Kickstart-bk7231t to ESPHome add-on

[donburch888 (Don Burch)]

I already have several Arlec Grid Connect PC191HA series 1 Smart Power Plugs with Energy Monitoring which I added to ESPHome’s HA Add-on through several stages back when LibreTiny was the way to go. I believe that a lot of the steps I went through then should no longer be required.

I purchased a batch of Arlec grid Connect PC191HA series 2, and am trying to get them into HA’s ESPHome add-on in the most straight-forward manner.

• Breakdown by tonyb62 shows the “Series 2” is a CB2S version (BK7231N). He states he chose “the device by firmware version - 1.1.8 - BK7231N / oem_bk7231n_plug”
• tuya-cloudcutter gives Arlec device options “PC191HA Smart Plug BK7231N v1.1.8” and "PC191HA Smart Plug BK7231T v1.3.5
• According to the Grid Connect phone app, my v2 units have 1.3.5 firmware.

Curiously tuya-cloudcutter lists only one firmware version 1.3.5 - BK7231T / oem_bk7231s_dltj.

I reinstalled tuya-cloudcutter (to ensure latest version), and used it to upload the ESPhome kickstart firmware

sudo ./tuya-cloudcutter.sh -r -f ESPHome-Kickstart-v23.08.29_bk7231t_app.ota.ug.bin -p arlec-pc191ha-smart-plug-bk7231t-v1.3.5

OK, I have got a device on my WLAN with kickstart-bk7231t firmware, and it is detected in the HA Integrations page.
How to get it from here into the HA ESPHome add-ons panel ? and able to install my full configuration yaml ?

[Mahko_Mahko]

From memory when I went through the workflow I got the Discovered / Adopt prompt. I think…?

Requirements to adopt device into ESPHome dashboard

I am loading a device with ESPHome code that uses the Sharing ESPHome devices template. After the device is connected to the network, Home Assistant discovers the new device, but ESPHome never discovers the new device. The code does have dashboard_import: set to a valid github url and specifies import_full_config: true Does the ESPHome discovery process have any other requirements? Is it supported if Docker versions of Home Assistant and ESPHome are used?

https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=8b94fdf9c54254b4&rlz=1C1CHBF_en-GBAU859AU859&sxsrf=ACQVn09BW5CqrZxEq_ya3tSqyZktbIFo8A:1710036901096&q=esphome+adopt&tbm=isch&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwicrKvwz-iEAxXS0KACHSfXDR0Q0pQJegQIDxAB&biw=1920&bih=919&dpr=1

Or maybe I created a basic yaml file in the right place and just OTA’d that over the top of it with the right ip name and address etc.

https://upk.libretiny.eu/?profile=arlec-pc191ha-smart-plug-bk7231n-v1.1.8

So… Not sure.

[donburch888 (Don Burch)]

Not an answer, but some notes so far…

1. ESP devices configured in HA’s Settings > Integrations DO NOT transfer over to the ESPHome add-on. They can transfer the other way, but better to get sorted out in ESPHome add-on first to avoid creating squillions of badly-named entities.

2. There is no straightforward way to add a Beken device in the ESPHome Addon. Apparently ESPHome project haven’t got the memo yet that LibreTiny has been merged into ESPHome, because any hint of Beken and they tell you to go to LibreTiny github … whose instructions are now out of date.

3. I found 2 ways to create a new device in ESPHome add-on:

• manually create a yaml file in HA’s /homeassistant/esphome folder (eg by using the File Editor or SSH add-on)

-or-

• create a new device, choosing any of the wrong but supported device types, but skip the Encryption key. Then edit the device yaml and replace it totally with one for your new device