Espressif has created ESP-NOW communications protocol

[Tromperie (Frank Collins)]

ESP NOW: Espressif's Wireless-Communication Protocol

Can this be incorporated into ESPHome or Home Assistant?

[nickrout]

My ESP-NOW integration library - enable direct communication between your esphome devices even without wifi router

I recently wrote a custom addon that enable esp-now integration for your esp-home devices. This add direct communication capability and you can use it along side with existing homeassistant. So in case your wifi router disconnects, or your raspberry pi stops working, your home automations will still be able to work. Check it out at https://github.com/iphong/esphome-espnow and let me know what you think. In progress homeassistant config for my actual home project Cheers!!

[Tromperie (Frank Collins)]

Thanks Nick.
The video was uploaded only yesterday so I thought the whole thing was brand new.

[the-wal (Tony)]

D’Day Frank.
ESPNOW has been out for quite a while now, the original user guide was released in 2016.
I have been using it as part of my home automation for years, I have 5 active door sensors and 6 active remote controls that I designed myself.

I watched the video last night I have never seen that remote before, certainly looks nicer than mine.

[the-wal (Tony)]

Thanks Nick.
I have been using espnow for years, I coded them myself and have only had a breif look at ESP-Home.
I will have a look at your addon and also need to have a look at now well ESP-Home handles battery life.

Cheers
Tony

[nickrout]

@the-wal

I will have a look at your addon

It is not mine, I was simply pointing to it

[Tromperie (Frank Collins)]

Hi Tony,
Where are you hiding the details of all that work?

Frank

[the-wal (Tony)]

I did a video a while ago, not the best quality just wanted to tell my story.

Intro To EspNow

happy to help and share any code I can.

[orange-assistant (the real one)]

@Tromperie

Can this be incorporated into ESPHome

Actually there is a pull request pending which needs testing/reviews to be released into the stable esphome branch

You are all invited to test esp-now with esphome and report your findings directly in github

wifi_now esphome component - communicate directly to other ESP device via ESP-Now

The corresponding docs are here

WiFi Now Component

And this pr should enable normal wifi to work together with esp-now on a esp

Wifi basic coop

how-can-i-test-a-pull-request:

Frequently Asked Questions

[mwolter]

Been researching this. Definite advantages for battery powered sensors, long range (500m) and less WiFi congestion. Would be great to integrate this into the dashboard so OTA and logs could could trigger an ESP in ESP-NOW mode to connect to WiFi, do its thing, then revert back to ESP-NOW connectivity.

[mwolter]

Has anyone tried using an olimex-poe as a gateway? Seems like it would be perfect. Ethernet for always on connectivity, poe powered, and the WiFi module can be dedicated to ESP-Now. Use them for BLE gateways and they work perfectly.

[Bobb]

I have a temperature sensor in my attic running espnow off a TTGO T-Energy T18- WiFi and Bluetooth module 18650 ESP32 WROVER Board from AliExpress and a LiFePO4 battery. The sensor wakes up every half hour and reports temp, humidity and battery voltage; so far the battery has lasted 3 months or so and is still going strong. However, I am really surprised by the range - the receiver board has to be in a room directly below the sensor otherwise they won’t connect. It could be that espnow doesn’t use an antenna (no idea)??

I followed the randomnerdtutorial sketch in Arduino With a web server on the receiver board, and copied the website into a Lovelace card, but couldn’t ever get espnow and mqtt to work together on the recieving board - so integration into HA would be awesome. I have been impressed with the connection - totally rock solid.