Migrating 120 Tasmotas(V12+) to ESPHome

ESPHome
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I have 120 Tasmotas devices in my home ( mostly 8266) all are V12 or v15… They are all mounted in panels way high up, not really wire-flashable. So it needs to be OTA

I’m reading that ESPHome might be a bit faster to respond etc.

First, can it even be done, given they are V12?

Second, how do I automate this? Reading about the process this would take days…

Cheers.

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Wouldn’t you want to test one or two on ESPhome to verify the claims of it being faster on 8266 before you go down the Automation route?

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Well yes, and so far I managed to brick the first one! It binds to the network, but is not accessible… Had to wire-flash it.

But if I know this is going to be such PITA with all of them, slow or fast, I’ll stick with MQTT!

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I recently did this. I think my devices where on tasmota 14.

I first flashed to tasmota minimal en then to Esphome.

But be ware that there is this issue with partitioning on the newer tasmota versions.

Automation shouldn’t be that much of a problem if you ask me. Especially if all devices are the same. And you know all op addresses…

Edit: read this https://github.com/esphome/esphome/pull/5535

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Thanks.

After I soft-bricked the first one, I proceeded as you suggested. Tasmota-Minimal first and then ESPHome. Worked without a hiccup.

I do know all of my IP addresses and MACs.

How would I go about “automating” this?

Maybe use TasmoAdmin? In theory, it allows me to flash minimal first and then full. I’d just replace full with an ESPhome template. And then customize 120x…

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The upgrade issue is specific to Tasmota32, so does not apply to your 8266s. I’ve used the linked PR to convert a few esp32 over the air and it works, but is very time-consuming as it requires a separate esphome install and multiple command-line compilations before you can go back to using your dashboard.

I have almost 40 tasmota devices and about 10 esphome devices — I think there is a place for both, depending what features you need. In practice I haven’t noticed better or worse performance from either, and would definitely not claim esphome is faster to respond — they should both have sub-second response times, if you’re seeing longer it could be a network or config issue that might persist after the conversion. Also with Tasmota I had a few devices that lowering the sleep value improved performance.

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Thanks @peterxian ,

I think I’ll leave the Tasmotas the way they are and expand with ESPHome. Tasmotas seems a whole lot easier to set up though, it seems.

TasmoAdmin lets me control the most common stuff from within HA as well.

I did notice something odd: I have a few early sonoff basic R1s. They are at tasmotas V12, but will not upgrade to V15 via OTA (even with minimal first) They do so with wire-flash. I guess the ones mounted and working will stay at V12.

Unfortunately Sonoff R3 Case footprint 1mm wider than the R2. So they are not drop in. Argh :triumph: and the PCB is 3mm longer. Nor do the mounting holes line up.