OK - my Sensibo Air Pro arrived. It was a bit of a nightmare to set up because it wouldn’t connect to my home wifi. I tried a range of tips such as resetting the device and restarting my router. Eventually I temporarily renamed the 5GHz band so that only the 2.4GHz band was visible. This did the trick and, fortunately, restoring the 5GHz band to its original name (same as 2.4GHz) did not affect the connection.
The Air Pro instantly recognised my air-con remote control and is successfully simulating the remote commands.
Adding to Homekit was a breeze using the QR code on the device. It now is easy to turn the air-con off/on, change the target temperature and change the mode (heat, cool etc). Also Siri commands work: “set aircon to cooling at 24” (Celsius!), “turn aircon off”). I haven’t tried Automations or Shortcuts yet. It would be handy to have a shortcut that turns the aircon on if humidity + temperature get too high.
My only disappointment is that the Air Pro needs to remain plugged into a power source (via USB). I suppose I could use a rechargeable power pack but the lead does make the Air Pro more conspicuous.