Hello all,
I’ve been expirementing with homeassistant for a few years and just recently set up a permanent installation. Trying to find devices for this setup has led me to a question:
Is there a market for simple, cheap hardware preinstalled with espHome, tasmota, etc? I’ve experimented with hardware for quite some time as well and wondering if there could be interest for $5-10 usd temperature sensors, light sensors, Motion sensors, or even relays and led controllers
For me personally, I can easily build most things, but I can’t make them look nice.
So I think if you could sell these as a package with minimal assembly required, in a nicely packaged unit with housing (well thought-out and sturdy, not the most basic 3D printed stuff), I would purchase something like that. Take for example the RATGDO or the RATGDO alternative device sold by relsa027.
Otherwise I would just think “I can just build that myself”…
Why don’t you ask other people who’ve tried it for their experiences? The Bed Presence team, for example?
I think you’ll find that there’s more to it than just flogging stuff cheap.
Yeah, totally agree. I would probably go with 3d printing for most of it, but as you said, well thought out and sturdy. Imo it would be nice for a cheap set of sensors to exist that ‘just work’ and are easy to flash/update
One question would be what protocols to support. WiFi? Zigbee? Z-Wave? Matter? Thread? Whatever Comes Next?
Another would be scale. To make them cheap enough, you’d need to produce them in quantity. I can already buy basic components like smart plugs and temperature sensors on Amazon and Ali pretty inexpensively. Even IKEA is in on that game. It’s going to be really hard to undercut those sellers on price.
I think you’d need to find a niche which isn’t already filled. One which comes to mind is liquid level sensors for things like water and fuel tanks, etc. Another one I’ve seen asked about here is flow sensors. I’d love to find reasonably-priced motors to operate window blinds. These are things I would buy if the current options weren’t so expensive.
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I was thinking my selling point would be the simplicity of the devices, and ease of use. You can definitely get cheap devices online, but rarely do they use open source firmware, are easy to flash, and operate locally. I may just be in my own world but I could imagine plenty of people would be interested in cheap devices they can buy, plug in, connect, and just use out of the box, then down the line change the firmware themselves.
As for window blinds and flow sensors, those are also things i’ve looked for and wished for a reasonably priced solution for 
Yes, purely local is the way to go. That’s why I only buy Zigbee devices or build my own ESP devices. Mass-market WIFi devices almost all have some cloud dependency.
An inexpensive off-the-shelf ESP-based device ready for ESPHome firmware would be nice. I know I’ve seen them advertised, but I can’t fine a link right now.
I’ve also looked into adding Zigbee via ESPHome. Apparently it’s possible, and I did give it a try once but never really got anything to compile. One of these days I’ll take a closer look.
I would love to see cheap commercial out-of-the-box ESPHome-based devices that are powered (and connected) by POE.
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Absolutely, there’s a market for affordable, local sensors that are well-packaged, reliable, and come with solid support. That’s exactly the space Elevated Sensors is focused on. However, I think the $5-$10 price point being discussed here isn’t very realistic once you account for the full picture.
I often hear from folks who say a product is too expensive and that they can DIY it for $5-$10. And yes, it might be possible to get the raw materials for that much. However, that only works if you value your time at $0. Once you add up the hours it takes to solder, integrate, program, debug, and mount it in a case, the equation changes quickly.
Even at scale, the raw cost of a fully assembled PCB with an ESP32 and temperature sensor might land in that ballpark. But that doesn’t include:
- A case or enclosure
- Packaging materials
- Time to install the board, program it, test it, and pack it
- Support and documentation
- Shipping and returns
- Sales tax compliance
- The cost of a website
- A profit margin to keep the lights on
There are already great examples of companies navigating this balance. Apollo Automation offers an ESPHome temperature sensor starting at $24.99. MagWLED sells a WLED-based LED controller for $29.90. These are small, community-driven companies that care deeply about the user experience, and their pricing reflects what it really takes to do this sustainably.
So yes, there’s a strong market for affordable, plug-and-play ESPHome devices. Realistically, they just cost more than $5. But hey, feel free to prove me wrong!
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