GREE Controller

Self-hosted controller for GREE-compatible air conditioners with a local Web UI, thermostat zones, schedules, Home Assistant integration, history, notifications and a documented HTTP/WebSocket API.

Current release: 0.10.0

Full API reference — authentication, every endpoint, request bodies, response models, WebSocket events and examples.

What it does

• Discovers and binds GREE Wi-Fi units on the LAN, including mixed protocol generations.
• Provides direct technical device control and a separate thermostat layer built around zones.
• Supports cooling/heating profiles: Comfort, Sleep, Away and custom quick targets.
• Coordinates house, group and per-zone control without silently fighting physical/manual overrides.
• Supports schedules, automations, night mode and temporary Quick Thermostat sessions.
• Can use GREE sensors, Home Assistant room sensors or a weighted combination.
• Stores recent history in SQLite and can archive/query long-term history in InfluxDB 1.x or 2.x.
• Exposes native Home Assistant entities through the bundled custom integration.
• Includes PWA-capable responsive UI, Polish/English localization and live diagnostics.
• Can run in Simulation mode without physical air conditioners. A large warning is shown whenever simulation is enabled.

UI overview

The interface is intentionally split by responsibility:

Area	Purpose
Dashboard	Whole-house summary and Quick Thermostat controls.
Devices	Discovery, binding and direct/technical GREE device control.
Zones	Thermostat configuration, profiles, sensors and control ownership.
Groups	Climate group membership plus optional group-level mode/preset/custom-temperature control. Group ON activates member thermostat control; Group OFF powers member units down and releases group ownership so individual thermostats are not left group-blocked.
Flow	Full-screen visual logic editor. Flow is the source of truth and is automatically compiled into generated schedules and automations.
Schedules	Weekly thermostat schedules and ready-made templates, including read-only entries generated by Flow.
Automations	Time/temperature/Flow-triggered device, group or thermostat actions.
History	Overview, zones, devices and HA sensors with precise chart tooltips and zoom.
Simulation	Simulated units for safe testing.
Night mode	Quiet/Sleep/fan limits during an overnight window.
Home Assistant	Sensor connection, aliases and restricted integration tokens.
Settings → Application	Simulation, notifications, metrics/logs, InfluxDB, debug and backup.
Settings → GREE	Controller identity, polling/discovery, GREE commands and live GREE traffic.
Events	Operational event log and diagnostics.

The top bar uses the same compact language and theme controls on desktop and mobile. The live debug overlay can be filtered to All, Requests or GREE frames.

Quick start for development

Requirements are installed automatically on supported Debian/Ubuntu environments unless --no-install is used.

cp .env.example .env
./scripts/dev.sh

Useful development commands:

./scripts/dev.sh --check       # format, tests, build and HTTP smoke test
./scripts/dev.sh --release     # optimized local build
./scripts/dev.sh --reset       # recreate the local SQLite database
./scripts/smoke.sh             # API smoke test against an isolated simulated instance

The default panel is available at http://127.0.0.1:8787 when the process is bound locally.

LXC / systemd installation

The production scripts target Debian/Ubuntu systemd hosts and LXC containers.

First installation

sudo ./scripts/install.sh

Optional flags:

sudo ./scripts/install.sh --skip-tests
sudo ./scripts/install.sh --no-start

Installed layout:

Path	Purpose
/opt/gree-controller/gree-controller	Release binary.
/etc/gree-controller.env	Environment configuration; mode 0600.
/var/lib/gree-controller/gree-controller.db	SQLite database.
/etc/systemd/system/gree-controller.service	systemd unit.
/var/backups/gree-controller/	Update backups used for rollback.

Update

Run from the extracted source tree of the new release:

sudo ./scripts/update.sh

The updater builds/tests first, stops the old service, backs up the binary/unit/environment/database, installs the release, checks /api/health and rolls back automatically if startup fails.

Service helper

./scripts/service.sh status
./scripts/service.sh health
./scripts/service.sh logs
sudo ./scripts/service.sh restart

./scripts/install-lxc.sh remains as a compatibility alias to install.sh.

Configuration

Copy .env.example for the full supported example. Command-line arguments exist for the core Config options, while most day-to-day runtime settings are also editable in the Web UI and persisted in SQLite.

Environment values explicitly supplied for supported runtime overrides win over the persisted value after restart.

Core variables

Variable	Default	Description
GREE_CONTROLLER_BIND	0.0.0.0:8787	HTTP/WebSocket listen address.
GREE_CONTROLLER_DATABASE	./data/gree-controller.db	SQLite database path.
GREE_CONTROLLER_APP_TOKEN	empty	Optional administrator API/Web UI token. Empty means trusted-LAN mode.
GREE_CONTROLLER_BASE_PATH	empty	Optional reverse-proxy prefix such as /gree.
GREE_CONTROLLER_ID	gree-controller	GREE client/controller identifier.
GREE_CONTROLLER_SIMULATE	false	Initial Simulation mode.
GREE_CONTROLLER_AUTO_SEED	false	Seed simulated sample data when applicable.
GREE_CONTROLLER_POLL_INTERVAL_SECONDS	15	Device polling interval.
GREE_CONTROLLER_ZONE_INTERVAL_SECONDS	5	Thermostat control interval.
GREE_CONTROLLER_DISCOVERY_TIMEOUT_MS	3000	Discovery timeout.
GREE_CONTROLLER_DISCOVERY_BROADCAST	255.255.255.255:7000	GREE discovery target.
GREE_CONTROLLER_GREE_INTERFACE	auto	Optional interface name or local IP used for GREE UDP traffic.
GREE_CONTROLLER_COMPRESSOR_PROTECTION_ENABLED	true	Enable controller-side compressor restart/mode-change protection.
GREE_CONTROLLER_COMPRESSOR_PROTECTION_SECONDS	180	Compressor protection window (30–1800 seconds; 180 seconds recommended).

Additional environment variables cover history retention, debug, night mode, Home Assistant and InfluxDB. See .env.example.

Connecting physical GREE units

1. Place the controller host on a network that can reach the air-conditioner Wi-Fi modules by UDP.
2. Open Devices and start discovery.
3. Auto protocol mode is recommended; the controller accepts both supported GREE encryption generations.
4. Newly discovered devices are bound automatically when possible. Manual bind is also available.
5. Create a thermostat zone for each unit you want the thermostat engine to own.

Discovery uses UDP broadcast, so routed/VLAN networks must explicitly permit or relay the required traffic.

Multi-NIC / dedicated GREE interface

For a host with separate management and GREE networks, set for example:

GREE_CONTROLLER_GREE_INTERFACE=eth1

or a local address:

GREE_CONTROLLER_GREE_INTERFACE=192.168.50.2

The controller will use that interface for GREE UDP traffic while keeping the HTTP UI on GREE_CONTROLLER_BIND.

Diagnostics:

sudo ./scripts/configure-gree-network.sh
./scripts/network-debug.sh

The hardened systemd unit allows AF_NETLINK, which is required for interface discovery on multi-NIC Linux/LXC systems.

Thermostat model

Devices vs zones

A Device is the physical GREE unit. Device commands are direct/technical commands.

A Zone is the thermostat owner for a device. It decides demand from room temperature, setpoint, hysteresis, schedules, house rules, manual ownership and safety lockouts. Group control can temporarily apply shared settings. Turning a group OFF powers its member units down and releases group ownership; each thermostat can then be switched back on independently without an OFF group acting as a membership block. After handing an OFF thermostat back to automation, an implicit Comfort target alone does not start it: the zone waits for an active schedule, manual preset/setpoint, Temporary Quick Thermostat, active group/local control or another explicit automatic power intent.

Compressor protection

Controller-side compressor protection is enabled by default and uses a 3-minute window. The switch and duration are available under Settings → GREE. Thermostat, group and whole-house starts or Heat/Cool reversals that fall inside the window are kept as visible pending tasks instead of being discarded. The pending task is shown on both the thermostat and its device card. A permanent Queue button above Thermostats opens a global modal sorted by execution time, with device/zone, command, owner, protection deadline, live countdown, per-task cancellation and Cancel all. Safety OFF commands remain immediate.

This distinction is important: direct device control intentionally behaves differently from thermostat control.

Control ownership

The zone state exposes who currently owns control (control_owner, control_source, timestamps and reason). Physical remote/direct device actions can create a manual-device takeover so normal schedules do not immediately overwrite the user. Explicit zone thermostat control hands ownership back to the thermostat engine when appropriate.

Global Turn all off is an immediate bulk thermostat action: it powers every enabled unit off and leaves every thermostat locally OFF with no hand-back timer, but it does not create a persistent blocking gate. A later Resume automation releases only that zone to automatic arbitration; when no schedule/override/temporary or other explicit intent is active, it stays OFF. Turn all on is different: it is an explicit whole-house ON intent, releases local OFF markers and sends ON to enabled units; compressor protection may queue protected starts. Explicit local/group/manual control still has priority.

Profiles and schedules

Each zone stores separate cooling and heating temperatures for:

• Comfort
• Sleep
• Away
• Custom/manual target

Schedules select profiles or a custom target for selected ISO weekdays (1=Monday, 7=Sunday). Overnight windows are supported. Overlapping enabled schedules for the same zone are rejected.

Visual Flow

Flow is the authoring layer for combined schedules and automations. The full-screen editor stores a block graph as the source of truth and compiles it automatically: a pure weekday + time-range + thermostat path becomes a native schedule, while richer logic becomes a generated automation. Generated schedule/automation rows carry their Flow provenance and are read-only in the legacy editors.

The reusable Flow preset library is stored as standalone JSON files in presets/. Each file contains its name, description and complete Flow graph, while the UI loads the embedded preset catalog dynamically instead of hard-coding graphs in JavaScript. The library has category tabs, search, local favorites/recent presets, a graph preview and requirement checks before applying a preset.

Available blocks include weekday/time/date ranges, the application Night mode, outdoor/device/zone temperature, house/device/zone/group state, arbitrary Home Assistant state/numeric/attribute/availability checks, a constant diagnostic source, AND/OR/NOT, thermostat actions, direct GREE actions and group actions. The GREE action uses the existing DeviceCommand fields (power, mode, target, fan, swing, quiet, turbo, light, air, xfan, health and sleep). Multiple branches can feed an action; the compiled runtime preserves the graph logic.

Quick preset/setpoint overrides normally hand control back at the next schedule boundary. Temporary Quick Thermostat adds explicit start/finish rules such as duration, exact time, temperature reached/stable or next schedule boundary.

Implementation and concurrency invariants are documented in docs/FLOW.md.

Home Assistant

There are two independent Home Assistant directions.

1. Home Assistant as a temperature source

Configure Home Assistant / Sensors in the Web UI or use:

HA_URL=
HA_TOKEN=
HA_ENTITY_ID=
HA_OUTDOOR_ENTITY_ID=
HA_SENSOR_STALE_AFTER_SECONDS=300
HA_ALLOW_INVALID_TLS=false

Per zone, sensor_source can be:

• device — GREE indoor sensor,
• home_assistant — configured HA room sensor,
• combined — weighted GREE + HA value.

Stale/unavailable external data falls back to the GREE sensor when possible. The optional outdoor sensor is only an assist signal; it never replaces room temperature.

2. GREE Controller entities inside Home Assistant

Bundled integration directory:

home-assistant/custom_components/gree_controller/

Copy gree_controller to Home Assistant's custom_components directory, restart Home Assistant and add GREE Controller from Integrations.

Create a restricted token in Home Assistant / Sensors → Access tokens. The token secret is displayed only once and the database stores only its SHA-256 hash. The integration uses a restricted /api/integrations/home-assistant/* surface rather than administrator endpoints.

The integration exposes physical device climate controls, thermostat zone climate entities, whole-house controls, groups and optional unit capabilities. Prefer zone thermostat entities for normal comfort control; physical device entities are direct/manual controls.

For entity-ID migration tooling:

python3 scripts/generate_ha_migration.py --help

The generated mapping example is under home-assistant/generated/.

History and InfluxDB

SQLite is the local hot store. History compaction reduces older local sample density while preserving the resolutions needed by charts. Retention is configurable from the UI or environment.

Optional InfluxDB writes samples in parallel and can serve the older part of long history queries:

• InfluxDB 1.x: URL, database, optional username/password.
• InfluxDB 2.x: URL, organization, bucket and token.

If an Influx query fails, the API returns available SQLite data and can include a storage_warning rather than discarding the whole history response.

See GET /api/history for scopes and bucket behavior.

Notifications

Optional notifications support:

• Pushover
• Slack webhook
• Discord webhook

Modes can report problems only or problems plus important state changes. Individual categories include sensor freshness/errors, communication failures, target timeout, automation/control errors and other warnings. Cooldown and failure thresholds are configurable.

Debugging

Enable Settings → Application → On-screen debug.

The overlay has three filters:

• All — request diagnostics, application events and GREE frames,
• Requests — HTTP method/path/status/duration,
• GREE — sanitized protocol frames when GREE frame logging is enabled.

Binding/encryption keys are not intentionally exposed in GREE debug frames.

For Linux/network issues also use:

./scripts/network-debug.sh
./scripts/service.sh logs

Backup and restore

Settings → Application → Configuration backup exports settings, devices, zones, groups, schedules and automations.

The export intentionally does not contain metric history, event history or generated API-token records. It does contain GREE binding keys and configured integration secrets, so store it like a credential file.

Import replaces application configuration while preserving local metric/event history and generated access-token records. Runtime ownership/timers are sanitized and live device state is re-polled before automatic control resumes.

Reverse proxy and sub-path deployment

For a root deployment, proxy HTTP and WebSocket traffic to the controller normally.

For a sub-path, configure:

GREE_CONTROLLER_BASE_PATH=/gree

Then serve the application under /gree/. The proxy must preserve WebSocket upgrade headers. A typical nginx location is:

location /gree/ {
    proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8787/gree/;
    proxy_http_version 1.1;
    proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
    proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
    proxy_set_header Host $host;
}

If your proxy strips the prefix, keep its upstream/base-path handling consistent. Do not publish the controller directly to an untrusted network without authentication and TLS at the proxy/VPN layer.

Security

The default empty GREE_CONTROLLER_APP_TOKEN is intended for a trusted LAN only. Set a long random token when the interface is reachable by other networks.

Implemented safeguards include:

• optional bearer administrator authentication,
• separate restricted generated tokens for Home Assistant,
• hashed generated-token storage,
• secrets omitted from normal settings responses,
• restrictive security headers and no permissive CORS,
• API responses marked no-store,
• hardened systemd service,
• safe device power-off behavior when thermostat ownership is removed,
• startup synchronization before the thermostat engine begins issuing commands.

For remote access, prefer a VPN or authenticated TLS reverse proxy. Treat configuration exports and /etc/gree-controller.env as secrets.

Localization

Language packs are JSON files under lang/. The build validates/embeds them and generates the public language catalog.

To add a language:

1. Copy lang/en.json to lang/<code>.json.
2. Update meta.code, names and locale.
3. Keep the same translation keys as the reference pack.
4. Rebuild the Rust binary.

Runtime assets are available at /lang/index.json and /lang/<code>.json.

API

The HTTP API is the same backend used by the Web UI. It includes devices, zones, groups, house control, schedules, automations, history, control plan, events, settings, backup/restore, debug, tokens and integration tests.

Start here:

docs/API.md — complete API reference

Public health check:

curl http://127.0.0.1:8787/api/health

Authenticated example when an app token is configured:

curl -H 'Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN' \
  http://127.0.0.1:8787/api/system/info

Project layout

src/                         Rust backend, GREE protocol and thermostat engine
web/                         Embedded Web UI / PWA
web/js/                      Frontend JS source modules bundled by build.rs
lang/                        Runtime language packs
home-assistant/              Home Assistant custom integration and migration output
scripts/                     Development, install, update, service and diagnostics
systemd/                     Production service unit
docs/API.md                  Complete API documentation
.env.example                 Environment reference

The application is intentionally self-contained: static assets and language packs are embedded into the binary at build time; SQLite is the default data store; no external frontend build chain is required. build.rs concatenates the ordered files from web/js/ into one generated application bundle and exposes it under a content-hashed URL.

Validation before release

Recommended full check on a host with Rust installed:

./scripts/dev.sh --check

This runs formatting checks, Rust tests, a build and an isolated simulated API smoke test.

License

See LICENSE.

Flow diagnostics, portability and concurrency

Flow reuses the existing thermostat, group and device-control domains instead of maintaining a second HVAC controller. Thermostat actions update the persistent zone intent and wake the normal zone-control engine, so hysteresis, compressor protection, schedule hand-back, Temporary Quick Thermostat and ownership rules remain authoritative. Flow group actions call the existing group controller; direct device actions use the existing automatic-device action path and DeviceCommand. A Flow thermostat OFF also performs the existing forced physical OFF transition. Durable thermostat/device transitions are serialized with the thermostat cycle and then use the canonical zone -> device lock order.

The editor supports optimistic revisions, so saving an older copy from another browser/tab returns HTTP 409 instead of overwriting a newer graph. Flow compilation/replacement is serialized with configuration, automation, schedule and thermostat-cycle locks, and generated schedules/automations plus the Flow source are replaced in one SQLite transaction. Runtime condition evaluation happens before the automation execution lock; after acquiring it the rule is reloaded and stale snapshots are discarded. Same-cycle actions claim their target devices deterministically, and Flow/device thermostat writes take the schedule -> thermostat-cycle -> zone -> device path. Home Assistant read failures fail closed instead of making NOT/neq logic accidentally true.

Diagnostics include a non-mutating dry-run endpoint/UI with a selectable simulation time, optional per-block sensor/state overrides, a per-node condition trace and an ownership/block reason. Shared Home Assistant Flow inputs can also be tested directly in their editor against the current HA entity state. Flow-scoped execution and dry-run events can be viewed from the editor.

Individual Flows can be exported/imported as versioned gree-controller-flow JSON. Generated schedules and automations are intentionally excluded from the portable document and are regenerated from the source graph on import. Shared inputs show which Flows reference them and link directly to those editors. The preset library includes 37 categorized scenarios for comfort, energy, safety, night, reliability, Home Assistant heat-source coordination and advanced multi-branch logic.