How to connect to esp8266 module without internet connection

Configuration
1

Hi,
I have been reading lot of documentations and watching videos, but everywhere its mentioned use Ur ssid and password to connect.
Why is that needed if Home Assistant can be used for home automation without internet?

Can anyone please tell me in basic terms how to connect to an ESP8266 module to switch a light on and off without using an internet? Kindly explain in basic terms since I am new to this area.

2

The ssid and password is simply to connect to your wifi, not necessarily the internet. The ESP needs to connect to your wifi otherwise how are you going to send it commands?

EDIT: to elaborate, you could have a wifi network set up with a bunch of devices all talking to each other / to HA but yet that wifi network does not need to have an internet connection. HA will need internet for some things depending on your setup. ie: in order to get data from providers such as weather etc.

3

Thanks for the reply sparkydave. So I just need a wifi router without an internet connection to make things work, thats what you are saying isnt it?

But cant we connect directly to raspeberry pi HA/mqtt instance using ip address? Why do we need a wifi router in between? Sorry if its a dumb question to ask :frowning:

4

Correct

Unless you had the rPi set up as a wifi access point, you need a network for the devices to connect to in order to communicate with each other. This is standard networking stuff, nothing special to HA or the ESP

5

aah ok, Got it. Thanks :+1:

6

Hi. Nice to find this thread here. I wanted to try something similar. Configure esp8266 with my WiFi ssid and passwd, and control it just over wifi from a smartphone app, without internet for home automation. Can you suggest any tools for this?
Before you answer, let me tell you, I don’t know what tools to write program for the esp8266 (though I know coding, and probably Arduino is needed), and what app can send commands to esp8266 over wifi.
Please help me with the missing pieces.
Thanks.

7

You can use ha from your phone.

For the esp part, there is tasmota, esphome, espura, espeasy, esp-link, and a whole lot more.

8

Use this to program the ESP. It integrates perfectly into HA and the nodes will not need internet as they only communicate with your HA server.