: last
| time I had to spec a ruggedized tablet), which probably
| means $1200 out of the customer's pocket.
|
| OTOH, they can find an industrial display + a Linux SoM
| (system-on-module) that can run linux or Android for under
| $200 in quantity.
|
| Same diff though: no one cared, so they got what was cheap.
| virtue3 wrote:
| sounds like the memory storage is failing on some sort of
| logging systems for these to be going down at the same time-ish
| (same number of logs per day written etc over cheap flash).
|
| Shame on this manufacturer.
| sumtechguy wrote:
| It is a conversation I have had with many a jr dev. 'ok you
| are logging this how much space is that going to take? how
| long do you want to keep it? what is your rotation schedule?'
|
| I usually get the 'oh did not think of that' because logging
| is a serious afterthought in many cases. It is boring and you
| just drop in log4j and log away right?
| Suppafly wrote:
| >It is boring and you just drop in log4j and log away
| right?
|
| log4j had big vulnerability a while back and it was a huge
| pain to contact all our vendors and find out if they had
| patched for it or not.
| FLT8 wrote:
| I've got one of these systems too. Mine hasn't died yet, touch
| wood, but I was concerned enough about the possibility that I
| went as far as documenting the comms protocol and starting to
| design a pi hat to talk to the main control board.
|
| I should really write that up at some point too.
| jamesholden wrote:
| Do it! I don't live in Australia or have on of these systems,
| but I was intrigued by how the OP had gone around the company
| to save themselves 1500! I'm curious to see how people are
| resolving things like this, so that if I have issues myself
| sometime, I have ideas on where to start or what is necessary
| :)
| radicalbyte wrote:
| Reading the original post, wouldn't be a super cool idea to
| make a little ESP or RPI based system which acted as a
| controller for the airco and a network bridge? Then literally
| anything could interface with it. You wouldn't even need to
| wire it up. No need to install some shitty app from a company
| who are quite clearly c*ts.
| stavros wrote:
| What evidence do you have that the company is composed of
| cats?
| selcuka wrote:
| Because cats love warm houses.
| squarefoot wrote:
| I'm sure that they made things more difficult by employing
| proprietary hardware wherever they can (also to discourage
| competition), but yes, there are a bunch of sensors and
| actuators in there and any board with the appropriate i/o
| capabilities should be able to interface to them, however
| writing a working firmware would be next to a nightmare: how
| do you find developers who want to spend months reverse
| engineering an AC and also know enough about ACs to put
| together something that works? Replacing household appliances
| brains with open counterparts would be a heck of a business
| opportunity to revive or prolong the life of dead/obsolete
| products, however I guess finding people who are interested
| enough to do that with FOSS, essentially selling only
| hardware and installation services would be really hard.
| datavirtue wrote:
| It's just a pin out interface controlled via software to
| turn things on or off. Its trivial. Get a raspberry pie,
| lookup the pinout docs stuffed away in your home manuals
| drawer, and write the measly logic required. The most
| difficult part is whipping up a UI and building the
| scheduling logic, if want/need it.
| rpearce9 wrote:
| In case it's helpful to anyone, I put this together to drive
| our Advantage Air system:
|
| https://git.nethack.net/rob/aircon
|
| Essentially it just talks to the android tablet API to do
| things so it's no help if (when) the tablet dies, but it means
| I can do things like:
|
| - have the entire unit turn on/off as needed based on average
| zone temperatures
|
| - open/close vents based on room owners' devices being online,
| or temperatures of nearby zones
|
| - dump zone temperatures to influxdb
| lelandfe wrote:
| Nice use of Telegram as a cheap logging tool
| f1shy wrote:
| Related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCpVGwSJoyQ
| fatcow wrote:
| another perthian! w00t
| leshokunin wrote:
| How good is the on/off switch though?
| nikolayasdf123 wrote:
| wish there was an open-source aircon, and heater, and microwave,
| and so on,
| antisthenes wrote:
| A nice solution to a completely self-inflicted problem.
|
| Next time just get a dumb thermostat, or perhaps, if you're so
| inclined, something cheap off-the-shelf like an ecobee.
| dbetteridge wrote:
| It's funny because if that was an option people would do it,
| but most installers have their control system included when the
| install and setup the system.
|
| You don't get asked what you want or a choice in changing it to
| a different device...
| kelnos wrote:
| Unfortunately a lot of the new variable-speed heat pumps
| require a proprietary thermostat. You can use a dumb thermostat
| with them, but then the unit runs at full tilt all the time,
| which is inefficient (more costly to run) and probably
| increases wear on it.
|
| Fortunately there are _some_ heat pumps that allow you to use
| any old thermostat; they figure out the right speed to run at
| using their own temperature sensors.
|
| Regardless, this wasn't really the thermostat: this was a
| control system that monitors temperatures in each room/zone,
| and opens and closes the vents to hit the temperature targets
| in each zone. Pretty sure no dumb (or even generic smart)
| thermostat can handle that.
| antisthenes wrote:
| At that point it's easier to just get mini-splits for every
| major room in the house.
| zb wrote:
| You must be American.
|
| In Australia there are exactly zero heat pumps on the market
| that you can use an ecobee with. It just isn't an option. There
| are _no_ off-the-shelf options.
|
| You don't _have_ to pay $1700 for this garbage $50 tablet, but
| it is the default that every installer will offer you without
| mentioning any other options (and the only options are the
| manufacturer's proprietary controllers). In this case his
| builder procured it for him without even telling him the price.
| He may not even have been given a choice. You have to be
| extremely motivated to stay on top of every decision like this
| along with the thousands of other decisions involved in
| building.
| johnobrien1010 wrote:
| My fridge stopped working last year. We called a repair
| technician, who swapped out the whole PCB and charged us a few
| hundred dollars. In retrospect, I think it was one bad relay on
| the board...
|
| Next time it dies I plan to try to find the defective relay,
| desolder and resolder it myself. Imagine how much better it would
| be if there was a read out with an error code on a fridge with
| easily removable relays you could unplug and replace. I know it
| is not a priority to make these kinds of things repairable, but I
| wish it was.
| mlhpdx wrote:
| I wasn't lucky enough to have a "repairable" refrigerator
| according to the repair man. An 8 cent capacitor had dried out
| and failed, which I discovered with a $150 tool.
| bb88 wrote:
| The contacts in a socket can oxidize and go bad. Or the relay
| can get jostled out of the socket during a move.
|
| It would be cheaper to ship a replacement PCB with the fridge.
| wincy wrote:
| I've had a fan die TWICE now in my fan. It blows the cold air
| from the bottom freezer up to the top refrigerated portion, so
| it's catastrophic when it happens. At this point I just have a
| third fan in the garage in a box in reserve so I don't lose
| $100+ in groceries. It's ridiculous how poorly made these
| "durable goods" are. And how expensive these repairs would have
| been if I wasn't the smallest bit handy.
| nerdile wrote:
| I'm thankful my husband knows I would never allow such a system
| to be installed in my home.
| cyberax wrote:
| Ugh. The whole "smart aircon" industry needs a good-sized
| asteroid wiping them out of the existence.
|
| There is a very real need for modern variable-speed units, and
| vendors just keep fucking it up by using proprietary protocols
| locked into their ecosystem. TRANE in the US is similar.
|
| And this is really annoying because variable-speed pumps solve
| all the problems with short cycling and oversized systems.
| datahack wrote:
| You think this is bad? Try swimming pool equipment.
| pzlarsson wrote:
| I think home EV charging equipment is heading in the same
| direction as well. Very few have local and open APIs and
| instead depend on the vendors cloud service for control.
| cyberax wrote:
| Yeah, but EV chargers are not that complicated. They are
| just smart contactors, with maaaybe some load management
| (EVSE can command the vehicle to reduce the charging rate).
|
| Worst case, you just buy another one. It'll set you back a
| couple hundred dollars. Unpleasant, but not a big deal.
|
| Air conditioning systems can easily cost more than $10k.
| emilecantin wrote:
| > (EVSE can command the vehicle to reduce the charging
| rate)
|
| That's just a PWM signal on one of the pilot pins, it's
| not even that complex.
| jagheterfredrik wrote:
| Agreed, I couldn't find a reasonable choice and ended up
| making https://github.com/jagheterfredrik/wallbox-mqtt-
| bridge
| dacryn wrote:
| I don't know where you live, but in Europe there is a
| standardized backoffice management protocol that you can
| link up to basically anything in modern chargers. Except
| the cheapest of the cheapest.
|
| I have mine running through EVCC.io, setting it up was as
| simple as throwing that thing in a docker container and
| figuring out the IP address of the chargepoint.
| stavros wrote:
| Does this necessarily go through a third party server, or
| can it all be run locally?
| torginus wrote:
| I am confused - aren't these boxes basically fancy three
| phase outlets? They probably have some safety fuses and
| some comms equipment, but the 'core' of the system is
| basically copper wire that connects you to the grid.
| lexicality wrote:
| Here in the UK at least they're generally single phase
| and required to moderate the power delivered to the
| vehicle based on the current electrical load in the house
| because most properties have quite low main cut-out fuse
| ratings. Bonus complications if you have solar or want
| any kind of access control.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > aren't these boxes basically fancy three phase outlets?
|
| That entirely depends LOL
|
| So for AC chargers you are correct - 1 or 3 phases that
| go through a relay and, where required by code such as in
| Germany, a DC-sensitive RCBO, plus a small control board
| negotiating with the vehicle and monitoring
| voltage/current on one side and, again depending on where
| required by code, negotiating with the grid operator.
|
| DC chargers are one hell of another beast, these have to
| contain all of the above plus powerful rectifiers,
| smoothing capacitors, EMI compliance...
| erinnh wrote:
| There is OCPP (Open Charge Point Protocol). There's quite a
| bit of choice in supported wallboxes. Here is Europe at
| least.
| knowaveragejoe wrote:
| Both of these examples, and others, sound like an underserved
| market.
| xvector wrote:
| Exactly. This is what happens when a market is so small
| they can overcharge for terrible technology.
|
| I figure a couple of SWEs could make a startup that
| completely disrupts these industries with objectively
| superior technology.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| Technology doesn't matter, it's all about relationships
| between dealers and manufacturers (or
| dealer/distributor/manufacturer, I am unfamiliar with
| this particular industry.) That holds true both for HVAC
| and pool equipment (and fire alarm systems, irrigation,
| etc etc)
|
| If you can't sell your product to the dealers because
| there in bed with the incumbents and the incumbent
| products generate service call work for the dealer, it
| doesn't matter how good the tech is.
|
| This is a people problem, not a technology problem. It
| can't be solved by a couple programmers.
| xvector wrote:
| You offer direct to consumer sales and cut out the
| dealer-distributor corruption pipeline - like Tesla,
| Nest, etc.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| Pool equipment isn't usable out of the box like a car or
| a thermostat, someone has to install it and
| service/maintain it.
|
| Unless you want to build your own nationwide network of
| installers, you're relying on third parties who already
| have existing relationships with pool equipment
| suppliers, which is why I said it's a people problem and
| not a tech problem.
| relaxing wrote:
| Tell us about that!
| sarchertech wrote:
| You think that's bad? Try tanning bed control equipment.
| jwalton wrote:
| I just spent an afternoon recreating the custom threads on a
| Hayward chlorinator for my dad so I could 3D print a
| temporary replacement part. These don't even use standard
| pipe fitting thread. -_-
| riskable wrote:
| At least swimming pool equipment is mostly just turning
| things on and off. If you look at the controller board for
| any given pool "timer" it's just a bunch of relays (for the
| pump, lights, and valves/servos).
|
| Temperature sensors are all standardized for the most part
| (well, they don't _seem_ to be anything special) but I 'm not
| sure about chlorinators... Mine has a strange (electrical)
| connector and _100%_ proprietary threads on the PVC
| connectors (that were easy enough to reverse engineer in
| OpenSCAD: https://www.printables.com/model/24144-t-cell-
| cleaning-stand).
|
| Fortunately there's plenty of 3rd party competition for
| things like that. Even though I had a Hayward system I was
| able to purchase a compatible chlorinator off Amazon for a
| fraction of the price Hayward was charging.
| liminalsunset wrote:
| The problem with having standards for this kind of thing is
| that different units have different needs for communication and
| different levels of being smart. For example, some units want 2
| temperature sensors and some want 3. The method used to control
| the system can be relatively complex - some systems are using
| physical models of the characteristics and positioning of
| sensors to do fancy control, and there are probably at least
| 5-15 data points involved in a typical system.
|
| While it would be nice for the protocol to be _documented_
| (would realistically only be used by a very small number of
| users), the only real way you would be able to get a standard
| for something like this to work is if you went the Bluetooth
| route and did generic scenario-based profiles (e.g. HFP, A2DP,
| SPP), and optionally some "GATT" or "generic attribute"
| parameters. However, as we see with Bluetooth LE, everyone just
| uses GATT and implements their own little proprietary thing
| over it and you're back to the same problem.
|
| Some of these systems attempt to be "smart" and just use the
| 24V C/W/Y1/Y2 etc protocol as a "standards compliant fallback".
| You don't necessarily lose ALL of the smarts, but the unit has
| to essentially use physics magic to make an educated guess
| about the information (for example, if you use a on-off
| thermostat, you can't really measure the temperature of the
| setpoint, so you don't know how close you are unless you
| somehow make an observation over many cycles.
|
| I think that reasonable attempts to address this problem could
| involve some kind of extension to the old 24V interface - say,
| by offloading the actual "policy" part of system control to the
| "thermostat" i.e. have something that goes from 0-10V where 5V
| is off, 0V is full cooling and 10V is full heating. This allows
| you to choose your own temperature sensor situation, but
| complicates setups where more than one zone or thermostat is
| required. Of course, it will be very difficult for the industry
| to settle on a solution to this. Qualcomm's Quick Charge 2.0
| was a very simple protocol similar to this, which was
| essentially self-documenting and not something that needed
| versioning, but of course, needs changed, 3.0 came and went,
| 4.0 came and went, and by the time USB C and USB PD came around
| you ended up with a full on data protocol API with all the OSI
| layers and of course, vendor specific extensions.
|
| You could define some complicated protocol where you don't
| conform to a standard but you publish an API for your system
| (of course, there is no incentive to do this), and larger
| vendors like Control4 or Lutron, Crestron can program their
| products to interface with it. Unfortunately this doesn't allow
| the customer full choice over thermostats, because now you have
| to deal with N vendors x N thermostat vendors, which isn't
| scalable and you'll end up in dependency hell.
|
| The closest thing I can think of to a standard, and the way it
| is solved in larger buildings, is through something called
| BACnet. It appears to use the Bluetooth model of "scenario
| based profiles", with all of the disadvantages that come with
| that, but the primary disadvantage is that it has to be to some
| degree manually configured to route data where it needs to go -
| and I don't think this is something installers are currently
| equipped to do at home scale.
|
| Realistically, the "thermostat" is just a vestigial component
| in modern terms and really, it's just a user interface and
| thermometer now. Without getting into the wish to have open
| sourced app control or whatever, it's hard to define what the
| "thermostat" does and what the "system" is doing, and whether
| the device that sits on the wall is really a "thermostat"
| deserving of being interchangeable anyway. I have heard from a
| friend that does home automation integration that many clients
| don't like the default thermostat because it doesn't look very
| aesthetically pleasing. In this case, I'm definitely
| sympathetic to the need for customizability but it seems
| difficult to achieve in practice.
| Hendrikto wrote:
| Are you a lobbyist? You spent so much effort arguing for
| something OP has shown to be just plain false.
|
| Any tablet worked. The only reason it die not work ootb were
| completely arbitrary restrictions.
|
| The control boxes can do whatever complicated things they
| want. But the interface to control them should and can be
| standardized.
| Snild wrote:
| I agree that it should be standardized, but not with your
| argument.
|
| Yes, any tablet worked, but it required running an app
| customized for the hardware. That only proves that we can
| standardize at the level of Android app APIs.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Make it a certification requirement (UL or whatever) for the
| manufacturer to maintain a gold-level OSS Home Assistant
| integration, and all those problems would solve themselves in
| a heartbeat.
|
| Alas, vendors that interface with customers do not sell
| appliances - they sell "solutions", specifically solutions to
| the problem of their own making, i.e. them inserting
| themselves between the buyer and the appliance they're
| buying.
| smolder wrote:
| The idea of anything with permanence involving Bluetooth
| gives me a brain cramp.
| cyberax wrote:
| > The problem with having standards for this kind of thing is
| that different units have different needs for communication
| and different levels of being smart.
|
| There really is nothing complicated there. I have some
| background in lift (elevator) systems, and they have similar
| requirements. Modern lift systems use variable frequency
| drives for smooth start/stop, and they came up with
| compatible protocols that allow users to mix-and-match
| controllers.
|
| In the end, there just needs to be a simple protocol to
| command the motor to run at a certain speed. It can be CAN-
| based, it can be based on RS-485, etc. For additional smarts,
| throw in readings from the sensors inside the AC units
| (pressure, coils temperatures).
|
| Then the control units can be made by third parties. They can
| do all kinds of prediction-based logic, complicated PID
| controllers, whatever.
|
| > Some of these systems attempt to be "smart" and just use
| the 24V C/W/Y1/Y2 etc protocol as a "standards compliant
| fallback". You don't necessarily lose ALL of the smarts
|
| You actually do with TRANE units. They become completely
| dumb, not even 2-stage emulation.
|
| > The closest thing I can think of to a standard, and the way
| it is solved in larger buildings, is through something called
| BACnet.
|
| I have BACnet at home, for wired temperature/humidity
| sensors, the same RS-485 network is also used for Somfy
| shades ( https://github.com/Cyberax/py-somfy-sdn ). BACnet is
| a low-level system, and it needs higher-level profiles. But
| yes, exposing the motors and the sensors inside the AC units
| over BACnet would be a great start.
| kokey wrote:
| I think there's probably a case for some regulation to force at
| least a minimum set of open standards, because that would make
| it possible to e.g. switch between systems based on
| intermittent renewable generation etc.
| yard2010 wrote:
| No need for an asteroid. Just a few salty lawyers.
| bloomingeek wrote:
| Also there's the variable-speed furnace/AC fan. These heavy
| bastards, with an add-on brain, are very expensive when they go
| bad. In my case, the brain part was fine, but the fan motor
| died. They wouldn't sell me just the motor, just the combo for
| $900US! And, if I install the combo, it voids the warranty. (I
| did install it, I'm the homeowner not a repairman.)
|
| I was also told if my unit was a Trane, they weren't allowed to
| sell me the combo! (My unit is a Goodman.) What a rip off!
| rpcope1 wrote:
| I am looking at replacing my A/C system, and having worked on
| the single stage single speed one that's currently installed,
| and looking at the insane shit everyone ships that's more
| complicated than your basic gas forced air furnace coupled with
| a single stage 16 seer A/C unit, there's no way I would ever
| buy something else. Every parts house has got inexpensive
| replacements in stock for the simpler units and service is
| easy; good luck if you have go find the unobtanium variable
| speed motor or control board that Lennox or Trane just happened
| to stop making the moment your unit stopped working.
| cyberax wrote:
| Yep, and it's annoying because variable speed units
| themselves are _better_ than the old classic one or two-speed
| units. They are more economical, quieter, and mechanically
| more reliable.
|
| But the insane control systems compensate for it.
| tracker1 wrote:
| Largely my take as well... I just want the simplest thing
| that works at this point... I'm heading in that direction as
| I need to replace appliances as well. So far this year, the
| microwave, range and dryer have all died. The microwave was
| the single biggest safety hazard I've ever seen, and they say
| you shouldn't work on them yourself... what happens when it
| turns on if the door is open? Or, you discover later, it's
| actually just _on_ all the time even though the light is off
| and the fan isn 't running.
|
| I'm all about stupid, but repairable appliances now.
| DCH3416 wrote:
| It just takes time for all this stuff to iron itself out.
| Consider how long it took for practically every heating and
| A/C system to become largely the same.
| metadat wrote:
| Why do they do the model checks? Is there any semi legitimate
| reason or is it purely protectionist anti-consumer evil?
| paranoidrobot wrote:
| 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 decision.
| 35mm wrote:
| How did you pick cheap blasters compatible with HA?
|
| I have a Broadcom one which works well but expensive.
| paranoidrobot wrote:
| Reddit and Google was how I chose which one to go with.
|
| The Broadlinks RM4 minis were pretty cheap on AliExpress. I
| think I paid about $15 each? Might have to wait for specials
| to come up to get the lowest price.
| athrun wrote:
| 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?
| klausa wrote:
| (not OP)
|
| It just doesn't matter that much in my experience. If an
| issued command didn't work, it's easy to tell anyway (it's
| hot/cold), and you can just repeat it. HomeAssistant also has
| bits of special handling for items that don't communicate
| their state back, called "assumed state".
|
| For the rare times I want to control my AC when being away
| from home, I have an air monitor nearby. I can just check if
| the temperature/humidity has changed, and repeat the command
| if it didn't work. If you _really_ cared you probably could
| script it to do it automagically, but I didn't feel the need
| to bother.
| nucleardog wrote:
| Yeah there's very few edge cases, imo, where you need the
| feedback.
|
| I have home assistant controlling an air conditioner in one
| room. (Well, mostly Node-RED.)
|
| Every couple minutes it checks the temperature in the room
| and makes a decision on whether to call for cooling and
| tells the AC to turn on or off.
|
| If it's already on and cooling and it tells it to turn
| on... it's a no-op, nothing happens. If it tells it to turn
| on and the command doesn't go through... the room will stay
| warm so it will try the same thing in a couple of minutes.
| Same thing the other way (turning it off).
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| Similar problem here. I've thought of getting IR receivers to
| also listen for the remote's IR signal, since you have to be
| able to encode the IR protocol anyways. But even then
| sometimes the AC unit doesn't get the signal from my remote,
| so I'm unsure if that's a remote issue or receiver issue.
|
| The completely overkill setup would be to get a different
| remote control, get my DIY receiver to accept that and
| convert it to my AC unit's IR code, updating HA while at it.
| The remote's state would be out of sync still, but it'll keep
| the units in sync with HA.
| Krssst wrote:
| 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)
| skykooler wrote:
| 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.)
| mianos wrote:
| The remote has no feedback. I have found Tasmota IR 100%
| reliable over 3 years. It sends the whole state on every
| transmission so the IR has no receiver.
|
| https://tasmota.github.io/docs/Tasmota-IR/#sending-ir-
| comman...
| prmoustache wrote:
| AC is typically something you only need when you are inside
| the house so it is not like any freak situation would occur.
| If it happens only super occasionnally at worse you just set
| it the homeassistant state using the remote manually.
|
| I guess you should hide those remote in a drawer and remove
| the batteries when you start using homeassistant
| paranoidrobot wrote:
| For me the only way it can get out of sync is from power
| failure in the AC, or someone using the remote. Putting the
| remote away solves the last.
|
| I have Zigbee contact sensors that provide on/off feedback to
| HA by detecting if the louvers are open.
| davesmylie wrote:
| 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!
| paranoidrobot wrote:
| Welcome to the club.
|
| I'm using Broadlink RM4 Mini's I got off AliExpress. They've
| got a powerful enough IR signal that I've found I don't need
| them sitting way out in the open and obvious. One is tucked
| behind a TV and not _quite_ in direct LoS, one is behind, but
| it reflects off the wall just fine, another behind a bedside
| table.
|
| For the integration/Climate control thing I'm using SmartIR.
| Configuring it is a bit weird, you have to put it direct into
| the configuration.yaml file unlike other integrations.
| smartir: check_updates: true climate:
| - platform: smartir name: Bedroom AC
| unique_id: bedroom_ac device_code: 1293
| # https://github.com/smartHomeHub/SmartIR/blob/master/docs/CL
| IMATE.md#available-codes-for-climate-devices
| controller_data: remote.mini4c_bedroom
| temperature_sensor:
| sensor.airquality_ikea_bedroom_temperature
| humidity_sensor: sensor.airquality_ikea_bedroom_humidity
| power_sensor: binary_sensor.contact_bed_ac
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| IR is fine for these things, it's not like they need much data.
| I have an IR ceiling fan, no issues there (even if the receiver
| is on a little wire that is supposed to stick to something but
| the sticktivity of the tape sucked), and a radio "smart"
| lighting system (just simple on / off switch on a plug socket).
| And some radio spots from IKEA, although I'm sure that can be
| hooked up to a "smart" system.
| dfox wrote:
| IKEA has consistent smart system that has the annoying
| feature that it works the wrong-way around for my use-case.
| The cheap IKEA switches can control IKEA peripherals only
| directly, you can't use them to control something outside of
| the IKEA ecosystem. As most of the things I want to control
| are either HomeKit native things or digital outputs on PLCs
| it does not work for me. So in the spirit of true overkill I
| have few switches that contain OrangePi Nano (I had somehow
| absurd quantity of these laying around as leftover from
| previous even more misguided project)
| paranoidrobot wrote:
| You should be able to integrate your IKEA and Homekit
| devices into the one if you use HomeAssistant.
|
| The IKEA Tradfri system is all Zigbee based - I have a
| bunch of their light bulbs and strips, plus a few smart
| power plugs. I personally have them attached to my own
| Zigbee controller, but there's also a Home Assistant
| Tradfri integration if you want to keep using their Smart
| Hub controller.
|
| There's also a Home Assistant homekit integration, so you
| can use HA to orchestrate events happening on the Tradfri
| side to trigger something in the Homekit side, or vice
| versa.
|
| (I don't have the Tradfri smart hub or Homekit devices, so
| YMMV on specific possible options)
| dfox wrote:
| My beef is with the fact that the battery powered switch
| wants to be paired with the thing it directly controls
| and cannot be used alone with it just controlling
| something that is on the other side of the tradfri
| gateway. The five button round one apparently can be used
| for that, but the two position square one can't.
|
| By the way the tradfri gateway is weird piece of
| hardware, the thing is mostly empty and only contains
| small board with apparently the same RFSoC as all the
| other tradfri peripherals connected somehow to ethernet
| PHY...
| cyberax wrote:
| > The cheap IKEA switches can control IKEA peripherals only
| directly, you can't use them to control something outside
| of the IKEA ecosystem.
|
| You can! Just pair them with a ZigBee hub directly.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| Ah, do you have some tips for someone who wants to do something
| similar?
|
| I use AC units that come with IR remotes (Samsung maybe??) but
| the timers don't work for some reason. It would be great to
| hand roll some automation, but I never "hacked" IR
| remote/receiver systems.
| paranoidrobot wrote:
| Start Simple is my suggestion.
|
| Home Assistant supports a huge range of integrations.
|
| Personally I am using Broadlink RM4 Mini IR blasters. One in
| each room. They get added to Home Assistant as devices.
|
| Then I use one of the climate add-ons that can send IR
| commands via the Broadlinks.
| mianos wrote:
| I got the Daikin for the same reason. You have to pay extra for
| a wifi module but after reading the reviews on their app, they
| mostly said, it kinda worked but largely useless.
|
| I built an esp32 IR sender and put Tasmota IR on it. It has
| first class support for the Daikin. It can't receive but it
| seems no need as it's 100% reliable.
| rlpb wrote:
| For Daikin, https://github.com/revk/ESP32-Faikin works well,
| and is tidier (and I think more featureful?) than an external
| IR port. Its existence is why I bought a Daikin!
| mrgaro wrote:
| Gree HVAC units have built-in wifi which supports fully local
| remote control and there are OSS packages (including home-
| assistant).
| yard2010 wrote:
| This is the way. I'm buying stupid tech exclusively, and make
| it smart in my own terms.
| lgats wrote:
| I did the same, i recommend getting the moes or similar IR
| blaster (tyua under the plastic). Treat yourself and get a
| combo temp/humidity sensor + IR.
|
| For one of the rooms i opted for a IR/RF transmitter and the RF
| covers any RF enabled devices in the house (433mhz + 315mhz[i
| think but haven't tested])
| e44858 wrote:
| Some units have a 5V UART port that's easy to connect to
| HomeAssistant and has two-way communication:
| https://static.xtremeownage.com/blog/2023/pioneer-mini-split...
| ryankshaw wrote:
| I did something very similar with my Pioneer minisplit. but i
| used this esp module you can just buy. Super simple and
| cheap:
|
| https://smartlight.me/smart-home-devices/wifi-
| devices/wifi-d...
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6GEfzVhwCE
| connicpu wrote:
| I also just got AC last year, and while it doesn't have as many
| fancy features I'm glad I got one that works with standard 24V
| HVAC wiring. I built my own thermostat out of an ESP8266, I2C
| temperature sensor from adafruit, and three TRIAC circuits to
| control the fan, heat, and ac wires. Connected to MQTT and I
| can send control commands to it from my Home Assistant
| instance!
| bityard wrote:
| If you have the code for this publicly (or would consider
| making it so) I would be quite interested in it.
|
| There are a fair number of DIY thermostat projects online,
| but all that I have found were one-offs by their creators, or
| were for specific kinds of systems like boilers.
|
| I've been batting around the idea of starting a general-
| purpose IoT thermostat that only uses cheap, widely-available
| components that anyone can easily duplicate with a BOM and 3D
| printer.
| connicpu wrote:
| My first model is pretty janky and definitely built as a
| one-off, lots of hard-coded stuff in the arduino code I
| wrote for it that are specific to my setup. I've been
| thinking about making a new, more streamlined version that
| could be fully assembled by a fab and sent ready to flash
| and wire up into an HVAC system. And of course, I'll
| publicly release the KiCAD files and code for that when
| it's ready! :)
| BizarroLand wrote:
| I have a lennox heat pump in my house and the main thermostat
| controller went out a few months ago.
|
| Lennox uses a proprietary system like this one but the old
| school controls were visible on the control boards and due to a
| freak accident when an installer was levelling the floors for
| new flooring and cut the old wire I had a 5 wire thermostat
| wire installed instead of the 4 wire it came with.
|
| Perfect.
|
| $50 thermostat, wired it in. Powers on. Fan powers on. A/C
| condenser? Nada.
|
| Official replacements were $700+, upgrades were $800.
|
| Checked around, found an offerup seller selling the upgraded
| model for $400. Deal.
|
| Met the guy, he gave strong, "I stole this, don't ask too many
| questions" vibes at first glance, and I was about to back out
| of the deal, but something clicked in my gut and I went with
| it.
|
| Got it home, wired it up. Fan turns on. No AC. @#$@!#$%@#$^
|
| On a hunch, went outside and checked the power for the heat
| exchanger. I had unplugged it for safety reasons but plugged it
| back in afterward, but gave it the snuggy test just in case.
|
| Sparks shot out as it re-engaged. It's Alive!
|
| The $50 one might have done the job, but no point in re-
| rewiring the whole shebang as the money is already spent.
|
| If this system goes down, I'm going mini-split ductless. Forget
| this noise.
| DarmokJalad1701 wrote:
| > I cut my teeth on Softice in DOS
|
| Ah .. takes me back.
| stonethrowaway wrote:
| Ranebo, post step by step instructions and full source code. Post
| full photos of circuit board and interconnects. Go fucking wild.
|
| I'm contemplating writing an end-to-end manual for a set of laser
| machines I maintain, including missing schematics,
| gerber/eagle/fusion files and binaries for the MCU, how to flash
| it etc. Some parts which are required for servicing are only
| handed to manufacturer-employed technicians (I obtained those too
| from retired people). It's been a riot to get everything and to
| learn how to disassemble, troubleshoot, fix, reassemble these
| machines.
|
| But am I ever pissed at the manufacturer and the aftermarket for
| screwing people over. The markups on simple items are insane and
| they remove tags and IDs so you don't know what the parts are. At
| this point I don't care what's proprietary information and what
| isn't.
| byb wrote:
| great read.
|
| I have several Daikin split units and installed Faikins on them.
| https://github.com/revk/ESP32-Faikin
|
| Having the PCBs made, flashing them, sourcing the connectors,and
| installing them was a bit involved, but setting them up in home
| assistant was one of the best things this nerd has ever done.
|
| I wish there was an over-arching collective of hackers who would
| teach the principles, and help collaborate to decipher these
| protocols and help build software and microcontrollers to replace
| proprietary systems like the one Advantage Air has. I bet a
| simple ESP32 could handle this.
| robk wrote:
| At least in the UK some enterprising soul has faikins on Amazon
| selling quite well. I got a couple just to stash if ever needed
| but for now daikins app is okay and works w home assistant. For
| now.
| cr3ative wrote:
| The seller is revk (AJK) who came up with the Faikin - it's
| his github :)
| Sarkie wrote:
| OP, ". I could make the i.c() (isEzone()) function always return
| true"
|
| Please do this via a script on GitHub
|
| Then it'll make it easier for other people to use on other
| tablets
| renewiltord wrote:
| This is brilliant. Great write-up. I'm glad it's already on
| archive.org since this is nice and detailed. Much appreciated,
| man. I learned so much here:
|
| 1. PoE to USB
|
| 2. Smali debugging
|
| Funnily, I thought it was serial over CAT5 because we have a
| couple of old network switches that are configured like that.
| dvratil wrote:
| We installed Daikin AC in our house two years ago. Luckily, those
| units can be controlled locally (no cloud) via Daikin app (which
| says is unsupported and I should update to another app, but that
| one requires creating an account so screw that) and, more
| importantly, via HomeAssistant. What makes me really sad is that
| of all the "smart home" appliances we have, the AC is the only
| one doesn't go through cloud.
| mianos wrote:
| In case you want to connect it to HA, Tasmota IR supports my
| Daikin via an esp32 IR sender really well.
| ctippett wrote:
| 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 period has past.
|
| https://business.gov.au/legal/fair-trading/australian-consum...
| chid wrote:
| I just had look and seems most have a warranty of five years,
| it doesn't seem there are many outliers to that. Funnily though
| it seems the AC unit is most likely going to operate many times
| longer, as the OP points out just the controller isn't working
| properly, and how long would a consumer be willing to fight
| this in the summer in Perth.
| jackvalentine wrote:
| I've used the Australian Consumer Law several times at this
| point and most times you say to the customer service rep "The
| Australian Consumer Law gives guarantees of acceptable
| durability that I do not think this product has met. How are
| you planning on remedying the situation?"
|
| They'll then generally go to speak to a supervisor.
|
| The'll then come back and say they've been instructed to help
| you escalate to 'senior management'.
|
| A day later they'll contact you with how to get your product
| fixed for free.
|
| I've not had a significant delay, but you'd be spewing if it
| was a heat wave in summer.
| ajdlinux wrote:
| 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.
| Hawxy wrote:
| Came to the thread to mention this. I imagine the control
| system attached to an A/C system expected to last 10+ years
| should also last as long under the ACCC.
| 1116574 wrote:
| When I read "Advantage Air" I needed to check if I am reading
| sequel to Cory Doctrow's "unauthorised bread" because of how
| dystopian it sounded
| xg15 wrote:
| > _Adding a simple "system" chooser to their software
| applications would give solutions to everyone, while the custom
| POE connector would ensure they still need their hardware._
|
| Defense in depth, baby! (against customers)
|
| Why have one proprietary component when you can have two...
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| 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 of the shellies failed right after two years (warranty time
| in the EU) and fixing costed 20EUR + 1 day. In the meantime my
| automation was replaced with my finger.
| MaXtreeM wrote:
| 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 30EUR in my country shops)? Did they fit
| nicely in the wall switch socket?
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| I initially got the Shelly 2.5, now discontinued. The one
| that failed was changed to a 2 PM which is 31EUR on Amazon in
| France (you could probably get better deals (I just checked
| with Amazon Germany and they are at 25EUR).
|
| I mounted them right next to the roller (in the roller
| enclosure) and if I did not have that possibility, I would
| have done it close to the ground to have good access. I do
| not have a socket per see, rather a small switch on the wall
| not inside the wall, this is not permitted where I am)
|
| I had a look at cheaper solutions in the past but gave up - I
| do not have a lot of rollers so the cost difference is likely
| to be minimal. I like the fact that they work well and it is
| really a kind of mount-and-forget kind of setup.
| jamesbfb wrote:
| 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.
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| I'm struggling to understand why someone who knows software would
| think things in your house relying on android was a good idea.
|
| Just get up and use a remote control people. It's not that hard.
| You really don't need an app to do it remotely. Your life will be
| fine.
| exhilaration wrote:
| He _was_ using the remote control provided by the manufacturer
| - it just happened to be an Android device.
| shahzaibmushtaq wrote:
| So, this is the part where customer care stuffs say to each other
| "It's not a bug, but a feature" and who knows how many people get
| trapped in their story like they had found an old tablet in the
| back of a van that could be bought for $400.
|
| DIY is the way to go, only if you know what you are doing.
| urbandw311er wrote:
| Great story and write-up! I'm currently going through something
| similar myself: I bought a Meaco air con unit that uses its own
| proprietary app to control it over wifi, and there seems to be
| nothing anywhere online about that protocol or how I might
| integrate it with Home assistant. Model is MC Series Pro 8000 in
| case anybody ever cracks the case...
| msnkarthik wrote:
| It's really impressive to see how determination and a bit of
| technical know-how can overcome such blatant profiteering by some
| companies. The effort and ingenuity put into fixing the system
| rather than just paying for an overpriced replacement are
| commendable. It's a clear reminder that proprietary smart systems
| can sometimes backfire, pushing customers to seek alternative
| solutions or even become DIY experts out of necessity!
|
| Like some of the commenters, I've been thinking about the growing
| frustration with these kinds of business practices. It really
| makes you wonder about the balance between smart technology's
| convenience and the long-term costs they can impose.
|
| What do you think would be the most effective way to encourage
| companies to offer more consumer-friendly solutions, especially
| for minor issues like this? Should there be stronger regulations,
| or is there a market opportunity for more open-source, user-
| modifiable systems?
| dandare wrote:
| People underestimate the economic side. This person probably
| earns 6 figures (if not, he should). Fixing this himself probably
| costed more than $1697 in his time.
|
| Now imagine a service doing this, with a manager and all the
| overhead.
| ale42 wrote:
| Is this tablet doing anything else beside the small user
| interface? Is that interface worth a tablet, or can it be done
| with 3 push buttons, a small LCD and a microcontroller?
| keshet wrote:
| By using an android tablet they leverage the existing
| OS/UI/Java ecosystem to write a (fairly simple) app. Recreating
| that from scratch would require a lot more development.
| ale42 wrote:
| Sure, it saves development time & money. But if they anyway
| need some kind of custom interface... problem is, the
| lifetime of the tablet is way lower than a corresponding
| "dumb" system. I'd see the advantage of using a tablet if you
| have lots of controls (let's say you control the temperature
| for 6 rooms, you can see more info, etc.). By the way not
| everybody wants to have yet another touch screen in their
| home, but that's another story.
| hellweaver666 wrote:
| I had a similar situation with my shutter blinds. The company
| wanted EUR500 to install a "smart hub" to enable voice control
| instead of their little remote. To hell with that, I ordered a
| couple of servos and an esp8266 and 3d printed some little
| fingers that would press the buttons on the remote and added the
| whole thing to HomeAssistant via ESPHome. Cost me less than
| EUR30.
| cuu508 wrote:
| I disassembled one of our gate opener's remotes, and hooked the
| button contacts to Raspberry Pi Zero's GPIO pins. Pi runs a
| tiny go webserver and Cloudflare tunnel. I hit an obscure HTTPS
| URL (via button on a phone's homescreen), gate opens.
| csunbird wrote:
| I remember someone posting something about their garage
| opening whenever they open safari, as Safari replays GET
| requests from open tabs when it is un-suspended, although
| can't find the post right now.
|
| Basically, they had your setup exactly, but they leave the
| tab open in Safari and whenever they open Safari to browse
| the internet, the garage door opens.
| cuu508 wrote:
| I didn't dare to hook up Pi with garage opener as well. Our
| gate auto-closes after a configurable delay, but garage
| does not. If I trigger the garage opener by accident while
| I'm not at home, the garage stays open for anybody to come
| in and take stuff. So I'd need some sort of "is garage
| currently open" sensor, but I want to keep things simple.
| mnw21cam wrote:
| And that's what POST requests are for.
| cr3ative wrote:
| It's really pleasing to me how the "analogue loophole"
| continues to work. Previously, recording music through the Line
| Out, or what have you. Now, using a robot to press the supplied
| remote. It's delightful.
| yurishimo wrote:
| You can even buy the little robots. They're pretty affordable
| if you don't want to do it yourself.
|
| https://eu.switch-bot.com/products/switchbot-bot
| snickmy wrote:
| This post well summarises everything that is wrong with the
| current domotic / home automation space.
|
| You either waste a tons of money on consumer grade product, and
| spend even more when they break, or you become a domain expert,
| hacking your way through it and running HomeAssistant (or
| similar)
| ozfive wrote:
| There are so many companies that I am sure countless individuals
| have come along and have solved a problem for themselves that
| many other customers probably have. These solutions hardly ever
| surface.
|
| I for one was upset when I bought a HiFi amp from Cambridge Audio
| (CXA-81) and it came with an IR controller. The only way to be
| able to control that amp through the app is by means of a DAC
| which costs another couple of thousand dollars. I refused to
| accept this as my solution. I wrote a web server that used a
| Raspberry Pi Zero W and an IR transmitter along with a
| rudimentary Android app that had a series of buttons which
| corresponded to the functionalities I needed.
|
| If anyone is interested the web server (written in Go) that the
| Android app talks to is located here
| https://github.com/ozfive/CXA81-IR-Remote-Server
|
| I will upload the the Android app source in the next week.
| kokey wrote:
| When our Fujitsu aircon was installed the installer said it's
| worth a lot of money to be able to make it wifi controllable.
| When I looked into what the components cost to make it do that, I
| saw what he meant. Fortunately I was able to use an ESP32 on the
| same bus as the wired remote and some code from
| https://github.com/FujiHeatPump/esphome-fujitsu to create my own
| remote interface. As a bonus it also told me what temperature the
| unit thought my room was at, which was always around two degrees
| more than reality, which allowed me to set a target temperature
| that worked more reliably.
| mdavid626 wrote:
| Outrageous.
| lloydatkinson wrote:
| Android based AC control? What do you expect...
| atoav wrote:
| Maybe it is time to establish a curated online blacklist of
| companies who engage in malpractise like this one.
| downut wrote:
| Over time a blacklist is potentially unbounded. Better a
| whitelist, I think.
| squarefoot wrote:
| I had AC installed in my new house just after putting solar a few
| months ago, and I was very clear that I wouldn't use anything
| that would depend on any external services: no apps, no
| connections, nothing: if I want to monitor the inverter I have to
| go up there to read its screen (1), and AC have to be all usable
| with IR remotes.
|
| (1) I'm working on monitoring the inverter (Deye) thru a RS485
| interface using a small SBC that connects to the IoT restricted
| VLAN. Will report here as soon as it's ready but will require
| time. I wonder if the same could be achieved with the AC units
| (Hisense). One could learn remote signals and send them say from
| a ESP* board through WiFi, but there would be no feedback from
| the AC units.
| meindnoch wrote:
| Nice job! Fuck companies with "smart" appliances.
| kmacdough wrote:
| Right. To. Repair.
|
| Companies won't stop fighting it. We mustn't stop fighting for
| it.
| pierrefermat1 wrote:
| It seems like in this particular situation if you had a mainland
| chinese friend, he would have been able to source a replacement
| tablet panel for the cheap on 1688.com for ~50 USD.
| atemerev wrote:
| Yes, this amount of work costs about $1697. Perhaps more, with
| corporate overhead included. This is why they suggest replacement
| parts.
| tjscott wrote:
| Given this is in Australia, I'd have thought that a threat to
| enforce your rights under the Australian Consumer Law[1] would
| get some action from the manufacturer.
|
| Essentially, there's a statutory warranty that exists regardless
| of any warranty term quoted by the manufacturer, and the
| manufacturer is on the hook if the product is not fit for purpose
| or sufficiently "durable".
|
| [1] https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/buying-products-and-
| servic...
| taneq wrote:
| This kind of perverse incentive driven behaviour is _rife_ in
| large established businesses. At every stage you get asked "Do
| you want to spend money and effort solving this problem for the
| customer, at the cost of substantial revenue, or do you do
| nothing except shrug and make an excuse, and watch the money roll
| in?" If you aren't deeply invested in the long term quality of
| the company there's not a lot of personal incentive to do get
| former.
| titzer wrote:
| The future is looking like an incredibly huge pile of crappy
| cloud software that no one asked for, no one understands,
| perpetually stops working, and no one can fix except by replacing
| it by an even crappier, faster breaking piece of junk.
| datavirtue wrote:
| Pure anarchy.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> This control system is operated by a cheap POE powered Android
| tablet on the wall of the living room.
|
| >> actively monitor temperature and adjust vent opening angles
| and fan speed to achieve desired temperatures across multiple
| zones.
|
| Who actually wants this junk? Air conditioning is a simple series
| of bang-bang controllers. A handful of relays turn things on and
| off as needed. There is no need for "vent opening angles". Vents
| are open or closed, pumps on or off. The thermal mass of the
| structure keeps everything within a narrow band as systems cycle.
| And then the oxymoron buzzwords like "actively monitor". No.
| Unless it has a little arm to spin a wet bulb, it _passively_
| reads the temperatures and sends and over /under signals as
| needed, something that for decades was done with a blob of
| mercury on a spring. The moment this system even hiccupped, I
| would gut it and replace with basic 4-wire thermostats in each
| zone.
| iandanforth wrote:
| "I'm all for smart things ..." Root cause found. Cannot fix,
| pebkac.
| btbuildem wrote:
| Great write up, and good on you for pushing through to make this
| work.
|
| It's definitely predatory practice by the vendor. I wonder how
| much it would cost to pay someone with your skillset to do this
| hack -- probably comparable to what they wanted you to pay, if
| not more?
|
| This almost merits an angry on-site visit, sheesh.
| madduci wrote:
| Thanks for sharing.
|
| This demonstrates where the new tech products are bringing us: to
| scrape everything and buy the entire thing again.
|
| This is the direction of the automotive industry as well, so in
| the future you won't be able to repair a car easily too.
| bschwindHN wrote:
| This is entirely too much bullshit to run an aircon, what the
| hell are we doing? A tablet should _never_ be required just to
| control the heating/cooling.
| totallymike wrote:
| Ridiculous and arbitrary points of failure is a gigantic pet
| peeve of mine. See every charger unit that has the cable
| hardwired to it.
|
| For any one thing, it feels like not a huge deal. Oh well, a
| thing is broken and needs replacement. But at scale, it feels
| like this is how everything ends up dying, lately.
|
| For example, our LG microwave, oven, and dishwasher all started
| to fail around the same time simply because the awful membrane
| buttons collapse or just stop working. You'd expect to start
| considering appliance replacement when the actual parts that do
| the _work_ can't function anymore, not because you simply can't
| turn it on anymore.
|
| I would love to not send three heavy appliances to the landfill
| just because of a few buttons that don't work anymore, but I have
| more money than time. What's more, how long will it be until
| (made up hyperbole incoming), say, the input button on a TV also
| fails, and then you can only use HDMI 2 until that port wears out
| from swapping things into it, or, <insert basically any other
| thing you could possibly own that can be rendered useless simply
| because the power button stops turning it on>.
|
| It becomes infuriating to think of all the waste that's generated
| from these little stupid things.
| rpcope1 wrote:
| Why does an air conditioning system need an Android tablet? Why
| do people buy this sort of shit?
| jdc0589 wrote:
| To start, aircon is an incredible racket in general a lot of
| the time. Good companies exist, but lots of others, especially
| in the USA, have been bought up by big holding companies and
| converted in to profit maximization new-system sales machines.
| Techs get paid pretty poorly, and helpers get paid worse than
| mcdonalds/target in a lot of areas. There's not much financial
| incentive for someone to get really good at understanding
| residential a/c systems for repair/diagnosis anymore in most
| places.
|
| Then to your tablet question: even on simple non-zoned systems,
| lots of manufacturers have totally moved away from oldschool
| thermostats that have simple fan/compressor/power/etc.. wires,
| in favor of "communicating" systems. "Communicating" means
| there's a proprietary protocol that their thermostats, control
| boards, and other misc electronics in compressor/condenser
| assemblies speak; for which there is no standard. A handful of
| modern advancements kind of necessitate this, such as variable
| speed compressors (yea, you could totally control that with
| normal electrical hardware, but....no one cares).
|
| Couple all that with people willing to pay damn near anything
| to cool off when its 97f outside, and you end up where we are
| today.
| rpcope1 wrote:
| This is why I chose to replace my basic forced air gas
| furnace and basic 16 seer single speed single stage A/C unit
| with the same thing. Every part on these is relatively
| simple, largely serviceable and every parts house coming and
| going will have something that fits. I disagree with others
| that any of the more fancy stuff is any more reliable (and
| Dad worked as an HVAC master tech for a long time and also
| agrees with this) and I can't believe people pay for more
| complicated stuff when so far as I have ever seen it's 90%+
| snake oil and drives the initial price and the cost of
| repairs up astronomically, and largely cools or heats the
| house all the same. I am well aware that Bryant, Lennox,
| Trane, Mitsubishi and everyone else coming and going has got
| the more complicated garbage that talks something more
| complicated, I just really don't get why you'd double or more
| the cost of things when you can get something that just works
| for less. I also don't understand the obsession with "smart"
| controls on any residential single family home when a basic
| programmable thermostat already does basically everything.
|
| I'm sure as everyone piles onto the mini-split hype train,
| there's going to be even more fleecing of homeowners for
| maybe middling quality hardware and installs. Someone (either
| the HVAC company owners or the hardware manufacturers or
| maybe both) is making an absolute killing on this; maybe it's
| time for a career change.
| stuff4ben wrote:
| This puts the Hacker back in Hacker News! Love sticking it to the
| corporate man!!
| bob1029 wrote:
| I had a look at the furnace blower fan motor in my 2023
| construction home.
|
| It has some very cheap looking digital controller system with a
| ridiculous amount of complexity around it. There are 2 separate
| computers involved somehow. Just for spinning the blower. I was
| operating under the impression that an induction motor could be
| powered directly from the AC mains.
|
| The complexity is certainly not adding to any sort of comfort,
| etc. The overall system is unbelievably noisy. This is all so
| clearly engineered to require as much maintenance as possible _on
| purpose_.
|
| It would take me months of figuring to determine how to take 2
| wires and turn them into 40. The easy part is throwing it into
| the plenum in such a way that the wires hang within millimeters
| of the rotating assembly.
| justmarc wrote:
| Congratulations! this is a great fix.
|
| I've had countless of times where simple/cheap part replacements
| have negated the need of a very expensive fix, or a complete
| replacement of a device, it's very satisfying.
|
| I can vividly remember one case, almost two decades ago where a
| 10 cent o-ring (hardware shop price) has saved an old but
| otherwise fully functional Ice cube maker and has stopped me from
| having to buy a new one, or invest relatively too much in a
| workshop retrofitting it with a replacement to an old, no longer
| produced valve, at least according to said workshop. To top it
| off, it has been working perfectly ever since.
|
| I wish there were more organized resources, as well as help
| forums for DIY repairs/retrofits for household appliances and
| other common devices. Way too much stuff gets thrown away because
| of simple part failures and that's just no good.
| seemaze wrote:
| I have a Carrier Infinity heat pump, and have been running
| https://github.com/acd/infinitive on a raspberry pi zero
| flawlessly for years. Cost less than $10 and with Alpine Linux
| running from ram, it still has the original SD card.
| lyime wrote:
| What a great read
| Zopieux wrote:
| This is what the internet is for. Thanks, and fuck that company
| and the entire industry for that matters.
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