That’s nice, luckily there is more people here who can tell their stories because they actually had experiences with more than only one project so they really are in a place to compare them (unlike @123 who loves to rant about things he never tried )
After soon six years of working with esp(ressif) based devices with more than 2 years experience with tasmota and around 3 years with esphome I can definitely say that solely for the painless updates alone I would already choose esphome over any other solution I know and would advise anybody to do so
Much too many vulnerable esp devices are out there in the wild and some owners forgot that they are connected devices that can be (ab)used to breach the security of a whole network.
trying not to explicitly take one side or other but that portion was meant more for you than it was @123. I really thought he was honestly asking questions to find out why he should switch (probably because of my past interactions with him on here). But that was just my reading of it and could be completely wrong…again.
I didn’t have a lot of experience with Tasmota or updating so it I don’t remember there being any real issues with updates aside from the one time mentioned above. Most of the times I did do and update I remember it “just worked”. But so does ESPHome.
But I’m also one of the ones you 'd about above and never update my devices with new firmware as it comes out as well. I’ve had a couple of times even using ESPHome where an update didn’t go well and I had to pull the device out of it’s resting place so I could manually hook it up to flash it again. I tend to follow the “if it ain’t broke…” school of thought both in my work life and in my private life.
So I wouldn’t call either “painless” because both platforms could have some pain involved.
But if I had to choose based on updates I would pick ESPHome over Tasmota (and did) because ESPHome is just somewhat more straightforward to update especially if you use the dashboard.
Actually, I tried it when it was first released and decided Tasmota was better suited for my modest needs. It has improved and expanded tremendously since those early days but I continue to be well served by Tasmota.
It appears you love to say (false) things about people you don’t know.
Well, finally I’m just wondering why you asked for a “reason” to try it if you did already?
That’s wrong. The opposite it is! I like to debunk and false facts. And as a matter of fact this thread contained a critical number of false claims and half-silk arguments and that’s why I have
so everybody can read about the facts in detail including numerous links if somebody wants to dive deeper.
In this times were people are touched on a emotional level it’s important to work fact orientated
Well, if there were no security issues (like in Tasmota 5,6,7 and version 8 to to some point if I remember or any esphome version prior 1.15) than there is no immediate need for an update actually.
The only problem when not regularly updating tasmota (from my experiences a lot of users just don’t) you almost have no practical chance updating from like Tasmota 5 to 12 (most recent) for example because there is a “upgrade flow” you strictly need to follow to don’t loose configurations. In the end it will be faster for users running vulnerable tasmota versions just to bite the apple and install and configure it from ground.
For esphome on the other hand it doesn’t matter at all what was previously installed. A update from 1.20 to 2022.06 isn’t any different like 2022.05 to 2022.06.
That shouldn’t be necessary at all and a “easy” solution is to get yourself a safe mode button (or safe mode switch) because that guarantees that you always can ota the device.
With my roughly 100 devices I only had ota update problems (“broken pipe”) while uploading with a device that does ble. The problem could be that the antenna is a shared one for wifi and ble. But with a couple of tries I even succeeded updating it without activing the safe mode. Still I heavily advise the safe mode button (you can also active the safe mode by power cycling the device 10(?) times I think) for any device just to have a safety net.
The difference lies in the detail:
Tasmota updates the “OS” part of the system while keeping the configuration untouched. If there are breaking changes things will break
ESPHome does compile the newest version together with the configuration for you before it is even uploaded to the device. If the automatic validation and compiling in esphome passes you are already beyond any (possible) breaking changes and the update should not break anything (if no bugs were introduced indeed!)
The central management of all esphome nodes is indeed a treat! Tasmota has/had(?) a third party tool called tasmoadmin if I remember right which does try to achieve different things - not sure though if it still is in active development
These “breaks”, either on esphome or tasmota are mainly caused by bad esp board (=cheap chinese clone) resulting in frequent wifi dropouts, not because of bad firmware; or also with wrongly set wifi settings in your router. Especially if you have more advanced router (=more expensive one) these can happen quickly. I did quite some “exercise” with my asus mesh network…
if you have a bad experience on either stack, your problem is likely bad DC supply on your chinesium ESP32 or 8266. My preference is now ESPhome for the security and the flexibility. I have a pattern i follow for good power and i use repeatable yaml templates to be consistent with my device implementation. IOT devs are all encrypted, All unique massive passwords, they all run in an isolated IOT VLAN. They are all MAC locked. Nice and tight network.
ESPhome is rock solid and my go to platform for reliable integration.
Damn i have one in my toyota landcruiser that tells HA its stats and opens my gate and garage when i get near home. A big thanks to the ESPH team and the strong community for a fantastic stack.
I was really keen making a direct compression with the most recent tasmota and while it looks like it has support for i2s (at least some github comments look a like) I didn’t found any template or way getting this device functional with it. Also I couldn’t find anything useful in the tasmota docs how to control/use a i2s dac or how to make it work together with home assistant.
So instead I used the usual (fast) route and supercharged it directly with esphome
now I have a network/smart speaker that is perfectly integrated into ha without mqtt or any other hassle involved
I am a HA noob and also interested in BLE Mesh as more and cheap devices seem to be coming avail.
When I am looking at buying a device my 1st priority is to find non cloud interoperable devices so BLE Mesh seems quite interesting.
When I look though ESPHome seems to run on arduino drivers which seems to be a limiting factor whilst Tasmota uses the Esspressif SDKs to create binaries?
Espressif seem to be better than both as they have a wide range of support but with BLE Mesh & something new called Matter that used to be CHIPS which also runs on the C3 which Tasmota calls ‘solo’ devices?
As a noob tasmoto seems to support more devices and my 1st reaction to the esphome-api is why create another proprietary system on opensource as surely its better to use open standards that are commonly used?
I don’t really know as still doing research and still have to play with some new switches I purchased but for feedback from a noob would say I am leaning towards Tasmota as a secondary to non cloud devices I can get that do not need firmware change.
Its not that I have fear of flashing or even a bit of C programming be it what ever IDE its just to not have the hassle and to know faults are with the device supplied and not 3rd party firmware as really my 1st choice is neither.
I thought the opposite actually. In the past tasmota used the (mainstream) arduino framework versions but then switched to it’s own custom fork probably because of space “problems”. But actually not sure about what the state is today as I didn’t used it recently - maybe they moved on to esp-idf?
Esphome on the other hand allows you to make use of ether the arduino framework or the esp-idf (and even choose the versions if you need to).
Are you talking about the MCU’s (esp82xx, esp32, esp32-c3 etc.) or about peripheral hardware like sensors and actors?
Regarding MCU’s I think they both support the identical espressif chips while recently a pico w (rp2040) was showed off running esphome (work in progress). Also a nice progress to see in the github is the work on tuya MCU’s (RTL8710, BK7231, etc.).
Well, proprietary things from my point of view are closed source stuff. The native api on the other hand is open-source - like the whole esphome ecosystem including stuff like esp-web-tools and improv which was adopted by other projects like wled, tasmota or espeasy and could be called “open standard” if you would like
When the “common” alternative is a 20 year old protocol which lacks most “modern” features and has no encryption build in? Beside it needs setup and maintenance? Why not establish something new then which can be commonly used in the future?
The esphome site explains all the advantages of the native api in detail like efficiency, stability, low latency, one-click setup, etc.
That term doesn’t even exists anymore in esphome. It’s only “installing” now.
I’m no friend of detechnicalizing wordings but it might just be easier for users. The term “flashing” always includes in the sub line the technical risk of bricking (rendering broken) but that is what’s literally impossible with espressif chips due to there design (being able to always activating flash mode even when a “broken” firmware is loaded).
I don’t even have programming skills but I make heavy use of esphome (with it’s yaml syntax)
ESPHome is a system to control your ESP8266/ESP32 by simple yet powerful configuration files and control them remotely through Home Automation systems.
I run a “double” of tasmota BLE receiver with esp32 for…a week or so now (i mentioned it above). Esphome is on esp-idf and runs without problems so far, while tasmota went offline once and rebooted itself after a while.
As i already said, i did have problems with esphome a while ago, when esp-idf wasn’t available yet for “normal” esp32 (only for C version). So, i guess that arduino drivers indeed can make problems…
Oh I prob took this too literally as was like why would I install tasmota to OTA to esphome ?!? I guess it was just if I wanted to swap.
I am 54 (An age when I have to look at the calendar for some quick math)
I am often caught flashing but yeah OTA is super handy
Its definitely proprietary by definition as both open and closed source can be proprietary, still curious to this, just because its open doesn’t mean its not proprietary.
Just some feedback as device qty I went on
Tasmota https://templates.blakadder.com/ and at 1st glance there seems to be more than https://esphome.io/ but bear in mind it was just 1st impressions I think its just that much front of house was modules/boards and turned off as find the made for cases so much less hassle and strangely often find its cheaper than trying to find a housing yourself dunno why plastic boxes seem to cost so much when not wrapping a product.
So yeah I was talking end product rather than microcontroller but also got in my head that was true as it seemed to be very esp82xx
Its sort not correct yeah the 1st version was but the latest version 5 is a few years or something?
Also unencrypted MQTT port is 1883 encrypted TLS port is 8883? with payload encryption also but its choice whether to employ not that it doesn’t have?
Sort of undecided on that one being honest it just sounds a bit like choice words than reality, doesn’t matter but being honest my eyebrows are still slightly raised on this one
So like usual but often when your just reading up and getting 1st impressions you can often go wrong
Also I am not arguing just saying what I think as it will just take time to absorb.
On another note I have these for sale and to get rid prepared to do some one a deal. Which I just thought of at this minute as was going to bung em on ebay but someone might want 1st dibs and will go to a good home.
esp32-s3-wroom-2, esp32-s3-wroom-1 N32R8V think the other is N8R2
esp32-s3-box, esp32-s3-box-lite.
I got the esp32-s3-box as I was thinking I could hack that out to use 2x I2S mics but it uses a 3rd ADC from the DAC for the AEC so my idea came to an end.
I then got a esp32-s3-box-lite as they must of realised they could just count the clock cycles of the I2S output and just use a 2 channel ADC, which prob means you can hack in a 2x I2S mics on a normal dev board.
I have got the tensflow part of KWS dataset and building off to quite a fine art as to boot the relatively crappy hi-esp model and replace with a custom, but you just know when something is going to gather dust.
£50 for the lot but otherwise it will just be an ebay auction might be less might be more dunno.
I have done quite a bit of work with the Pi and did a delay-sum beamformer on the Pi with some hacky C/C++ ProjectEars/ds at main · StuartIanNaylor/ProjectEars · GitHub
Someone here might be interested in checking out the new box framework.
I think its not worth the load as you can prob fit KWS & websocket single mic broadcast on a core and esphome device on the other. Its just better to have a single mic on a device not playing audio as the resonance even with the best AEC is cruel.
My idea of a distributed array of mic devices using softmax to get the best one of a common model still is good but you know when something is going to gather dust.
Doesn’t matter as they where going on ebay but as I was replying I just thought hey one of you guys might be interested.
Indeed, once you “own” a device (got rid of the stock firmware) you change the software the way you want.
What definition would that be in particular? I was thinking about proprietary software
Proprietary software, also known as non-free software or closed-source software, is computer software for which the software’s publisher or another person reserves some licensing rights to use, modify, share modifications, or share the software, restricting user freedom with the software they lease. It is the opposite of open-source or free software.
I suspect that probably every device you find on templates.blakadder.com works with esphome too. The site esphome-devices.com lists complete yaml’s for a few devices but many esphome users typically consult the blakadder templates for the needed gpio’s pins
The thing is that it is a different approach (might wanna read this thread because I wrote it down already in “numerous lengthy posts” @123 likes to say ).
With esphome all you have is one “recipe” in which you define every aspect of a device.
Thank’s to the magic of the native api this will be visible and controllable in ha directly:
Well, it’s all backwards compatible and only “new functions” are added from what I know. The core is still the old architecture released 1999 and that never had local highspeed networks in mind (that is what we have at home with wifi )
It is designed for connections with remote locations that have devices with resource constraints or limited network bandwidth.
In the end it’s your choice and
And if you get a smart plug with power monitoring for £12 which is already pre flashed with tasmota sticking to mqtt for the start sounds like the easiest option. You are always free to change your firmware in the future and flash whatever you want or need over it
)
'd about above and never update my devices with new firmware as it comes out as well. I’ve had a couple of times even using ESPHome where an update didn’t go well and I had to pull the device out of it’s resting place so I could manually hook it up to flash it again. I tend to follow the “if it ain’t broke…” school of thought both in my work life and in my private life.
and false facts. And as a matter of fact this thread contained a critical number of false claims and half-silk arguments and that’s why I have
. Each time a new rabbit hole.
(rendering broken) but that is what’s literally impossible with espressif chips due to there design (being able to always activating flash mode even when a “broken” firmware is loaded).
) different binaries to choose from 
but yeah OTA is super handy
of the 
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