How to make use of the Xiaomi Air Conditioning Companion in Home Assistant in only 20 easy steps!

Step 1:

Buy a Xiaomi Air Conditioning Companion without first researching how well it is supported by Home Assistant.

Step 2:

Realize that the Chinese power socket for 16A is different from the 10A one.

Step 3:

Realize that nobody is selling a 16A socket adapter for a 10A China power outlet in Romania.

Step 4:

Order a 16A power socket from China.

Step 5:

Wait 2 months for both the socket and the device to arrive from China.

Step 6:

Realize that there is no adapter for the wall outlet from China also.

Step 7:

Find the only seller that will sell a modular outlet that matches outlet box, probably by mistake

Step 8:

Wait for them to tell you that it will be delivered in a month

Step 9:

If it did not arrive yet, wait for a socket module to be delivered

Step 10:

Install the wall module and power socket

Step 11:

Connect the Xiaomi Air Conditioning Companion and AC for the first time

Step 12:

Realize that the Xiaomi Mi Home App has been updated in the meantime and there is no working tutorial on how to get the password for Home Assistant.

Step 13:

Figure out (after many tries) how to get the gateway password.

Step 14:

Add it to Home Assistant and realize that the gateway is not well supported and that the only things you can do from Home Assistant are sound the alarm and change its volume.

Step 15:

Find the xiaomi_airconditioningcompanion module and realize that you didn’t need the gateway password in the first place.

Step 16:

Downgrade the Xiaomi Mi Home App to get the token as specified in the instructions: https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/vacuum.xiaomi_miio#retrieving-the-access-token

Step 17:

Realize that you don’t have the right version of Hass.io to use the module.

Step 18:

Move to Hassbian from Hass.io

Step 19:

Finally, install the extension and setup the module.

Step 20:

Now the only thing that remains is to enjoy the comfort of controlling your air conditioning from a few feet away, without ever using the remote!