I have a Nexx Garage (which I purchased before I started learning about Home Assistant and Open Garage), and would like to try and get it working with HA.
Has anyone been down this road? Will one of the existing components work, or will I have to take the plunge and learn how to “add my own” (which might be fun, but will suck up free time that I don’t have much of).
Thanks in advance.
Any luck getting the Nexx garage device working with Home Assistant? It’s on sale today at Woot for $70!
Hi - no, not integrating directly with Home Assistant. Last I I traded email with them, there were no plans to make an API available. Their integration strategy is to suppor conectivity through IFTTT. I can use automations to open and close the garage door, but it does not operate as an actual switch or cover inside Home Assistant.
I got one of this as well prior to getting into HA. I opened up the case and discovered it’s just a Sonoff Basic inside. So I flashed ESPEasy to it and it’s now totally integrated via MQTT into my HA.
Wow that’s pretty interesting. Although I don’t really have a sense for how involved that might be, flashing firmware. Did any steps require extra equipment, like a soldering iron? Any additional details you could share about how you got it up and running? I’d imagine understanding how the board sends mqtt would be pretty straightforward. Thanks for posting.
There are plenty of guides online on how to do it. Just search for sonoff basic flash firmware. I didn’t do any soldering, though various guides tell you to. I have headers and jumper wires from various arduino and pi kits I’ve bought over time. You’ll also need a USB to serial converter. I’ve got a FTDI converter. Again, many guides are out there that tell you how to do it.
Here’s a couple of examples of tutorials that I used:
And like I said, there are more.
The ESPEasy website has all the directions on how to flash their firmware. Speaking of, if you upgrade HA, you can use the ESPHome integration. I’m thinking about checking that out myself.
Good luck. If you have any more questions, let me know.
Thank you very much for the knowledge share, and offer to help. It may be a little while until I can find time to tackle this, but I will reach out if I need more guidance.
I’ve just found an alternative garage door opener - it seems to be based on Sonoff the way it looks, but it connects to Tuya / Smart Life app by default, and is super cheap ($40). Since HA supports Tuya / Smart Life without an issue, I guess this might be a good option for those who don’t want to take the flashing route. I’ve just ordered one and will report back when I get it running. https://amazon.com/gp/product/B07NNVX1K7
Edit: I canceled the order upon looking at the reviews. In case of a power outage, this device would open the garage door. That’s bad. I’ve found this device instead: https://opengarage.io/. Looks very solid, and is open source. Supported natively by HA.
are you able to poll for door open and close as well?
This has a GPIO hard-wired in and comes with a reed sensor for the door. When/if you flash it, all you have to do is tell your new firmware that that pin is a binary sensor. I created a binary sensor in HA with the status of the pin.
Not perfect but for anyone looking for a workaround, you can use the Samsung Smartthings app and integrate Nexx Home with it. You do not need to purchase a Smartthings hub.
Shot in the dark, I just took the leap and flashed my Nexx Garage with Tasmota (first time every flashing anything), what pin did you use in the firmware? That part I can’t quite seem to figure out.
For flashing? Try this webpage out, if you haven’t already.
Thanks for the reply! Sorry I should have been more specific. I did get it flashed successfully but wanted to know what pin you set in the firmware to get the reed sensor to show in HA. I am seeing the telemetry data (signal, boot count, etc.) But nothing about the sensor and whether the door is open or closed.
hmm, you’ll need to give me some time to look, I switched to esphome a while ago, but I do have it documented somewhere
No problem. Appreciate anything you got!
I’m using GPIO 14 for the sensor. 12 is the relay. Hope that helps.
Awesome, I’ll give it a go. Appreciate it!
Just to share my experience for future reference…did a ton of research and this YouTube video finally helped figure things out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMepwpyjMCY
Flashed Tasmota on the Nexx Garage Module (tons of videos on this)
Join the device-created AP and join it to your wireless network
Find the device IP address on your local network and go to the address in your browser – configure your friendly name, MQTT credentials etc. Save and reboot
Under configure module make sure it’s set to Sonoff Basic
Set the GPIO 14 to Switch2, reboot
Open Console and type each of the following (from the video) - press ENTER after each one
a. Switchretain 1
b. Powerretain 1
c. switchtopic2 garagestate
d. switchmode1 0
e. switchmode2 2
Go to your config.yaml (or cover.yaml) and enter the following (adjust to match the naming you used when setting up the device). I actually swapped the state_open and state_closed “ON/OFF” statuses from what is below as my reed sensor comes together when the door is shut. I want to know when the door is OPEN even if it’s cracked open. It will only show CLOSED if it is truly closed all the way.
- platform: mqtt
name: "Sonoff SV Garage"
state_topic: "cmnd/garagestate/POWER2"
command_topic: "cmnd/sonoffsv01/POWER"
payload_open: "ON"
payload_close: "ON"
payload_stop: "ON"
state_open: "ON"
state_closed: "OFF"
optimistic: false
Then look in your entities and you should see it. Test out your reed sensor and you will notice HA shows the status. You can also test this in the tasmota console.
Hopefully this helps someone in the future!
Thanks!! How is the responsiveness? Is it faster? I presume I could “expose” this to google to integrate the Nexx garage door there?