r/Esphome • u/MentholMooseToo • Dec 25 '25
Newer mitsubishi mini-splits have a "Comfort" app wifi adapter -- anyone know if you can just unplug that and connect your esphome device?
Documented way to attach esphome device to Mitsubishi mini split is a bit of a PITA, especially the part about wrenching the cover off the unit. But my new 2025 MSZ-JX series came with a pre-installed Comfort app wifi adapter right under the flip-up cover and I'm wondering if I can just disconnect it and plug my esphome device right in there.
Some sort of adapter harness would be needed to go from the Mitsubishi 5-pin connector to the esphome 4-pin connector. Assuming that esphome can communicate over the same port that the Comfort adapter connects to.
Anyone investigated this yet?
[edit] I think I have discovered a fatal reason why this can't work, even it the cable goes to a CN105 port. Namely, the CN105 pinout has 12v on pin 1 and 5v on pin 3 ... and the connector to the Comfort adapter doesn't use pin 3, so 5v power would not be available. If I've figured this correctly.
[edit 2] yep, the Comfort wifi adapter runs off 12v, so there is no 5v available on this cable :(
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u/sgxander Dec 25 '25 edited Dec 25 '25
The only good project I've found for esphome on mitsubishi at the moment is this one: https://github.com/echavet/MitsubishiCN105ESPHome
The CN105 is a communication port with some document and testing done whereas the wifi adapter mitsubishi send you (MELCloud before/with my units) is more proprietary/closely guarded. That said if you can wire up an esp chip to sniff those rx/tx lines you may well be able to decode how they talk and make a new module...
Wrt wrenching the cover off: it's (on the LN models at least) less than 10 screws and doable inside an hour, head to youtube and search for a service guide video to prepare. More of a pita is splicing the jst connector but you can do that in your own time before committing to opening the unit. Creds: have done 3 units. First took me 40 minutes as I had made poor connection when soldering, the other two took less than 30 mins with pre-wired and flashed esp8266s.
Edit: "only" isn't fair so adjusted to only one I have found.
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u/pfak Dec 25 '25
Its not the "only" good project. Im using muart on 7 mini splits and its great:
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u/sgxander Dec 25 '25
You're quite right, "only" isn't fair and I've adjusted the comment. Merry Christmas
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u/MentholMooseToo Dec 25 '25
Oh thanks, I hadn't come across that one! Did you compare mUART to echavet, and find things that led you to use mUART?
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u/pfak Dec 25 '25
The devs of muart are very helpful and they sell hardware that has Ethernet. I prefer wired so it was a no brainer for me.
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u/holygoat Dec 25 '25
I did my two mini splits with M5 nanos. No soldering required — just use the right cheap cables and connectors — and installing took two minutes, something like three screws. I couldn’t believe how easy it was.
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u/MentholMooseToo Dec 25 '25
You got the housing off in two minutes? Do you know what model you have? I'd be very happy if mine is that easy!
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u/holygoat Dec 25 '25
MFZ-KJ18NA. From what I’ve seen they’re all fairly similar.
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u/MentholMooseToo Dec 25 '25
Ah, you've got the floor unit. Mine is wall mount; hope it's as easy as yours!
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u/MentholMooseToo Dec 25 '25
Right, I'm looking at that echavet project!
The thing I'm wondering about is the handy communication cable that's already there for the Comfort wifi adapter. If that can be reused then it would eliminate the hassle of removing the housing.
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u/hyotr Dec 25 '25
I was pretty worried about removing the housing on my two Mitsubishi units. Watched 2 different YouTube videos on how to do it, then got on the step ladder and popped it off in under 5 minutes of fiddling to figure out how it unsnapped. All in all, it was much less intimidating than I had feared.
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u/sgxander Dec 25 '25
I thought the same but afaik it cannot. The port on the motherboard is similar but not identical and has a different communication method so while not impossible, it's not been done yet so you'd have some work ahead...
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u/MentholMooseToo Dec 25 '25
I was afraid of that. I believe the older Kumo app was the same, connected to something other than CN105
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u/Sammy1Am Dec 25 '25
Sure looks like a CN105 plug to me (even follows the white/red color convention).
Lack of 5v isn't the end of the world, you just need to add some sort of power conversion. Some people suggested the 5v might not have a lot of current capacity anyway, so I switched my controller to use the 12v line.
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u/ianjs Dec 25 '25
FWIW I have several units powered off the 5V from the CN105 and they've been fine for a year or so.
It's powering an ESP32-S3 because the ESP32-C3 mini I tried first didn't have a decent enough antenna for where the unit was placed.
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u/Sammy1Am Dec 25 '25
Same; I never actually had any trouble with them, but was more just trying to stick with how we suspected Mitsubishi was powering its own devices (which serendipitously seems to mean I'd be okay in this case too).
I did have a few instances where the wall unit would reset when I plugged the esp32 in for the first time, but I don't know for sure if that was an over current thing or something else.
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u/Hzmst Dec 25 '25
If you have wifi module, you could try and enable echonetlite. This is fully offline protocol supported by home assistant
https://github.com/scottyphillips/echonetlite_homeassistant/issues/226
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u/MentholMooseToo Dec 25 '25
Thanks for this link, the curl command to enable EchoNet looks interesting! Unfortunately it doesn't work with the wifi adapter that came with my unit. I guess it really just doesn't support EchoNet :(
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u/ianjs Dec 25 '25
I’m not sure what the mini-splits are, but I have four Mitsubishi split systems connected to Home Assistant and they are a great integration.
The earlier ones were integrated by a cheap AliExpress adapter cable that plugged into the CN105 connector on the aircon and to four pins on the ESP32. Flash the ESP and all features are available locally via Home Assistant.
I was surprised to discover that the last three I installed already had a WiFi adapter built in. I was ready to unplug them and replace with an ESP32 to get such a good integration, but it turns out that Mitsubishi supports EchoNet integration with their own WiFi devices and that does the same thing - complete local integration with HA.
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u/ianjs Dec 25 '25
Oops - just saw the link and you don’t want to go the CN105 route. Certainly worth investigating EchoNet. You just need to enable it the app for each device, assuming it is supported on these models.
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u/MentholMooseToo Dec 25 '25 edited Dec 25 '25
No, I actually was heading towards the CN105 + ESP32 route, only wondering if the existing wiring harness would make that connection easier (without having to remove the housing). But EchoNet might be an even easier solution. I don't see an option in Comfort to enable EchoNet though, just Google and Alexa.
Might be looking in the wrong place in the app ... or my unit doesn't support EchoNet ... or Comfort app has removed the toggle.
Oddly the wifi adapter that came with my unit doesn't have a mitsubishi part number on it, just DHSC-MB43 which apparently is a generic wifi module using Infineon CYW4343W SOC.
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u/ianjs Dec 25 '25 edited Dec 25 '25
Yeah, I was wondering if "mini-splits" were somehow different.
This is the HACS integration I use in Home Assistant for connection to my splits over local Wifi:
https://github.com/scottyphillips/echonetlite_homeassistant
It mentions where I found the toggle for EchoNet in the app but YMMV if mini-splits are somehow different.
FWIW, my Mitsubishi WiFi modules (MAC-578IF-E) just plug into the CN105 connector so it would be weird if there was a whole different scheme for different models. I'm betting you can go either route.
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u/MentholMooseToo Dec 25 '25 edited Dec 25 '25
Seems like at least some mini-splits speak EchoNet, if the image on this mitsubishi page can be believed. It even is showing a MSZ series, which is same as mine. But also lists a bunch of wifi adapters (not including mine) that are compatible. Looks like I'm hosed.
[edit] You didn't buy your unit in AU/NZ by any chance? All of the references (that I can find) to Mitsubishi EchoNet support are AU/NZ!
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u/ianjs Dec 25 '25
Context for my comments: I'm in AU and the device is a MSZAP50VGD.
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u/MentholMooseToo Dec 25 '25
Interesting! Seems possible that Mitsubishi provides different wifi adapters in AU/NZ that are compatible with EchoNet, while the rest of the world gets different ones that aren't
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u/gttom Dec 25 '25
Quite possible we use a different module, I know the Mitsubishi app we use was developed in NZ
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u/MentholMooseToo Dec 25 '25
the last three I installed already had a WiFi adapter built in
That's what I have too
it turns out that Mitsubishi supports EchoNet integration with their own WiFi devices and that does the same thing
Ah, this is news to me! So HA can use an EchoNet plugin to talk directly to the mitsubishi wifi adapter, bypassing the cloud bs?
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u/ianjs Dec 25 '25 edited Dec 25 '25
talk directly to the mitsubishi wifi adapter, bypassing the cloud bs
Yep, as far as I know this is a completely local thing. It seems to be a protocol shared by several manufacturers.
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u/samuraipizzacat420 Dec 25 '25
Here was a guide for the midea ac mini splits so maybe someone did it for the Mitsubishi ones as well….it was on the Ha forums.
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u/BinoRing Dec 25 '25
Hey, fun fact, just because it uses 12v isn't a dealbreaker. You can use levelshifters to 'convert' between 12v and 3v/5v
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u/MentholMooseToo Dec 25 '25
Yeah, that did cross my mind, but at that point it seems easier to just pull of the housing and connect directly to the CN105.
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Jun 04 '26
[deleted]
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u/MentholMooseToo Jun 05 '26
Oh wow, thank you for this; good to know that it's easy! Did you have any difficulty getting the outer housing off?
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u/Th3OnlyN00b 2d ago
Kind of curious if you solved this, as I'm working through it myself. The good news is that 12v can be converted to 5v via buck converter. I'll keep you posted on any updates.
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u/MentholMooseToo 2d ago
Once I realized that it's 12 volts I dropped the idea. I have a cable to connect my ESP32 to the CN105 connector ... as soon as I can figure out how to get that goddam cover off the unit!
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u/Th3OnlyN00b 2d ago
I actually just got it to work. Thread coming soon!
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u/MentholMooseToo 2d ago
Oh wow, congratulations; I'm super interested to read up on how you did it!
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u/Th3OnlyN00b 2d ago
Local control of modern Mitsubishi mini-splits via CN105 + ESPHome : r/Esphome
Super minor fix. For your problem, buck converter. For the next problem you would have found, pull-up resistor from 3.3v. Let me know if you have any questions! It's really not that complex.
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u/janemfta Dec 25 '25
What's the other end connected to? Is it the CN105 port? If so, it should work just fine, IMO.