Looking for tips and experiences with the inkbird ITC-308 wifi as I am close to buying one.
I know it is a tuya device under the covers.
My use case is home brewing beer. I like that the device has a PLC that will just run as set if the network/interwerbs/homeassistant goes down. I like being able to see regular updates on the status of the device (ideally in homeassisnt) and hope to be able to manage the device via homeassistant also (via manual interaction and perhaps automations eventually)
I would prefer to convert it to a local only device, but interested in experiences especially on the following dimensions:
Ways to integrate to HASS: I assume using tuya integration (unaltered device), or to use tasmota/homebrew software (my preferernce).
If changing firmware - did you use tuyaconvert or have to crack the case? Given this is a tuyaMCU variant, do you just upload tasmota and configure it as a tuyaMCU device? (I am a tasmota virgin … longtime watcher. I have cut my own code in the past using arduino IDE and uploaded to sonoffs). Keen to be sure I don’t brick the device by using poor config!!
how can homeassistant interact with the controller? I assume it is treated like a thermostat? Can you change the set temperatures etc? Can you do it with automations also (ie are there relevant services to call?)
If firmware changed, does the manual button interface still work for setting temperature etc also?
Search is your friend I have one, opened it up and saw an esp8266, so yes it can be flashed. But I had the same concern, will flashing it break the interface. So I decided against it.
Someone else on here is sticking with the default firmware, which is actually tuya anyway. So use the tuya home assistant integration and you can definitely still use the user interface.
If you are concerned about security, you could set up a guest wifi network to run your insecure iot devices on. Or even segregate your network with VLANs.
It would be greatly appreciated because the instructions I found to make it work via the config file don’t work anymore because it’s, according to the logs “depreciated”. It doesn’t change the temperature to the right one.