Home Automation - Smartkit

[SauRoNZA]

So can I safely assume that if I have a 2-way switch and want to replace only one side with a Sonoff T4 that I'll then have to sacrifice that function?

Or is it possible to leave the "dumb" switch in place and still have that working with the other becoming a Sonoff?

Maybe worst case the Sonoff goes offline every time the other switch is "off"? Or is this a primary and slave kind of configuration where the Sonoff should go on one specific end?

 

[SauRoNZA]

I've discovered this...

No Neutral One Gang Fire Proof Wi-Fi Light Switch

No Neutral One Gang tempered Glass Wi-Fi Light Switch designed for the UK works with Alexa and Google Home and IFTT. The one and only smart switch for the UK live only wiring.

www.wifi-smart-home.co.uk

Mentions the Ewelink app so seems like a 3-gang No Neutral Sonoff that's been rebranded.

Surely it will take Tasmota then?

 

[xrapidx]

Is anyone using Tileboard? If so, what are you using for development, struggling my ass off with the damn nested brackets.

 

[SmartKit]

So can I safely assume that if I have a 2-way switch and want to replace only one side with a Sonoff T4 that I'll then have to sacrifice that function?

Or is it possible to leave the "dumb" switch in place and still have that working with the other becoming a Sonoff?

Maybe worst case the Sonoff goes offline every time the other switch is "off"? Or is this a primary and slave kind of configuration where the Sonoff should go on one specific end?

You'll need two Sonoffs to achieve that via scenes.

 

[Icemanbrfc]

Does Smart Things work with Sonoff devices?

 

[SauRoNZA]

You'll need two Sonoffs to achieve that via scenes.

Yeah I saw some tricks for that on Youtube.

In the meanwhile how would I "disable" the other switch? As simple as just not wiring in the other L wire?

 

[SmartKit]

Yeah I saw some tricks for that on Youtube.

In the meanwhile how would I "disable" the other switch? As simple as just not wiring in the other L wire?

Yeah but seal them, you don't want to accidentally earth the L input.

 

[SmartKit]

I've discovered this...

No Neutral One Gang Fire Proof Wi-Fi Light Switch

No Neutral One Gang tempered Glass Wi-Fi Light Switch designed for the UK works with Alexa and Google Home and IFTT. The one and only smart switch for the UK live only wiring.

www.wifi-smart-home.co.uk

Mentions the Ewelink app so seems like a 3-gang No Neutral Sonoff that's been rebranded.

Surely it will take Tasmota then?

In theory Tasmota should be possible.

 

[TedLasso]

What does everyone's home automation interface look like?

Here's a few screenshots of mine - left out the more sensitive screens. (security, etc). Still a work in progress - I recently implemented a "Dark" theme that gets set at sunset
View attachment 715217
View attachment 715221
View attachment 715223
View attachment 715225

Both your's and @Slip implementations are so cool. Man, now I need to get my a$$ into gear an sort mines out. Two questions:-

What are you using for presence detection ?
I have the Dark Sky thing going but it doesn't look anything like your guys. Can you post the code for that if possible?

Cheers

 

[xrapidx]

Both your's and @Slip implementations are so cool. Man, now I need to get my a$$ into gear an sort mines out. Two questions:-

What are you using for presence detection ?
I have the Dark Sky thing going but it doesn't look anything like your guys. Can you post the code for that if possible?

Cheers

I'm plugged into my Paradox alarm - and then GPSLogger for person tracking.

I noticed Home-Assistant seems to have climate built in now - so stopped using DarkSky (much less errors in my logs).

The weather card is quite simple

entity: weather.home
icons: /local/custom-lovelace/weather-card/icons/
type: 'custom:weather-card'

80% of my interface is done via the front end.

 

[FoXtroT]

Question on Home Assistant. How do you access it outside of your network, do you VPN in?

 

[SauRoNZA]

Question on Home Assistant. How do you access it outside of your network, do you VPN in?

Easy Mode - You port forward into it.

Harder Mode - Use Dynamic DNS to make the above much less painful.

Hard Mode - You use Letsencrypt + DuckDNS to make it properly secure (also required if you ever want to use the iOS App)

Remote access to Home Assistant

There are different ways to reach your Home Assistant from outside your home network. The recommended option is Home Assistant Cloud, which works without exposing anything to the internet.

www.home-assistant.io

 

[SauRoNZA]

So the Sonoff T4 No Neutral is a bit of a fail on many fronts.

First things first I decided to run it with the Ewelink app just so I could take some screenshots and provide some feedback for @phaktza like I promised.

Problems started when due to iOS13 (presumably) it was impossible to populate my Wireless SSID to feed it to the app. Okay no super drama I break out ye olde iPad 2 which should do the job.

Wireless SSID populated I still could not discover the device and the instructions inside the little booklet and manual are also deeply lacking if there is some trick to it.

Figured okay disable you 5Ghz AP just in case that is causing the trouble but to no avail.

So Tasmota it is...

Well bloody hell...nobody has seen this thing yet and it is nothing like any of the previously released boards so everyone is guessing everywhere and nobody has anything concrete. Eventually after an hour of Googling and failing myself I stumble on a conversation between the infamous DrZZs and Arendst himself and I they advise that R10 on the back of the board is the easiest GPIO0.

Some hackjobbery to make the ground pin work and off we go.

First attempt it gets stuck at 22% and I suspect I accidentally moved a wire or something. Second attempt I decide I'll hold them in place with my hand....but that makes plugging it in and holding R10 contact very very tricky but after some gymnastics I succeed.

Tasmota installed and using the T1 configuration seems to work just fine.


HOWEVER the problem is at the hardware level that I'm running a grid of GU10 LED downlights on this specific switch in my kitchen....and while the thing is OFF these remain faintly on. I presume this is where the LED flicker module comes in, even though I don't see any flicker they just seem to be very low powered which won't work for me having them eat electricity all day while I'm away.

Issue with that is the LED flicker module needs to be connected between live and neutral running to the lights....which makes the entire exercise of No Neutral absolutely pointless since you need to now get into the roof to go and install this thing which means you may as well have run a neutral down to the light switch and used another OR simply installed a Shelly in the roof where this LED module would need to go and then keep your standard light switches.

So I'll probably find another place somewhere that isn't LED driven and use it there, but as a fair warning to all if you are using LEDs which I'm sure most people in Smart homes are then this will be pretty silly to make use of.

Also it seems insanely bright to me...

Maybe something adjustable in Tasmota for that.

I do like that the wireless light is on high to show you where the light is more easily, and then turns off when the light is on though.

 

[ebendl]

So the Sonoff T4 No Neutral is a bit of a fail on many fronts.

First things first I decided to run it with the Ewelink app just so I could take some screenshots and provide some feedback for @phaktza like I promised.

Problems started when due to iOS13 (presumably) it was impossible to populate my Wireless SSID to feed it to the app. Okay no super drama I break out ye olde iPad 2 which should do the job.

Wireless SSID populated I still could not discover the device and the instructions inside the little booklet and manual are also deeply lacking if there is some trick to it.

Figured okay disable you 5Ghz AP just in case that is causing the trouble but to no avail.

So Tasmota it is...

Well bloody hell...nobody has seen this thing yet and it is nothing like any of the previously released boards so everyone is guessing everywhere and nobody has anything concrete. Eventually after an hour of Googling and failing myself I stumble on a conversation between the infamous DrZZs and Arendst himself and I they advise that R10 on the back of the board is the easiest GPIO0.

Some hackjobbery to make the ground pin work and off we go.

First attempt it gets stuck at 22% and I suspect I accidentally moved a wire or something. Second attempt I decide I'll hold them in place with my hand....but that makes plugging it in and holding R10 contact very very tricky but after some gymnastics I succeed.

Tasmota installed and using the T1 configuration seems to work just fine.


HOWEVER the problem is at the hardware level that I'm running a grid of GU10 LED downlights on this specific switch in my kitchen....and while the thing is OFF these remain faintly on. I presume this is where the LED flicker module comes in, even though I don't see any flicker they just seem to be very low powered which won't work for me having them eat electricity all day while I'm away.

Issue with that is the LED flicker module needs to be connected between live and neutral running to the lights....which makes the entire exercise of No Neutral absolutely pointless since you need to now get into the roof to go and install this thing which means you may as well have run a neutral down to the light switch and used another OR simply installed a Shelly in the roof where this LED module would need to go and then keep your standard light switches.

So I'll probably find another place somewhere that isn't LED driven and use it there, but as a fair warning to all if you are using LEDs which I'm sure most people in Smart homes are then this will be pretty silly to make use of.

Also it seems insanely bright to me...

Maybe something adjustable in Tasmota for that.

I do like that the wireless light is on high to show you where the light is more easily, and then turns off when the light is on though.

Thanks for the good write-up! And the guidance on Tasmota -- that was where I was heading too.

In principle I guess you should be able to wire the anti-flicker module in the light's fitting in the ceiling from below -- but yeah, might not have enough space.

I identified a problem in my house -- most of my light sockets basically have 2 or 3 gangs. I only have two light sockets where I have a single one!

 

[ebendl]

Easy Mode - You port forward into it.

Harder Mode - Use Dynamic DNS to make the above much less painful.

Hard Mode - You use Letsencrypt + DuckDNS to make it properly secure (also required if you ever want to use the iOS App)

Remote access to Home Assistant

There are different ways to reach your Home Assistant from outside your home network. The recommended option is Home Assistant Cloud, which works without exposing anything to the internet.

www.home-assistant.io

I'd say no on the first two -- too insecure. I struggled a bit with Letsencrypt + DuckDNS but eventually noticed:
1) IF you use DuckDNS add-on in Hassio then Letsencrypt comes with it automatically
2) You just need to figure out how to set up loop-back port forwarding so that it works inside your network too
3) You need to open up the correct ports to let Letsencrypt do its thing the first time (if I recall correctly).

My opinion on the easiest -- activate the Nabucasa Home Assistant cloud option and pay $5 a month to support this great piece of software. It opens up a pipe between your HA and their servers and provides you with a generated, unique URL that you can plug into the IOS app, your Android browser etc. Works very well and is more secure since you're not opening up any ports.

 

[SauRoNZA]

I don’t remember anything about needing to configure any loop backs but it’s been a long while since I originally did this.

But Hass.io on a Pi seems to make all of this stuff super brain dead simple.

 

[Tinuva]

I don’t remember anything about needing to configure any loop backs but it’s been a long while since I originally did this.

But Hass.io on a Pi seems to make all of this stuff super brain dead simple.

If you have anything that connects to the DNS name, that name resolves to the router public ip address, which is when you need the loop-back routing for all things inside the network. There is a proper name for it, cant remember it, but that is what he is referring to.

 

[patrick123]

I don’t remember anything about needing to configure any loop backs but it’s been a long while since I originally did this.

But Hass.io on a Pi seems to make all of this stuff super brain dead simple.

Yep, when I was running on a Pi, it was very straightforward to setup.

Now I'm running a docker VPN and a DuckDNS cron script.

 

[SauRoNZA]

If you have anything that connects to the DNS name, that name resolves to the router public ip address, which is when you need the loop-back routing for all things inside the network. There is a proper name for it, cant remember it, but that is what he is referring to.

Yes I know why it would be in place, just that I never needed to fiddle with it or it was so simple it wasn’t much of an issue.

Using your domain as part of your WAN configuration like I do possibly makes this happen dynamically.

I only ever use DNS addresses in the browser.

****

Oh and I figured out the Docker DNS lookup thing. Unraid doesn’t allow it by default, so you need a custom Docker network to use it.

After doing it though the Letsencrypt default profiles suddenly made a whole lot of sense.

 

[SauRoNZA]

Thanks for the good write-up! And the guidance on Tasmota -- that was where I was heading too.

In principle I guess you should be able to wire the anti-flicker module in the light's fitting in the ceiling from below -- but yeah, might not have enough space.

I identified a problem in my house -- most of my light sockets basically have 2 or 3 gangs. I only have two light sockets where I have a single one!

Look a few posts up, I found a No neutral Sonoff clone of some kind on a UK site that does 2 and 3-gang.