Advice needed on Sonoff S31 Lite Smart Plugs

Hardware
1

Hello all,

I’m a newbie at Home Assistant, still learning as I go. My dedicated HA has been running some temperature monitoring for about a week now. I’ve pulled in a few Add-Ons and have a rudimentary dashboard to look at. I want to maintain local control of devices and automations, so I’m trying to make good architectural choices to allow that.

My wifi network is currently running with two Shelly relays. I will likely continue to use wifi devices when I have access to mains power. For locations without mains power, I’ve chosen the ZigBee protocol for battery powered sensors. I’ll probably avoid Z-Wave altogether to avoid adding a third network.

My coordinator is a Sonoff Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus, flashed with the most current firmware. I am planning on initially using ZHA as the gateway until I find the need (and skills) for ZigBee2MQTT. My current task is to add a few (mains powered) ZigBee smart plugs to play with. They will also do double-duty as repeaters, building out better range in the ZigBee mesh.

Now for the help request …

I purchased two Sonoff S31 Lite ZigBee smart plugs for the mesh build out. The wifi S31 version is quite popular and has lots of YouTube videos on flashing it with Tasmota for that local control. However, the ZigBee Lite version has almost no information out there regarding flashing, set up, HA integration, problems, etc.

Any experience you can share about the S31 Lite would be greatly appreciated. If you have a better ZigBee smart plug to recommend for my application, I’d be willing to return the S31 Lites and switch teams.

Karl

2

Howdy, no need to flash the Zigbee version, just pair them with your coordinator.

I use those in my Zigbee mesh for the same purpose, to have multiple routers expand the signal. I am using them with ZHA in HA.

3

I use Sonoff S31’s and they work fine with ZHA. Your plan is sound.

I think you’ll like the plug-and-play nature of the Zigbee mesh network. The only caution is I’ve read that some devices don’t play well together. Apparently the more complicated devices (dimmable or color changing, for example) are more likely to have issues. All my different brands of switches and smart plugs work well. I have yet to find a justification for adding Zigbee2MQTT, or even MQTT. I would rather not add two more components to my system to learn, update and maintain. But if you use MQTT for something else anyway, it might be worth it.

4

My Aqara devices don’t pair when any of these Sonoff s31 Lites are plugged in. Is there a workaround for this? I would prefer to use these s31’s as routers and most of my sensors are Aqara.

5

Good to know. I just order a couple of them to expand and strengthen my zigbee network.