Adding a sub-device AC under an IR Blaster device to Tuya Local to create a climate entity.

[Wowza28]

Hi everyone. Excellent integration, I apologize in advance if I fail to provide any important details or logs, as I am not very technical.

I am currently using a different integration to control my ACs using a Tuya IR Blaster. It is not local, and requires the developer project keys, which require a refresh every 6 months. Here is their git: https://github.com/EnzoD86/tuya-smart-ir-ac

I was wondering if something similar is already possible on Tuya Local. Virtual sub-devices under my IR Blaster are being picked up when adding a device. I can choose them, select the blaster as the hub, and it auto-fills all the details, but when I click the final Add button, it simply errors with either "Unable to connect to your device with those details" if I leave protocol version as is, or "Unknown error occurred." if I set it to auto.

Few things to note:

• The node_id for the sub-device that is auto-detected is different than the device_id shown for the sub-device on the developer platform, but I believe this is fine.
• The IR Blaster itself can be added to Tuya Local and works perfectly fine with learn_command and send_command for simple things like toggling lights. However, this is not adequate for my AC, as I want it to create a climate entity like the integration mentioned above does, without learning individual commands (not even sure how that would work for an AC, and how I'd get it to look right on HA).

I'd be very happy if it was possible to simply add these sub-devices directly to HA like I can with that integration, with local control, no fiddling with learning commands or the developer platform.

[make-all]

This integration only works with real local devices. The "sub devices" that Tuya creates for IR blasters only exist in the cloud, so do not work with this integration. Instead you need to learn the commands for the device within Tuya Local or another method and send them as remote or infrared commands through this integration. A climate entity would be another layer on top (such as SmartIR, or one of the newer infrared based integrations).

[Wowza28]

Ahhh understood, thank you for the reply.

I was thinking the integration would maybe download and save the instructions from the virtual device, and communicate with the blaster locally, but I was thinking about it the wrong way since the virtual device is still a device.

Allow me to add on a question: if I want to go the learning commands route, the one thing I'm confused about is the temperature signal. I haven't worked with signals that aren't simple toggles. Would there be a unique signal for each temperature and each fan speed for example?

Once I learnt them all, I can take a look at converting them to climate entity.

[make-all]

Normally air conditioner remotes send all the settings in a single command. So if you can find an infrared based integration that has decoded the individual fields for your air conditioner already, it would be the easiest route. Otherwise you need to learn all the temperature/mode/fan/swing combos you are interested in using. SmartIR basically requires learning everything (though someone may have already contributed the settings for your air conditioner).