[Feature Request] Self Cleaning - Fan Mode after Cooling / Drying

[Ghostrider-1911]

Hello there,
first i wanted to thank you for your great work!

When i shut off the AC after cooling / drying with the original remote, the Fan keeps blowing 2h and Vanes are nearly shut.
This will dry the indoor unit to prevent bacteria etc.

Is it possible to integrate this into this Project? I think many People could use this.

[heartkingz]

Good idea! Came across this feature and enabled it via the remote. It only works if you turn off the unit via the remote.

[RobertJansen1]

I have read some forum messages of people adding this to Home Assistant (i did this in NodeRed). i am not sure if we want the unit to think for itself when home automation shuts it, but if you have an idea on how to implement it and document it clearly, we can consider it

[Maxxxel]

i need a solution. I use the AC mostly for Dry and the room stinks like wet pants afterwards.

[arpiecodes]

There is simply no solution available through the current MHI-Ac-Ctrl hardware to achieve this. Also, adding in logic on the module itself to kind of polyfill the feature in, makes no sense (at least not for the ESPHome variant - in which case you can use Home Assistant anyways to build an automation that will run in fan mode for some time after power off).

Even then, it's not the same thing to put the unit in fan mode on speed 1 (so not really a replacement) for the actual 'feature' as we cannot close the vanes like the feature does - but yeah running it in fan mode for some time is probably better than nothing at all (but then again you can easily make this so with an HA automation).

What you could do (if you're a bit handy with electronics) is add an IR transmitter module on one of the still available ESP-01's pins. Then you can emulate the remote key presses through the ESPHome remote_transmitter module and control the AC that way (so it triggers the self-clean). Not sure how the state looks when updated through SPI communication though, it may seem to not have turned off at all, which is also weird I guess.

Anyway, the IR method will probably also allow for the other stuff being requested over and over (like night setback/silent mode/turbo) that will probably never work through the current hw due to the SPI communication protocol's limitations. Maybe, some day, someone is able to make it into an optional add-on, or the hardware schematic can be updated to easily allow this extension like the external temp sensor.

Something like this;

[RobertJansen1]

an alternative would be to create an automation, if ac unit changed from heat / cool to off, set fan only for x minutes, but as said before, doing that in this project creates unwanted behaviour we don't want to deploy to all users. you could suggest a yaml file that does this, we can always consider adding it to the examples (with the risk of it not being updated in the future)

[Maxxxel]

I think an IR transmitter will be the way to go... But thinking about opening the case again...bro. they are so close under the ceiling 😅😅 it took 45 minutes last time.

[RobertJansen1]

also i think the feature gets disabled as soon as something is connected through the SPI interface, i think remembering some official wifi unit users also wanting the fan feature, but were unable to (as it also doesn't work when the unit is controlled by the remote)