first a little bit of background , I currently have 3 temp sensors from MySensors with a My Sensors Gateway using a NRF24L01+PA+LNA antenna . This setup connects really well to 2 of the temp sensors (both indoors) but the outside sensor not so much . Now to the point in case, I like the integration of the Esp8266 using EspHome into home assistant , I currently have several Sonoff light/power switches that work perfectly with it. I would like to upgrade my sensors to either an esp8266 or esp32 with EspHome and in so remove the need for the Mysensors gateway .
Here in lies the problem , in my research I have discoverd that esp’s generally are quite power hungry devices and so I’m not entirely sure battery power is my set route, but it would be ideal if this was setup .
I know the radio used in Mysensors was used because it was ideal for battery powered sensors but I have read that using Deep sleep, I could increase the lifespan of the battery powered nodes and with esp 8266 - 01 or 03 models I found a site that with modification I could use deep sleep and possibly have a small size node . here
I could use some general advice with a direction to turn , Firstly is an esp the way to go? is there some alternative device I should be researching ?
I want to have 2 simple temp sensors(ideally battery powered) in the house and more than likely a solar powered esp32 based weather station outside to replace the 3rd temp sensor.( and in the end 2 esp based cameras using the new esphome camera component )
Is the esp8266 a bit overkill for a temp sensor ? would a Esp32 be best for the weather station? and with EspHome what is the ideal sensor run duration / deep sleep configuration ?
Any advice or reference to research material would be brilliant
I use esphome to run my remote gate and mailbox sensors. Very simple to implement deep sleep - which they spend most of their time in - using a simple yaml configuration file.
They only wake to send state changes and run off a single 18650 battery and a 5w solar cell.
Esphome integrates very easily with HA and has a wide range of sensors available. Highly recommended.
For this very reason is why I want to have all of my setup in EspHome, I love that its so easy and integrates well. MySensors is great too but it can sometimes be a little buggy .
everything including esphome can be buggy, there is no perfect solution.
I believe that choice of platform depends on use case.
Esphome works for @tom_l because
but I doubt you can say the same about temp sensors - they do send readings regularly.
Some use nodemcu boards (via power adapter) with attached temperature/humidity sensors.
And if you want to use batteries, think about this sensor - I use 7 of them in my setup with Arduino MEGA/RFLink exactly to get information about temperature in my house and control central heating. The have some issues, but overall it’s a good off-the-shelf solution.
Very true all things can be buggy Ive used My sensors for a couple of years now including previously with openhab it just felt like almost every update of openhab broke mysensors and I had to work out what was wrong quite often. But as you say I could experience the same on EspHome. However the main benefit would be to remove the need for a gateway and instead use the router.
I hadn’t thought of it like that before although it does seem that some people have had some success with battery ESP temp sensors. I would be happy if the battery lasted 6 months - a year, although I not against powering via power supply apapter.
I’m not against off the shelf but I would like to get my hands dirty and build the sensor, and in the process learn a bit more about Esp’s.
I soldered all MySensor nodes and printed 3D cases for them.
Interesting device. Couple of questions i couldn’t find in the AE website. How long do the batteries last for you?
Also does the rf message includes the battery status, besides temp and humidity?
What issues have you find about them?
I’d say a month, but they keep sending readings even after starting to report low battery status.
However, I prefer not to keep them at that state and just recharge appropriate batteries.
yes, it always comes as a triplet.
well, they are great devices considering the price…
however, I noticed that some of mine stop sending readings for unknown reason - sometimes just re-inserting batteries (i.e power cycling) does the job.
Their accuracy varies, i.e if you put 5 of them next to each other, you cn easily get 1 degree/5% difference (I mostly checked temperatures), but I think that’s acceptable for DIY applications.
Sometimes one of the sensors generates “spikes” on both temperature and humidity channels, don’t know what it is and it’s not really bothering me as the sensor in question is my outdoors one.
I have some automation that warns me if there is no readings form any of the key temperature sensors that are used as a source of central heating control, and it triggers sometimes - I’m still looking for the reason and my current guess is it doesn’t like one of my WiFi APs… have to check that out properly.
The bottom line is these are great value/money devices for quickly test some ideas around your house. They also very useful in places with no power supply or where you don’t want to use power adaptors for safety reasons.
Getting OT of the original subject here, but you can probably eliminate spikes with this Filter - Home Assistant. It is worth a visit to Integrations - Home Assistant occasionally to remind oneself of all the useful stuff there.
Yeah, I was looking at the filter component and apparently here I need a lowpass one.
The only reason I haven’t used it probably is that it’s the only sensor that has those spikes… but maybe I need to invest some time to convert some of my key sensors just to make them more reliable in a way
Of course, the utility components section is the interesting place to revisit.
