Toshiba AC remote for Arduino

Serial API using Arduino + IR led

This code creates a serial API interface device to pass commands to Toshiba air conditioner / heat pump. This works with my AC model: Toshiba Heat Pump RAS-10PKVP-ND, which has a IR remote control WH-H07JE. Program reads commands from serial JSON input, sends them to AC by IR, and returns ACK status as JSON. IR is one way only, no ACK from AC.

I recorded all the key presses controller sends, and added the protocol to IRremote library. It is included in folder lib/. You can use modified IRremote library to create other programs of your own. There are bit-fields for convenience to ease the command creation in C.

I have programmed Arduino Nano with this, which is connected ATM to RasPi with USB cable. One could connect module to anything that outputs serial console. E.g. ESP(8266/32) modules.

Next thing to do is to write small utility to receive MQTT commands within RasPi and relay those as serial into Arduino, and back.

I used PlatformIO to compile this, you can import this folder to PlatformIO. Remember to add ArduinoJSON library.

Feel free to use and modify, it's GPL, and please PR back any enhancements or bug fixes you find!

Credits to IRremote and ArduinoJSON developers for the handy libraries.

Usage

Program waits for JSON input with command data. Possible values are:

• cmd: on | off | swing | hipwr | sleep | vertical | stats
  • temp: xx °celcius, where xx=17-30°C
  • mode: auto | cool | dry | heat
  • fan: auto | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
• swing
• hipwr
• sleep
• vertical
• stats

Examples to send commands over serial:

• { "cmd":"on", "temp":"23", "mode":"auto", "fan": "auto" }
• { "cmd":"off" }
• { "cmd":"swing" }
• { "cmd":"hipwr" }
• { "cmd":"sleep" }
• { "cmd":"vertical" }
• { "cmd": "stats"}

Program will acknowledge the command by sending it back as received, and will report status in JSON, e.g:

• { "cmd": "swing", "status": "ok"}
• {"status": "fail", "error":"unknown command"}

HTTP GUI and API using Node-red

After creating serial device, I ended up using Node-Red to create web user interface and also JSON API for controlling AC unit remotely. The Arduino is connected to RasPi, which then exposes this kind of remote GUI:

This is how to use the API (change token in auth node!):

curl -X POST -d '{"cmd": "on", "fan": "auto", "mode": "auto", "temp": "23" , "token": "yourtokenhere"}' -H "Content-Type: application/json" -H "Accept: application/json"  http://myraspi:1880/api

And this is what the nodered-flow looks like:

BR, Ilkka Tengvall