Hey all,

i want to hack a portable AC. The devices communicates via UART between Mainboard and control unit (LCD and Buttons). As we still want to use the original controls, i had the idea to put an ESP32 in the middle of the communication (using UART2 for the mainboard and UART3 for the control board).

I don’t want to reverse engineer the whole protocol, only the relevant parts. So, i need a way to forward all messages in both directions, to make this work as it should.

Has anybody done such a thing already? Or has any tips how to do it.

I’m fluent in C++, so there is not barrier here, but i am new to the codebase of ESPHome

  • Bradley NelsonEnglish
    3•1 year ago

    depending on your needs you can setup two uart components wand wire them up. I would think that the best way to do this would be with a custom_component here is a good starting place. I’m not sure id the esp32 has the right hardware on board as one of the uarts is send only and it does not support software uart. This sounds like a really interesting problem. Please let me know how it goes or if i can be of help

    • @vapelokiOPEnglish
      2•1 year ago

      The ESP32 wroom has 3 uarts on Board.in theory, that should work.

      Yeah, I thought about a custom component also.

      At least for prototyping the best way. If it works, I may contribute a UART intercepting component later on.

      • Bradley NelsonEnglish
        3•1 year ago

        Sounds good to go then. I would appreciate it if you let me know how it turns out