Ask HN: What have you built with ESPHome, ESP8266 or similar hardware

• WLED

  601 13,941 9.4 C++

  Control WS2812B and many more types of digital RGB LEDs with an ESP8266 or ESP32 over WiFi!

I installed a custom firmware on my smart kettle and made it respond with the HTTP status code "418 I'm a teapot". [1]

I used an ESP32 to automate my kitchen rangehood light and fan [2].

I've flashed ESPHome on few smart outlets and powerboards. A lot of WiFi enabled devices that you buy in stores are actually white-labelled "Tuya" products, and there's a big community effort to hack the ESP32 chips and run your own custom firmware, such as ESPHome and Tasmota. Most off-the-shelf WiFi products don't work without the manufacturer's cloud services and apps. ESPHome means that everything works locally and it doesn't need to make any requests to the public internet.

I have KC868-AG IR/RF hubs in every room [3]. I found an awesome supplier on AliExpress who builds products specifically for ESPHome. They're quite expensive but they work really well. I mainly use them to control our air conditioners. I use one in my workshop to control an old CRT TV. And I also use them as "Bluetooth Proxies" [4] for Home Assistant. This means that I don't have to worry about range for bluetooth devices (temp/humidity sensors, switchbot, and LPG gas tank sensor.)

I also run WLED [5] to control a few LED strips. One behind my desk in my office, and one on a board gaming table. I use Zigbee LED controllers for most of my LED lighting, but I like all the effects and patterns you can do with WLED.

[1] https://madebynathan.com/2021/08/19/kogan-smart-kettle/

[2] https://madebynathan.com/posts/2022-09-30-automating-my-kitc...

[3] https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003833775634.html?spm=a2...

[4] https://esphome.io/components/bluetooth_proxy.html

[5] https://kno.wled.ge/

• IRremoteESP8266

  19 2,782 5.4 C++

  Infrared remote library for ESP8266/ESP32: send and receive infrared signals with multiple protocols. Based on: https://github.com/shirriff/Arduino-IRremote/

Not built, but designed a widget with a rest api on a wifi endpoint on one side and an IR led on the other to automate my dumb a/c unit. There was already a library to emulate the exact IR remote control,

https://github.com/crankyoldgit/IRremoteESP8266/tree/master/...

• InfluxDB

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• esp-rfid

  3 1,313 0.0 C++

  ESP8266 RFID (RC522, PN532, Wiegand, RDM6300) Access Control system featuring WebSocket, JSON, NTP Client, Javascript, SPIFFS

  

I'm helping our local Fablab to manage physical access with a series of ESP8266 and esp-rfid https://github.com/esprfid/esp-rfid/ (of which I became maintainer. If you want to use it as well I can help!)

• hyelicht

  4 138 10.0 C++

  IoT/embedded project for home decoration/automation

My goals to release source and docs a la https://github.com/eikehein/hyelicht got waylaid by the ultimate DIY project of having a baby in November, but I will try to get it done this year!

• esphome-mitsubishiheatpump

  11 466 0.0 C++

  ESPHome Climate Component for Mitsubishi Heatpumps using direct serial connection

Controlling Mitsubishi mini split heat pumps instead of paying hundreds for Mitsubishis solution: https://github.com/geoffdavis/esphome-mitsubishiheatpump

• eink-esp-weather-display

  3 129 6.6 Rust

  code for weather display using waveshare esp32 and 7.5" epaper display

I built this weather forecast / todo list with the weather.gov and todoist APIs https://harrystern.net/halldisplay.html

• boiler

  1 0 6.2 Rust

  Monitoring and controlling Dave's boiler via modbus (by dave-andersen)

I tend to roll my own with rp-picos for no good reason other than they're easy. Wattmeter for a toy solar installation - broadcasts a UDP packet every few seconds, which I then record into a staging JSON log that gets ingested into DuckDB. Little pico-w wifi temperature sensor that feeds into the raspberry pi zero that controls my boiler.

Thread about the boiler: https://hachyderm.io/deck/@dave_andersen/111579107766689328

github with some really crappy rust code: https://github.com/dave-andersen/boiler

The boiler control is the fun one but it's not entirely embedded stuff. Runs a little control loop that turns down the boiler modulation based upon the difference between target and current temperature. Improves operating efficiency by a fair bit and reduces temperature swings. Makes me wish residential HVAC systems were more sophisticated - these are things any good industrial control system can do.

Made an "ok to wake" light for my son -- added a controllable LED strip to his clock with a pico-w in it that changes from orange to multicolored at 6:30am as a non-intrusive "yes, you can come bug your parents" signal.)

https://hachyderm.io/deck/@dave_andersen/112091315519210298

• SaaSHub

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• dorothy

  2 1 3.6 OpenSCAD

  A minimalist, open-source, low-cost sensor platform built around the LoRa protocol

I built out a remote sensing platform using ESP32 + LoRa. The attempt was to hit the sweet spot between cheap, easy, and reliable:

https://github.com/alexose/dorothy

• tempsensor

  1 10 4.1 C

  ESP32 Temperature Sensor

This is a simple temperature sensor that runs on four AAA batteries and POSTS measurements via wifi: https://github.com/jcalvinowens/tempsensor

This is a LED wall clock that synchronizes time over NTP: https://github.com/jcalvinowens/wallclock

• wallclock

  1 2 4.3 C

  ESP32 NTP Digital Clock (by jcalvinowens)

This is a simple temperature sensor that runs on four AAA batteries and POSTS measurements via wifi: https://github.com/jcalvinowens/tempsensor

This is a LED wall clock that synchronizes time over NTP: https://github.com/jcalvinowens/wallclock

• uptime-kuma-pacman-ghost-light

  1 3 8.0 Python

  Turn a Pacman Ghost Light into an Uptime Kuma status monitor with CircuitPython.

I turned a light-up Pac Ghost into an indicator lamp for my Uptime Kumar instances.

https://github.com/psitem/uptime-kuma-pacman-ghost-light

I've been working on a replacement controller for the Omlet automatic chicken coop door. They've recently released their own connected controller but given the shortcomings of the original I'm not sure I trust it to be reliable enough to leave my feathered friends unsupervised for days at a time.

Next in the queue is replacing my ATHOM garage door controller with my own that will add a second reed switch to detect that the door is fully open.

And I'm mulling over ways I could monitor the feed level in my chicken feeders. And maybe close them off at night to keep other critters out. But it's tricky because I don't want to replace what I have with a design that might be easier to automate, as they've held up well against the rain and I'm lazy.

• esp-snapcast

  1 9 8.4 Rust

https://github.com/DavidVentura/esp-snapcast

An NTP _server_ which gets its time from GPS, and displays it with unreasonable precision (not accuracy!)

• esp-ntp

  1 2 8.7 Rust

  Stratum 1 NTP server from scratch on ESP32

https://github.com/DavidVentura/esp-ntp

A few HUB75 signs which display public transport status (the public transport bits are not published anywhere yet)

• hub75-esp

  1 3 7.5 Rust

https://github.com/DavidVentura/hub75-esp

An "on-air" sign that turns on/off if my wife or I join a meeting (based on camera/mic usage, for Linux and Mac)

• on-air

  1 14 0.0 C

  On Air sign based on Audio/Video devices (by DavidVentura)

https://github.com/DavidVentura/on-air

A purely decorative sign that looks like a pixelated fire

• matrix-fire

  1 4 7.4 Rust

• WiFi-remote-for-Bestway-Lay-Z-SPA

  5 244 7.9 C++

  Hack - ESP8266 as WiFi remote control for Bestway Lay-Z spa Helsinki

Hot Tub Wi-Fi remote controller from https://github.com/visualapproach/WiFi-remote-for-Bestway-La...

• WiFi-remote-for-Bestway-La

  1 - -

Hot Tub Wi-Fi remote controller from https://github.com/visualapproach/WiFi-remote-for-Bestway-La...

• dscKeybusInterface

  14 483 0.0 C++

  An Arduino/esp8266/esp32 library to directly interface with DSC security systems.

Brought an inactive home security system onto Home Assistant using the below repository, so I can track everything from smoke alarms to motion, doors, and windows. I swear there's a niche business opportunity in retrofitting all these deactivated systems!

https://github.com/taligentx/dscKeybusInterface

• ESP8266_Tomato

  1 1 - C

  A Tomato Clock (a.k.a. Pomodoro) based on ESP8266

• npct

  1 7 - HTML

  No phone contract tracer project

Back during the pandemic, hardware-based contract tracers were an idea. I built one using the ESP32; see https://github.com/tbensky/npct. In a nutshell, everyone generates a (non-centralized) hash for themselves based on local entropy. This hash is set to the BLE name of the ESP32. Turn it on and throw it in your backpack as you go out. When two ESP32s pass by each other, they both log the other's BLE name (hence hash). Later on, hash logs could be inspected and uploaded to a central server so you can see who encountered who. Seems like there's still some (non-Covid) applications for this (but I can't think of any). Fun project. Learned a lot about Bluetooth.

• boilerController

  1 0 - C++

  ESP8266 controller addon for wood gasification boilers

I built the controller for my wood gasification boiler, https://github.com/DusteDdk/boilerController

it sits in series with the regular controls, but allows me to start the fire and leave without needing to come back "after a while" to set the "turn off" temperature, it also fixes the issue of hysteresis where, after the furnace is empty of fuel, it will shut off due to cold air being drawn through, cooling the sensor enough to shut off, only to have the thermal mass of the boiler itself make the temperature rise above the turn-on threshold, which adds tens of power on/off cycles to the motor, on top of being annoying to listen to.

The wireless part is optional, but I use it to draw a temperature curve, so I can see when the right time to refuel is, if needed.

• esphome-for-watchy

  1 0 4.2 C++

  An ESP32 wrist watch with epaper display.

Hi, Ive made an e-paper wrist watch:

https://github.com/multipolygon/esphome-for-watchy/blob/main...

and an RFID-card mp3-player music box for a toddler:

https://blog22.multipolygon.net/rfid-music-box.html

• ceci

  1 0 3.4 C++

  Our IoT sensor/actuator nodes based around the ESP8266 (by broken-giobbe)

  

I built a series of iot sensors and actuators for home heating. All based around the same modular firmware and hardware concept [0].

We have 3 of those boards scattered around the house and one sitting outside reporting external temperature, humidity, pressure and air quality. The 3 boards inside measure the same values as well but also control the heating system.

Finally, all the data is sent to a raspberry pi over mqtt for logging. Data is presented over a web interface which also allows to set the desired temperature.

[0] https://github.com/broken-giobbe/ceci

• esp-ping-leds

  1 0 7.2 Rust

  Software to make an ESP32-C3 ping a host, and light up an LED strip based on the responses

It was very hacky and no guarantees of it working for anybody else, but a quick dump of the project folder :)

https://github.com/shish/esp-ping-leds/

• SaaSHub

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