Automated curtains over MQTT and esp8266 problem

Configuration
1

Hello,

I’m trying to build automated curtains with a stepper motor. I want to make this controllable over MQTT so I tried to implement this in my Arduino sketch. I get a MQTT connection and I see that something got pulished in the topic but apparentely the ESP8266 doesn’t get the message and doesn’t controls the stepper. And as soon as the stepper made for example 10 turns and the curtains are closed it should publish the closed state in the /state topic.

Here’s my Arduino sketch (I use a Wemos D1 and DRV882 driver):


#include ESP8266WiFi.h
#include PubSubClient.h
// Update these with values suitable for your network.
const char* ssid = "SSID";
const char* password = "PW";
 const char* mqtt_server = "IP";

WiFiClient espClient;
PubSubClient client(espClient);
int Index;
int payLoad;
void setup_wifi() {
   delay(100);
  // We start by connecting to a WiFi network
    Serial.print("Connecting to ");
    Serial.println(ssid);
    WiFi.begin(ssid, password);
    while (WiFi.status() != WL_CONNECTED) 
    {
      delay(500);
      Serial.print(".");
    }
  randomSeed(micros());
  Serial.println("");
  Serial.println("WiFi connected");
  Serial.println("IP address: ");
  Serial.println(WiFi.localIP());
}

void callback(char* topic, byte* payload, unsigned int length) 
{
  Serial.print("Command from MQTT broker is : [");
  Serial.print(topic);
  int p =(char)payload[0];
  if(p==1) 
  {
     digitalWrite(D4,HIGH);

  for(Index = 0; Index < 2000; Index++)
  {
    digitalWrite(D5,HIGH);
    delayMicroseconds(500);
    digitalWrite(D5,LOW);
    delayMicroseconds(500);
    
  }
  client.publish("blindbr/state", "0");
  Serial.print("on");
   }
  else if(p==0)
  {
   digitalWrite(D4,LOW);

  for(Index = 0; Index < 2000; Index++)
  {
    digitalWrite(D5,HIGH);
    delayMicroseconds(500);
    digitalWrite(D5,LOW);
    delayMicroseconds(500);
  }
 client.publish("blindbr/state", "1");
 Serial.print("off");
   }
   Serial.println();
}
 
//  Serial.println();
 //end callback

void reconnect() {
  // Loop until we're reconnected
  while (!client.connected()) 
  {
    Serial.print("Attempting MQTT connection...");
    // Create a random client ID
    String clientId = "ESP8266Client-";
    clientId += String(random(0xffff), HEX);
    // Attempt to connect
    //if you MQTT broker has clientID,username and password
    //please change following line to    if (client.connect(clientId,userName,passWord))
    if (client.connect(clientId.c_str()), "homeassistant", "lucy")
    {
      Serial.println("connected");
     //once connected to MQTT broker, subscribe command if any
      client.subscribe("blindbr/move");
    } else {
      Serial.print("failed, rc=");
      Serial.print(client.state());
      Serial.println(" try again in 5 seconds");
      // Wait 6 seconds before retrying
      delay(6000);
    }
  }
} //end reconnect()

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(115200);
  setup_wifi();
  client.setServer(mqtt_server, 1883);
  client.setCallback(callback);
  // set the speed at 80 rpm:
  pinMode(D6, OUTPUT); //Enable
  pinMode(D5, OUTPUT); //Step
  pinMode(D4, OUTPUT); //Direction

  digitalWrite(D6,LOW);
}

void loop() {
  if (!client.connected()) {
    reconnect();
  }
  client.loop();

}

And here’s my HA config part:

switch:
  - platform: mqtt
    name: Curtains
    state_topic: "blindbr/state"
    command_topic: "blindbr/move"
    payload_open: "1"
    payload_close: "0"
    state_open: "1"
    state_closed: "0"
    optimistic: false

Thank you!
Kidn regards

2

I can’t see anything obvious wrong with your connection code, are you sure its not receiving the message? What is the output of the debug port?

I think there is something wrong with you decoding of the payload, so that if you do get the message it wouldn’t fire,

  int p =(char)payload[0];
  if(p==1)

HA is sending ascii character “1” as the payload, I don’t think char(‘1’) is 1 - but I can’t remember my ascii well enough to be sure what it is.