Teco Air Conditioner Symbols and What They Mean

Teco air conditioner symbols are simple once you know the handful that matter. Teco remotes carry around twenty symbols, and several of them do something genuinely useful that nobody presses. There is a button that dries the inside of the unit out, another that stops it smelling, and a lock that gets switched on by accident more often than by choice.

This page sets out every Teco air conditioner symbol in plain language, taken from Teco user manuals rather than from guesswork. Start with the chart, then read the section that matches your screen.

Teco air conditioner symbols at a glance

Here is the quick answer. Teco sells split systems, window wall units and portables in Australia and the controls differ between them, so if something on yours is not listed, check the sections below. If your system is a different brand, our general guide to air conditioner symbols covers the ones every manufacturer shares.

The Teco mode symbols

Teco uses the familiar five, and its own FAQ describes two of them in the plainest terms available. Cooling is COOL or the snowflake icon on your remote controller. Heating is HEAT or the sun icon.

Fan speed and swing

How many speeds you get depends on what you bought.

• Fixed speed split. Low, med, hi, plus auto.
• Inverter split, the Platinum 3D range. Eight steps. Auto, mute, low, low mid, mid, mid high, high, turbo.
• Window wall. Auto, low, mid, high.
• Portable. Two speeds on some models, high and low. Three plus auto on others.

Swing on a Teco split is not a simple on and off. The SWING button changes the flap mode between natural flow, swing, and fixed wind. A separate AIR FLOW button on some models selects the left or right air flow direction.

One model difference worth knowing before you go hunting. Teco states plainly for one portable range that this series has no auto swing function at all.

Sleep, and why yours may behave differently

This is the symbol where Teco models diverge most, so check which you have.

On a fixed speed split, Teco describes sleep as raising the room temperature gradually by around two degrees above the setting in cooling after a few hours, or dropping it by around five degrees in heating.

With an inverter split, sleep runs for ten hours and then the air conditioner changes back to the previous setting mode.

On portables it changes again. One model shifts the temperature by one degree an hour over two hours, holds that for six hours, then turns the unit off. Teco also states that sleep cannot be set in fan or dry mode on that unit.

The buttons that stop your Teco smelling

Teco builds in two drying functions and almost nobody uses either. Together they are the answer to the musty smell an air conditioner develops after a couple of seasons.

ECO, TURBO and MUTE

Teco is unusually specific about what ECO does. In cooling mode the temperature increases by two degrees. In heating mode it decreases by two degrees. That is the whole function, and knowing it means you can decide whether you want it.

TURBO turns on or off an operation which increases the air rate to high, and Teco notes it works only in cool or heat mode.

MUTE on inverter models puts the indoor unit at the lowest fan speed for a quiet feeling. There is also a function called GENTLE WIND, activated by pressing FAN and MUTE together.

I FEEL and FOLLOW ME

Both do the same job under different names depending on your model. The remote measures the temperature at its own location and sends it to the unit, so the system works to the temperature where you are sitting rather than where the unit is mounted.

Teco documents Follow Me as transmitting at three minute intervals. The usual catch applies. If the remote is left in the sun or in a drawer, the unit chases a temperature that has nothing to do with the room.

The functions Teco does not explain

Three symbols appear on Teco remotes with no published description, and rather than guess, this page says so.

• HEALTH or HEALTHY. Teco documents the button as activating and deactivating the health function depending on model, but never says what the function does.
• GEN. Long press activates and deactivates it. No explanation is published.
• ION, on the portable remote. The button exists in the manual button list with no description beside it.

There is also a wifi gap worth knowing. Teco markets built in wifi and app control on its splits and portables, but there is no wifi button documented on any remote in the manuals, and no pairing steps published. That is set up through the app rather than the handset.

Timer symbols and how to clear them

Teco gives you two separate timer icons, TIMER ON and TIMER OFF, plus a clock indicator that is not a timer at all.

On a fixed speed split the logic is simple. Press TIMER while the unit is running and it sets a switch off time. Press TIMER while it is in standby and it sets a switch on time. Either way, keep pressing to move the setting from 1 to 24 hours.

Clearing it is the part people miss. Teco states that you press the TIMER button again after the display shows 24 to delete the timed mode. In other words you cycle all the way past 24 rather than looking for a cancel button.

On inverter models it is a two press confirm instead. Press TIMER, set the time with plus and minus, press TIMER again to confirm. Pressing TIMER once more cancels it.

If your Teco keeps switching itself on or off at odd moments, look for these icons before assuming a fault. An unwanted timer explains far more of these calls than a failing board does.

What does the padlock mean on a Teco remote?

The padlock is the child lock, and how you clear it depends on the model.

• Inverter splits. Long press MODE and TIMER together. Teco notes that while it is locked, no single button will work.
• Fixed speed splits. These use a HOLD button instead. Press HOLD to lock or unlock the keyboard.
• Window wall and portable units. Teco does not document a child lock on these at all.

A Teco remote that suddenly does nothing is far more often locked than broken, and this is the first thing to rule out.

There is no filter light on a Teco

Worth stating plainly, because people wait for one. No Teco manual or Teco page documents a filter change indicator, a filter light, or a filter reset procedure on any of its air conditioner types.

What Teco does publish is a schedule. Clean the filters within the indoor unit every month. On window wall units the air filter should be washed at least once a month, and the special three in one filter should not be washed at all, just wiped with a dry cloth.

So the reminder has to come from you. Put it in your phone.

Teco error codes and what they mean

Codes appear on the indoor unit display on splits, and on the panel of portables.

Two honest gaps. E4 and E5 are not in the split code table Teco publishes, and inverter splits refer to E, P and F code families in the manual without publishing a per code meaning table. If your inverter shows a code that is not above, that meaning is not something Teco has made public.

Teco gives its own first step for a code on an inverter. Wait about ten minutes, because the problem may resolve itself, then power cycle, and if it persists disconnect the power and get it looked at.

Teco behaviour that looks like a fault and is not

Which Teco symbols point at a real fault?

• A code beginning with E that does not clear after ten minutes and a power cycle.
• PROBE FAILURE on a portable, which is a damaged sensor.
• The correct mode is set and the room will not change temperature after the three minute and five minute delays have passed.
• Water appearing where it should not be, on the wall below a split or inside around a portable that is not simply full.
• The unit stops repeatedly outside of a defrost cycle.

Everything else on this page is a setting you can change yourself.

Getting your Teco back to doing its job

Most symbols on a Teco are the unit telling you what it has been asked to do. A snowflake, a padlock somebody set by accident, a timer nobody remembers, a CLEAN button quietly preventing a smell you would otherwise pay to fix.

Read the chart at the top of this page, match what is on your screen, and in most cases the answer is a button press away. Worth knowing too is how often you should service your air conditioner, because a Teco will never remind you about the filter itself.

When the symbols all look right and the room still will not behave, that is the point where guessing costs more than asking. We send a licensed technician who works on split, multi head and ducted systems across Melbourne, and the price is confirmed before any work starts.

If you are weighing up a replacement rather than working out an existing unit, our guide to the best air conditioner brands in Australia compares what is sold here.

For anything the remote cannot explain, our air conditioner service in Melbourne covers diagnosis on Teco and every other brand sold here. Request a quote and describe what the display is showing.