Launch HN: Electric Air (YC W23) – Heat pump sold directly to homeowners

Re:Launch HN: Electric Air (YC W23) – Heat pump sold directl... by amluto on Monday March 13, 2023 @03:37PM (#35141253)

This doesn't seem at all worthy of anything proprietary, though -- a simple RS-485 or 10BASE-T1L protocol and a page of docs would do the trick.

And if you build this, you can also sell the same hardware plus a BacNET or MODBUS gateway for a bunch of money to the commercial building management types :)

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Re:Launch HN: Electric Air (YC W23) – Heat pump sold directl... by phasetransition on Monday March 13, 2023 @04:46PM (#35142291)

Upvoted,

BACnet already exists as an ISO standard: https://www.iso.org/standard/37298.html https://bacnetinternational.org/

The example application in the Ethernet Alliance one-pager on single pair Ethernet is HVAC: https://ethernetalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/EA_T...

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Re:Launch HN: Electric Air (YC W23) – Heat pump sold directl... by amluto on Monday March 13, 2023 @05:52PM (#35143425)

FWIW, if this were my startup, I would probably use 10BASE-T1L. The programming model is simple, and cloud or other “smart” integration is natural if the system already uses IP. For that matter, one ought to be able to support wired 10BASE-T1L and wireless Matter/Thread thermostats without much duplicate effort.

This could be prototyped on a BeaglePlay :)

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Re:Launch HN: Electric Air (YC W23) – Heat pump sold directl... by phasetransition on Monday March 13, 2023 @10:20PM (#35146511)

FWIW,

BACnet allows multiple PHY implementations, including 802.3

I suspect that 802.3.cg is also kosher, but haven't looked in detail. It's been 5 years since I looked seriously at whether BACnet was the correct solution for a product family.

Single pair Ethernet is indeed cool tech.

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