I am still wondering why there is no “ready to go” firmware for the esp8266-based boards, like sonoff.
When I turned on my server, it recognized the chromecasts at home. But why not use a firmware for esp8266 to make it detectable for the Home Assistant server.
There are great libraries like Tasmota or Homie but they all require mqtt. Why not make a easy to use esp8266 firmware to make it communicate with the server?
Just my opinion.
I started with esp8266 and the Blynk app. This is easy to use, only limited to its own server. Now I was trying OpenHAB, but this didn’t work for me. Then I tried Node Red. Now I am trying to make it as userfriendly as possible, so I need a easy to use dashboard.
an ESP can have a shitload of different functions. it can be built into lots of different devices or it can be used as a single lightswitch or a single motion detector.
what you are asking is the same as asking for a program that automaticly detects a raspberry and everything that is connected to the raspberry.
The problem is that if you are taking the trouble to create a sensor, you want it to be accessible to as many users as possible, not just HA users. The closest thing the home automation community have to a standard is MQTT, hence that is used most often.
Anyone who has got as far as using an ESP8266 is going to be savvy enough to set up an MQTT broker, although from the posts in the forum, sometimes they need a little help.
The discovery component is specifically programmed to recognize chromecast devices in HA. It can’t do it for every sensor.
The Tasmota firmware also presents an HTTP interface. It should be to create scripts or a component to discover them by scanning the local network for active IP addresses and querying HTTP port for status. See https://github.com/arendst/Sonoff-Tasmota/wiki/Commands for available commands.
But with tasmota you can’t block the long press for reconnecting/rebooting/reinstalling.
So when you press the button too long it will do such action.
I want to be able to make those decisions on my own.
Now I have my sonoff touch with mqtt which sends on and off when pressed, but also when you long press, it sends a long press command to have an extra option to trigger the hvac for instance. This trigger is currently processed with node red. But I want to make this work with HA
