My rpi is 25 meters not including walls…south east corner basement to north west corner 3rd floor…of the house from where I want the sensor.
Where do you put the sensor?
Do I have to get another pi or can I use the rpi4 that’s currently running HA…see first sentence…
What programs do I need to flash esp32?
Do I need cables or soldering iron or any other equipment. I have none.
Forgive me I’m new to this.
Yep get another RPi0W or better still just use ESP32 - you just flash ESPhome to them - have a look on ESPHome.IO - it integrates directly with HA and has an add-on so you can run it from within HA - dead easy.
Essentially you connect up an ESP32 dev board to the USB interface of your machine that is running HA, then run ESPhome from there and flash the ESPHome image onto the board, from there the rest of the config is done online and all updates are pushed over the air - so all you do is move the ESP32 to near your Bluetooth sensors and plug it into a USB outlet for power. As long as you have your wireless LAN available in that location you are good to go
Craig
I have a couple of Sonoff S22 smart switches flashed with Tasmota and I have a plugin Si7025 I think???) temperature and humidity sensor plugged directly in. Cost less than $20AUD
What is a dev board?
How do you use tasmota?
Tasmota uses MQTT to connect to Home Assistant
Ted,
A dev board is a Development board - just an easy way to get started with an ESP32
The picture/link i posted above has an ESP32 Dev board - if you search on EBAY for NODEMCU ESP32 Devkit - you will find plenty - should be around the $10 mark depending on where you are
You would also need a USB cable to plug from your PC/raspberry PI to this board to do the initial upload.
You would then need a USB wall charger (so plugs into 240v wall socket and outputs USB 5v - preferably 2.4Amps) - you can reuse an old phone/tablet charger if you have one
Craig
Yep good solution - mine gave the option of a local display of both Temp and humidity - which in my case has a fairly high WAF and i find quite useful as i wander around the house
Craig
I have none of that. Wouldn’t it be easier and possibly cheaper to get a single hue sensor?
Dunno - if that meets your needs then go for it.
I was just telling you what works for me - the cost in Aus for all of that would be about $30 and then some of your time to learn something.
How much does a Hue cost ?
Craig
A hue sensor is 39 US. I already have one integrated. So it’s marginally more expensive but when you factor in shipping it’s the same. Plus the hue sensor is sold at 5 different stores within a 10 minute drive from me. But I wouldn’t get the screen. I’ll have to think about this. It is definitely what I want. But I would need to be walked through the process step by step. Anything more than auto discovery at this point is kind of leaning me against it. But again the idea you put forth is what I want…
Read through those 3 links that i posted earlier - i have only started on HA in the last 3 months or so - so i am far from an expert and i found the links to be easy to follow and logical.
Craig
Can you explain why you need 2.4 A?
I really don’t see the need for that.
Because if i said a 1 amp USB charger then he would probably go and get an Asian Cheapie from a $2 dollar store and wonder why it did not work.
At least with a 2.4amp their is a reasonable amount of leeway for the power draw of the ESP32
Craig
If you click on this link and scroll up a little then you see how much a ESP32 consumes.
So let’s say 40 mAh.
And you recommended a 2.4 A (2400 mAh).
Do you see the scale of leeway you give it?
As long as it’s not battery powered and does not include servo or motors then any USB charger will do the work.
You can even connect it to DVD/TV/Set top box since they generally give out 500 mAh.
I imagine I will have issues running these bluetooth sensors running through the ESP32 if I have lots of obstacles in the way.
Even with my wifi I have issues due to my electric underfloor heating and water boilers in the 3 bathrooms. Therefore I have 2 routers upstairs and downstairs (both floors connected by cat6.
The floor heating I believe has reflective material embedded in the concrete floors.
My HA server is located upstairs in my office which also has a steel plated security door which posed a few issues on the upper floor initially.
Yep could do - it is called BLE for a reason !!!
But at the cost of an ESP32, USB cable and a wall wart who cares - we have internal besser block walls in most of our house and it will travel through two of them to different rooms (but a bit flakey), we also have an upstairs extensions that is all plasterboard walls - but has foil insulation in the walls - it wil go through one of these only - our house is 480 sqm of floor space - i have a total of 8 ESP32 around the place and that covers everywhere - and they do more than just the Bluetooth monitoring in some cases
One day when i can be bothered i might try a RPi0W as i have been informed they have much longer range - but then will be up for about $30 per unit instead of $10.
I also find the ESP32 very easy and convenient to manage through ESPhome
Craig
ah maybe I misunderstood.
So the ESP32 does not need to be physically plugged into your HA server just configured initially and then placed anywhere in the house powered up with a usb?
Thanks
Yes, exactly. Future updates to your code can also be sent over-the-air.
It’s a shame the ESP32’s are around 25-30 USD each here in Uruguay. Looks like I’ll need to buy directly from China or the UK.