Skip to main content

Use a ESP8266 to control your A/C via MQTT

We had some very (very!) hot days here in Sydney, up to 40 DegC over several days. After a day in the office, you open the door to your apartment and… 50 DegC 🙁 I looked for a solution to cool down home right after i left the office – with my phone – using MQTT 😉

Hardware

I am using three components for my project. The MCU, an adapter board and the IR-LED

NodeMCU

  • ESP8266
  • 4Mbyte ROM
  • On-board USB/UART

Grove Base Shield for NodeMCU

  • 5 Digital connectors
  • 2 I2C sockets
  • 1 Analog connectors (A0)
  • Power indicator LED

ShopWiki

Grove – Infrared Emitter

  • Voltage: 3.3-5V
  • Distance:10m

Shop | Wiki

 

Software

 

The Basics

The project is based on the Arduino core for ESP8266 and uses several additional libraries. I am using the platform.io IDE for development. The advantages are the fully integrated build and deployment process (via USB or over WiFi), the library manager and the code completion and linting. You can download my complete platform.io project here.

You’ll also need an MQTT server like RabbitMQ to send commands and receive the status. If you are familiar with Docker, you should read my previous post Dockerize RabbitMQ to get a server up and running in no time. If not: There are several binary pages on the RabbitMQ Website.

Read More