Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

ESPHome

esphome.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 174 posts

Re: ESPHome

#111

Post by cyberax »

balloob wrote: post #28

One of the people leading ESPHome here. Let me know if there any questions. Last Saturday we announced that ESPHome is now owned by the Open Home Foundation. The Open Home Foundation fights for privacy, choice, and sustainability for smart homes. And for every person who lives in one. Learn more at https://www.openhomefoundation.org/blog/announcing-the-open-...

It would be great to support more PoE devices and Ethernet-based provisioning. And also alternative wired buses, such as BACNET or a generic RS-485.

The other axis: Zigbee devices and battery power. ESPs can be used with batteries, but right now it's not a great fit.

And the last feature: better reuse support for custom devices. E.g. if I have 20 similar custom devices.

Re: ESPHome

#112

Post by klinquist »

love ESPHome. Someone made an ESPHome driver for my Rheem Water Heater via the M5Stack ESP32 w/ RS485. I primarily use Hubitat rather than HomeAssistant, so I adapted it to Hubitat. I use it to automate my water heater based on my airbnb calendar, all without needing a cloud/internet.

Re: ESPHome

#113

Post by tbyehl »

kiney wrote: post #31

I'm jist getting started with home automation and have a couple of ESP32 running tasmota. How do they compare? Thr site explains how I can migrate bit not why or under which circumstances I should...

Tasmota is firmware you can configure on-device[0] while ESPHome is a YAML-driven construction kit for compiling firmware specific to a device's configuration. Every change to the YAML is a compile-and-flash cycle.

Tasmota is only for Espressif platforms. ESPHome has expanded to support BK72xx, RTL87xx, and the Pico W, but good luck figuring out what's actually implemented on those platforms.

ESPHome supports more sensors/peripherals. Some ESPHome Components[1] simplify the combination of multiple sensors and peripherals to accomplish a task to basic YAML (check out the different Cover components).

Tasmota on ESP32 has an embedded scripting engine with REPL (Berry). ESPHome is... complicated[2]. Triggers, Actions, and Conditions can accomplish very simple automations in pure YAML. For more complicated tasks, you'll be writing C/C++ code.

ESPHome releases frequently. If you're using it with Home Assistant, it will constantly nag you to update ESPHome and all of your ESPHome devices. Tasmota releases every few months. Tasmota suggests not upgrading a device unless you have a particular need[3].

[0] Pre-compiled Tasmota binaries work for most purposes, but there are situations where you might need to compile your own to support less common features or devices.

[1] https://esphome.io/components/

[2] https://esphome.io/guides/automations

[3] https://tasmota.github.io/docs/Upgrading/

Re: ESPHome

#114

Post by epcoa »

cyberax wrote: post #111
balloob wrote: post #28

One of the people leading ESPHome here. Let me know if there any questions. Last Saturday we announced that ESPHome is now owned by the Open Home Foundation. The Open Home Foundation fights for privacy, choice, and sustainability for smart homes. And for every person who lives in one. Learn more at https://www.openhomefoundation.org/blog/announcing-the-open-...

It would be great to support more PoE devices and Ethernet-based provisioning. And also alternative wired buses, such as BACNET or a generic RS-485. The other axis: Zigbee devices and battery power. ESPs can be used with batteries, but right now it's not a great fit. And the last feature: better reuse support for custom devices. E.g. if I have 20 similar custom devices.

> generic RS-485

You can already hook up an RS-485 transceiver to the UART ports and use it today with the UART driver. Esphome also has a Modbus controller component. What are you referring to by “generic” RS-485 that isn’t available already?

Re: ESPHome

#115

Post by wkat4242 »

cyberax wrote: post #111
balloob wrote: post #28

One of the people leading ESPHome here. Let me know if there any questions. Last Saturday we announced that ESPHome is now owned by the Open Home Foundation. The Open Home Foundation fights for privacy, choice, and sustainability for smart homes. And for every person who lives in one. Learn more at https://www.openhomefoundation.org/blog/announcing-the-open-...

It would be great to support more PoE devices and Ethernet-based provisioning. And also alternative wired buses, such as BACNET or a generic RS-485. The other axis: Zigbee devices and battery power. ESPs can be used with batteries, but right now it's not a great fit. And the last feature: better reuse support for custom devices. E.g. if I have 20 similar custom devices.

Yes the modules with rpi2040 and Ethernet would be so great to have supported.

I'm pretty unhappy with the WiFi 8266 modules I have. They regularly go into unavailable in home assistant for a few minutes even though my WiFi is working fine

Re: ESPHome

#116

Post by WhyNotHugo »

balloob wrote: post #28

One of the people leading ESPHome here. Let me know if there any questions. Last Saturday we announced that ESPHome is now owned by the Open Home Foundation. The Open Home Foundation fights for privacy, choice, and sustainability for smart homes. And for every person who lives in one. Learn more at https://www.openhomefoundation.org/blog/announcing-the-open-...

I want to connect a temperature sensor to an esp, and trigger a radiator valve based in temperature range.

Valves are mostly zigbee. Can I somehow control one with ESPHome without Home Assistant or zigbee2mqtt?

I want to understand if I can avoid adding a full blown Linux server into the equation.

Re: ESPHome

#117

Post by Doe-_ »

WhyNotHugo wrote: post #116
balloob wrote: post #28

One of the people leading ESPHome here. Let me know if there any questions. Last Saturday we announced that ESPHome is now owned by the Open Home Foundation. The Open Home Foundation fights for privacy, choice, and sustainability for smart homes. And for every person who lives in one. Learn more at https://www.openhomefoundation.org/blog/announcing-the-open-...

I want to connect a temperature sensor to an esp, and trigger a radiator valve based in temperature range. Valves are mostly zigbee. Can I somehow control one with ESPHome without Home Assistant or zigbee2mqtt? I want to understand if I can avoid adding a full blown Linux server into the equation.

You can bind a device to another, so while you would need the ability to issue the command, a server wouldn't be required to handle the state propagation.

https://smarthomescene.com/guides/how-to-bind-zigbee-devices...

Re: ESPHome

#118

Post by masto »

noisy_boy wrote: post #107

I have a pet project I have been meaning to work on: 1. Lookup the local transport API to see bus arrival timings for the stop near my home 2. Display the timings for three main buses so that can either be a bigger display or three smaller displays, one for each bus. Don't have to be high res but relatively larger and bright e.g. a 7 segment display (3 segments for bus number and 4 for showing arrival time in mins) -…

ESPHome is a good start, as it provides a great framework for layering components together. For example, you could assemble what you want out of:

* The display component that handles drawing into a grid of pixels (https://esphome.io/components/display/)

* The text renderer

* addressable_light platform (https://esphome.io/components/display/addressable_light) to create a display matrix on top of an addressable LED driver (https://esphome.io/components/light/neopixelbus)

* An inexpensive 8x32 LED panel (https://www.google.com/search?q=8x32+ws2812b)

* You can make multiples of these, or chain the panels together, for more space

Of course, rather than reinventing any wheels, you can follow guides like https://community.home-assistant.io/t/led-matrix-with-esphom...

There's not a lot of soldering needed, especially if you go the route of repurposing existing hardware like an Ulanzi. It's mostly about making the right data connections and providing the right power.

Re: ESPHome

#119

Post by jbensan »

WhyNotHugo wrote: post #116
balloob wrote: post #28

One of the people leading ESPHome here. Let me know if there any questions. Last Saturday we announced that ESPHome is now owned by the Open Home Foundation. The Open Home Foundation fights for privacy, choice, and sustainability for smart homes. And for every person who lives in one. Learn more at https://www.openhomefoundation.org/blog/announcing-the-open-...

I want to connect a temperature sensor to an esp, and trigger a radiator valve based in temperature range. Valves are mostly zigbee. Can I somehow control one with ESPHome without Home Assistant or zigbee2mqtt? I want to understand if I can avoid adding a full blown Linux server into the equation.

"mostly zigbee?" not sure what you mean there. But ESPHome can be controlled directly without HA. You should read the website, specifically the sections on "Networking" and "Management and Monitoring".

If you are starting at zero there is a big learning curve, but if you're into it, it is a lot of fun.

Re: ESPHome

#120

Post by cyberax »

epcoa wrote: post #114
cyberax wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be great to support more PoE devices and Ethernet-based provisioning. And also alternative wired buses, such as BACNET or a generic RS-485. The other axis: Zigbee devices and battery power. ESPs can be used with batteries, but right now it's not a great fit. And the last feature: better reuse support for custom devices. E.g. if I have 20 similar custom devices.

> generic RS-485 You can already hook up an RS-485 transceiver to the UART ports and use it today with the UART driver. Esphome also has a Modbus controller component. What are you referring to by “generic” RS-485 that isn’t available already?

RS-485 is a shared bus, so you need to use some kind of a protocol to arbitrate access, and to make sure you don't flash unintended devices.

BACnet is one example, but other protocols can work too.

Post reply on HN