How can I "un-brick" my LocalBytes PM Switch?

ESPHome
1

Hi,
I have 2 of these switches. Following help I was given in this thread, I added a wifi: domain: to my yaml:

substitutions:
  name: localbytes-8c9e29
  friendly_name: Localbytes PM (Fridge/Freezer)
packages:
  #localbytes.plug-pm: github://LocalBytes/esphome-localbytes-plug/localbytes-plug-pm.yaml@main
  remote_package:
    url: https://github.com/MichaelMKKelly/localbytes-plug-pm
    ref: main
    file: localbytes-plug-pm.yaml
logger:
  level: debug
esphome:
  name: ${name}
  name_add_mac_suffix: false
  friendly_name: ${friendly_name}
api:
  encryption:
    key: 5tzsoUD9wTct8ZeOvOvh5el57RuZJvopZEk7EodKEWI=
wifi:
  ssid: !secret wifi_ssid
  password: !secret wifi_password
  domain: ".mydomain" #Added to address broken "View" button

… and flashed (OTA) the first PM Switch. All went fine. Job done!

Moving in the the second PM Switch, I repeated the above. However, when I went to flash (OTA), the ESPHome Addon reported that there was insufficient memory to upgrade. A bit of a surprise as Switch 1 had upgraded but not completely unexpected as I had come across occasions, when working close to a limit one compilation fits but another will not.

In addition I had read in other threads around these PM Switches that this had been noted by others and that the solutions was to “start again” with a “minimal” tasmota binary and follow that with the required binary.

So that is what I did. The “tasmota-minimal.bin” when across, and the switch rebooted and came back up as 192.168.4.1 as expected. However, I can not connect to the WiFi at that address. An nmap scan does not find any ports at all at 192.168.4.1 :cry:

That’s me out of ideas now! The next step, it to try and get the glued cover off. But I’m not hopeful I’ll find any useful access to a serial port to flash it that way.

Regards, Martin

2

I seem to remember there is a sequence of button pushes, 6? That resets the device to factory.

3

I guess I must not have got the right technique? Tried button presses - no luck.
And after reading the link you sent, it says 7 x power cycles - but again no luck.
There is also the caveat that the power cycle method only works IF “option 65 is set to 0”. And I have no idea if that was the case.
Any idea what feedback (led flashing?) I may get if I was successful?

Regards, M.

4

Tasmota-minimal is NOT FOR FIRST FLASHING. Tasmota-minimal is ONLY FOR UPDATING TASMOTA on a device that already has Tasmota configured.

5

Ah… Thank you. That explains why it is now a “brick”.

I know that these switches are not that expensive. But if possible, it would be interesting (to me) to know HOW to recover from this silly mistake.

Regards, M.

6

Sorry late to the party here, but I did the same.
I have unbricked it, by taking it to bits and soldering on some power/data leads and reflashing.

Prolly easier to buy a new one, but wheres the fun in that :slight_smile: