Hardware hacking Della Mini Split aircon unit

RE: Hardware hacking Della Mini Split aircon unit

SmellyDwarf — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 22:15:22 GMT

Hey um, I might have something specific that could possibly help with this entire process. I have the direct email of the coder who writes the Della app, I'm also usually pretty good at talking to people, but if you guys wanted I could probably try to get some useful info out of him, or possibly ask about getting the app getting a means of localized LAN control (sort of like what Govee offers).

Let me know, I joined specifically because of this post.

RE: Hardware hacking Della Mini Split aircon unit

agranted — Mon, 23 Jun 2025 17:02:22 GMT

[mention:82dcf05dbddf4b99ae060c6cdfaacf4e:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05] [mention:44f3532346b84c1f84822aa07b854f87:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05]

It appears that another group cracked the Della protocol! This is new development from last month.

I will (eventually) work on porting their findings over to my repo, to use the SWLF01 + ESPHome as a plug and play replacement.

Key highlights:

They did not use the SWLF01; they used OpenBeken and reflashed the Realtek based Tuya μC.
They found that while Della provides a Tuya device, it does not utilize the standard Tuya UART protocol to communicate with the main μC inside the minisplit
A custom driver had to be written for OpenBeken to support the protocol structure.
Another user pointed out that the decoded packet structure is identical to protocol that TCL mini splits use
Once they had success with OpenBeken, interfacing to HA was easy with MQTT
They have successfully unlocked the entire command set, unlocking fully featured local control.

Other notes:

Github user lNikazzzl previously had TCL minisplits working with ESPHome on the SWLF01: https://github.com/lNikazzzl/tcl_ac_esphome/
I have not tested his ESPHome firmware yet as I'm out of town.
It's not clear if all Della minisplits are supported - I have the 048-MS and will test on that.
From what I understand, SMLight is interested in adding Della as another supported minisplit - perhaps by merging our version in
I may have missed some details, it's a long thread.

Hopefully this marks the final stretch of our journey to get this working! [emoticon:7e2d88177de540b9b1344365f75377f6]

RE: Hardware hacking Della Mini Split aircon unit

agranted — Fri, 21 Mar 2025 14:28:15 GMT

[mention:82dcf05dbddf4b99ae060c6cdfaacf4e:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05] I sent you a PM, I'm all setup for capturing again. I'm taking two different approaches, first is capturing with the scope and exporting the packets via thumb drive. This works but it's slow since the protocol has proven to be pretty chatty; filtering out the noise has been tricky. Second approach is just using 2x FTDI to USB UART devices. I'm sniffing both TX and RX from the TYAUXJ by feeding them into the RX lines of both FTDI respectively. This has proven to be a lot more flexible as I can just write guided python scripts to store both TX and RX packets en masse, taking notes as needed. My concern is surrounding the data I'm seeing, I have not seen any "5B 00" packets as you have, the trend on my side is "9E 66". This has me wondering if something with my configuration is off - the FTDI chips are set to 96008E1.

This is a sample capture from last night, my python script was filtering out the heartbeat (or it could be polling) resulting in specific captures. Replaying these commands back to the RX line of the mini split did nothing which further points to a config issue on my end.
[embed:dc8ab71f-3b98-42d9-b0f6-e21e02a0f8e2:63bfa127-45f7-42e8-adb5-06f0e3385fad:type=text&text=%7B%0A%20%20%22session_date%22%3A%20%2220250320_195717%22%2C%0A%20%20%22commands%22%3A%20%5B%0A%20%20%20%20%7B%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%22timestamp%22%3A%20%222025-03-20T19%3A57%3A48.036718%22%2C%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%22action%22%3A%20%22set%20to%2065%20while%20on%20cool%22%2C%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%22notes%22%3A%20%22%22%2C%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%22raw_data%22%3A%20%229E%2066%2000%2078%2000%2000%2000%2000%20FE%2000%2000%2000%2006%2080%207E%20E6%2000%209E%22%2C%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%22length%22%3A%2018%0A%20%20%20%20%7D%2C%0A%20%20%20%20%7B%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%22timestamp%22%3A%20%222025-03-20T19%3A58%3A23.674359%22%2C%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%22action%22%3A%20%22set%20to%2064%20while%20on%20heat%22%2C%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%22notes%22%3A%20%22switching%20to%20heat%20seems%20to%20have%20been%20ignored%20so%20we%20must%20have%20filtered%20it%20out%22%2C%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%22raw_data%22%3A%20%229E%2066%2000%2078%2000%2000%2000%2000%20FE%2000%2000%2000%2006%2080%20FE%2098%2000%20E0%22%2C%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%22length%22%3A%2018%0A%20%20%20%20%7D%2C%0A%20%20%20%20%7B%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%22timestamp%22%3A%20%222025-03-20T19%3A58%3A45.900249%22%2C%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%22action%22%3A%20%22Set%20to%2070%20while%20on%20heat%22%2C%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%22notes%22%3A%20%22%22%2C%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%22raw_data%22%3A%20%229E%2066%2000%2078%2000%2000%2000%2000%20FE%2000%2000%2000%2006%2080%20FE%201E%2000%20E0%22%2C%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%22length%22%3A%2018%0A%20%20%20%20%7D%0A%20%20%5D%0A%7D]

I'm not sure the next best step, I'm just going to keep attempting to brute force it until someone with more knowledge can help bring some structure to the method.

RE: Hardware hacking Della Mini Split aircon unit

Jazzmonger — Tue, 11 Mar 2025 12:11:57 GMT

I found it. He wrote an MQTT bridge based on Tasmota (which I despise) which was unreliable then he ditched that. It's a start though as he has all the basics done! Here's the link.

https://github.com/adaasch/AC-hack/issues/3

I'm knee deep in fabricating and writing code for an ESPHome controller for a 5 burner commercial smoker (2000 lines so far) or I'd dive back into this. But, I'm happy to test anything you guys come up with! I have several of those ESPHome Midea modules the guy in Ukraine makes.

RE: Hardware hacking Della Mini Split aircon unit

agranted — Mon, 10 Mar 2025 17:35:45 GMT

I made an account just to reply to this, I've been working on decoding my Della 048-MS for a bit now. I was also in the same situation of moving, unpacking, setting up workspaces etc. I've been attempting to decode the serial data but for my unit (which uses a Tuya TYAUXJ wifi module), 9600 was not successful. In fact, no standard baud rate has been successful. I was able to dump the firmware, so that's going to be my next project - attempting to decode it. So far, the firmware seems to indicate that 9600 is indeed the baud rate but I was never able to get any useful information out of it like you were. Maybe we can team up on this, let me know!

RE: Hardware hacking Della Mini Split aircon unit

DAB — Tue, 25 Feb 2025 19:42:46 GMT

Nice update, everyone likes a good mystery.

RE: Hardware hacking Della Mini Split aircon unit

genebren — Tue, 25 Feb 2025 17:52:53 GMT

Sound like fun! Thanks for sharing you experiences.