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content/post/6-home-assistant-node-red-ac-automation.md

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+---
+slug: home-assistant-node-red-ac-automation
+title: home-assistant-node-red-ac-automation
+description: 
+date: 
+draft: true
+tags: 
+categories:
+---
+## Intro
+
+In my apartment I have a Daikin air conditioning system, to cool it down in summer, but also warm it up in winter. It is composed of 3 indoor units:
+- Living room
+- Master bedroom
+- Hallway (in front of my office and my kid's room)
+
+I always find it boring to have to turn them on when I needed, I forgot to turn them off when I should and I was constantly chasing the remote.
+
+What if I could automate it? After all, I already use Home Assistant to control many devices at home, controlling the AC seems natural to me. 
+
+### Home Assistant
+
+Home Assistant is the brain of my smart home. It connects all my devices (lights, sensors, shutters, etc.) under a single interface. What makes it so powerful is the ability to create automations: if something happens, then do something else. Simple things like “turn on the kitchen light when the motion sensor is triggered” are a breeze. For more advanced workflows, it offers YAML-based scripts with conditions, delays, triggers, and templates.
+
+That said, once automations start getting more complex, like reacting to multiple sensors, time ranges, or presence detection, they can quickly turn into long, hard-to-follow blocks of code. It’s easy to lose track of what does what, especially when you want to tweak just one small part weeks later.
+
+### Node-RED
+
+That’s exactly why I turned to Node-RED. It’s a visual tool that lets you build logic using blocks called “nodes,” which you connect with wires to create flows. Each node performs a small task: trigger at a certain time, check a condition, send a command to a device, etc. Instead of writing YAML, you just drag, drop, and connect.
+
+Node-RED does not replace Home Assistant, it empowers it. I won't cover the installation of Node-RED neither the integration in HA, I've done that 2 years ago, but for that I remember, this is quite straightforward.
+
+## Previous Workflow
+
+I was already having a good solution to control my AC from Home Assistant with Node-RED, but I wanted to enhance it to also handle the humidity level at home. My current workflow, despite being functional, was not really scalable and quite hard to maintain.
+![Ancien workflow Node-RED du contrôle de la climatisation](img/node-red-ha-ac-automation-before.png)
+
+Instead of tweaking this workflow, I created a new one from scratch, with the same goal in mind: control the AC system by taking into account all available sensors: thermometers, humidity, door sensors, occupant presence, time of day, etc.
+
+## New Workflow
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+![node-red-new-ac-workflow-with-legend.png](img/node-red-new-ac-workflow-with-legend.png)