How to Network-Enable Old-World Appliances: The Air Conditioner
Tired of not being able to control your lame old school appliances via the internet? Probably not. But! If you have the urge to control any electronic device via the web, no matter how old, here’s how. For this home automation hack, you just need a relay board and some PHP to control the air conditioner from anywhere with internet access.
To begin, you need to identify the soldering points which control the device’s temperature and power. A PHP script sends in the temperature inputs via the relay board. Although the program does not sense the running temperature of the device, it does instruct the AC to start from the lowest scale and then step it up. Add in a few scheduled tasks using crons and you can set the temperature according to the time of day. The simple AC automation hack can be extended further. Now go make it controllable via your cell phone!
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