esphome VS esp8266_milight_hub

Solid state relay is probably a bad idea with all the extra heat-sinking, extra cost, and chance of getting counterfeits.

I do this with ESPHome & a J115F21C12VDCS.9 relay (note only the NO side is rated for 40A resistive): https://i.imgur.com/MqqOkoY.png

Choose any of the temperature sensors here for air temperature sensing: https://esphome.io/

Configuration is so easy. For the sensor, just copy the config from here, for example: https://esphome.io/components/sensor/bme280. Add a gpio output (https://esphome.io/components/output/gpio) and a bang-bang climate controller (https://esphome.io/components/climate/bang_bang.html)

You might want to take a look at https://esphome.io/ for an easy integration of an ESP32/8266 into home Assistant.

You can do this with a $30 Sonoff S31 running ESPHome [0]. Since the Sonoff wall switch can run a ping sensor against your server you could create a watchdog automation right on the S31 to shut off the mains power to the S31 switch and turn back on after X seconds.

There are other ways you could have the S31 do operational checks but ultimately ESPHome is probably an interesting consideration and supported by tons of off the shelf hardware.

[0] https://esphome.io/

They're pretty great and compatible with most things. ESPHome [1] is a great resource for getting ESP32's working nicely with HA and you can find lots of projects using it to learn from.

You'll likely need to do soldering if you want to connect sensors, batteries and the like.

Personally I really like what SEEED Studio [2] does with their ESP32 boards and they have nice docs.

1. https://esphome.io/

Maybe you could set up ESPHome on the ESP32. It might make connecting those components easier, plus a decent web server built in. Then your app can be set up to access data provided by the ESPHome web server.

# # Setting pins for sda and scl will be required until https://github.com/esphome/esphome/pull/2970 is released

Probably an unpopular opinion, but for the simple stuff you may just want to use something like EspHome where you just need to create a yaml file. Once you’re comfortable with that maybe get into something a bit more advanced, but esphome make it a breeze. It integrates with home assistant if you already have that in place as well.

ESPHome

Lithium Titanate batteries. Nothing else is lightweight, safe, currently available, and lasts 20000 cycles.

ESPHome. It's a framework for declaratively building firmware for microcontrollers, based on rules like "This pin is an input with debouncing, when it changes, toggle this".

Contributing to them has probably been the most fun I've had programming in years.

We just need power management, and a C++ implementation of the Native API client. It's so close to being able to replace most of what I'd normally code by hand in Arduino.

https://esphome.io/

RealThunder's fork of FreeCAD: https://github.com/realthunder/FreeCAD

They fix so many issues. Linear patterns can duplicate other linear patterns!

Vorta: It's the best backup technology I've seen. Just an easy guided GUI for Borg, which gives you deduplication. I just wish they let you deduplicate across multiple repositories somehow.

So, I have a few proprietary RF smart lights all around the house. I control these using an ESP project I found in Home Assistant. The problem I'm running into is kids turning off the lights from the switches. I figured the solution would be running relay switches for the smart lights since I want to install some for the dumb lights either way. I read up somewhere that you can run some relays in something called decoupled/detached mode, which allows them to send their state to home assistant, which can toggle the smart bulb.

Using this hub, they work well for controlling WLED (or non WLED) lights, but do take a bit of configuring getting all the buttons configured.

Alternatively, you can DIY a MiLight hub that connects to HA via MQTT, and use any of the MiBoxer/MiLight remotes if they fit your needs.

The easy option is to just get a Zwave or Zigbee remote. With a hub running Zigbee2MQTT or Zwave2MQTT, you can translate the button presses to MQTT and trigger your Tasmota devices. Alternatively, you could set up a Milight hub (which also translates button presses to MQTT topics) and use any of the commercially available Milight remotes as inputs.

The controller puck uses a 2.4GHz RF signal to control the light. I'm just guessing, but I would imagine you should be able to pick up the RF signal from a Milight hub like this. (I use a few Milight RF remotes connected to a DIY hub to control lights through HA.)

(These do require a 2.4GHz RF gateway. You can buy the standalone gateway, build your own, or buy a premade version.)

Anyone have any suggestions? I would prefer Zwave or 433MHz RF based (I have dongles for both attached to my HA box), but open to Wifi or Zigbee for the right solution. Anything cloud based is a hard pass. Same with BT, unless there is a cheap hub, or something I can DIY. (I already have a few ESP32 BT proxies running Tasmota or ESPHome.) IR is less than ideal due to line-of-sight restrictions. I was thinking about setting up this on an ESP8266, paired with one of these Milight remotes, but before putting in an AliExpress order and waiting weeks for delivery, does anybody have any other suggestions? Would this or this work with my 433MHz SDR running RTL_433? The giant antennas were a little off-putting.

I also looked at milight hub with an esp board.

If someone could specifically confirm/deny that the Gledopto bridge works with White bulbs would be great. People have created custom controllers for the White bulbs/remotes (e.g., here) - so I assume the protocol is known or the same.

Before binning off the Milight controller perhaps try this open source hub: https://github.com/sidoh/esp8266_milight_hub