hardware and software advice request - lennox ~2014 heat pump IR control

[fast cradle]

Hello! I am in an environment with two beginning-to-fail Lennox MS8-HI-12P1A heat pump units (controlled via a YT1FF IR remote) and limited funds. How could I go about integrating these units with home assistant using as little money as possible? I currently have:

• one desktop system running a virtualized home assistant OS instance in incus, connected to the internet via WiFi behind NAT (able to port forward, run a mDNS reflector)
• the heat pumps
• a Bluetooth adapter, in use by the desktop's host OS
• no electrical equipment (i.e. no soldering)
  Due to financial issues, I would need to use as little money as possible to set something up, ideally under 50 USD. Located in the western US. Ideally, I would like to avoid software development, but if it's required, I'm willing to try. (I do have a decent amount of software development experience, but am somewhat burned out on it right now)
  I would prefer to take advantage of home assistant's new IR proxy functionality if possible. Gaining the ability to do bluetooth proxy things as a result of this is not necessary, but would be a nice bonus.

[rough dagger]

personally - I would get one of these boards (or similar): https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005010740255227.html
and load up esphome with a climate_ir component https://esphome.io/components/climate/climate_ir/
I am not 100% sure - but I think Lennox uses the Midea IR protocol so should just work

if not, then you might have to do some reading of the controller signals and get it added

[fast cradle]

I'm pretty sure it does use the midea protocol

[rough dagger]

so yeah, should be a simple setup then - just need that board and a usb power supply