New Sonoff RF Bridge Board - Need Flashing Help

sosojaja · June 12, 2022, 4:00pm

Hello Together,
I got for 2 weeks the “SonOff RF-Bridge” but in the last V2.2 version we see at the begin from this blog.
I could flash Tasmota without problem and could configure it to (25) and install my WLAN.
I could connect to the html side from this device.
But I could make what I want it is not possible for me to flash the “Portisch” RF firmware over tasmota to the RF-Bridge. It preppaired my device like I found in some different sides. This means cut the 4 wires and insert the 2 470Ohm resistors likt it shown.
I flashed finally the Tasmota 8.4.0 where tasmota tells me “Failed to init RF chip”. So I tried to switch the two resistors accross but with the same result. I tried to use only the FTDI flasher to get power to the device without using the USB plug but nothing helps me to flash the RF chip.
I hope someone from you have a good idea for me that I make wrong or has changed, at the newer releases from the RF-Bridge, something else too?

colebatchd · June 14, 2022, 6:36pm

@sosojaja - sorry I can’t help, but I’m interested as will probably shortly be doing similar.

sosojaja · June 17, 2022, 11:23am

Hi, unfortunately I red the blog not fully. Schmurtz told in his answer that it is not possible to send out data over RFLink32 firmware on the SonOff RF Bridge. It is only for sniffing. Many tried there luck with the original RF firmware. But I didn’t could sniff with Tasmota 11 and the original RF firmware, but I made the HW hack, perhaps this could be the reasen that nothing runs. At the moment I have no bock anymore. I will kick it in the corner and try other things.

Hi, I have a short additon to my post before. I built all changes I read back to the original conditon. I flashed Tasmota 11.1.0 and set tasomta the Edit and the pre template to sonoff bridge (25). Afte the second configuration the SonOff Rf Bridge R2 make a “beep” and I could lerned the RF sent information to a button of tasmota. After this I could sent the buttons information over MQTT and it work for my components very well. I would recommend to all to check first if the original RF firmware with Tasmota, are working with your equipmente.

atv · June 27, 2022, 12:41pm

Did you do any hardware hacks ? Or just use a FTID with tasmotizer ? Do you notice any delays compared to the old sonoff rf bridge?

Scoff · July 1, 2022, 2:59pm

Wanted to say thanks for all the info within this thread so far! I’ve just carried out the hardware mods using resistors and cutting the lines on the board (R2 V2.2) - flashed ESPHome successfully and have added the newly discovered device to HA.

Completely new to RF, I was hoping to start finding out what RF devices are being picked up to start with, purely out of interest. I am getting non stop flood of raw data but I have no idea how to figure out where it’s coming from. For example:

[15:29:13][D][remote.raw:028]: Received Raw: 743, -400, 627, -491, 648, -1177, 463, -1037, 160, -155, 420, -214, 702, -179, 465, -216, 730, -158, 162, -160, 448, -207, 475, -94, 174, -4925, 219, -789, 1818, -900, 201, -238, 122, -437, 202, -479, 2004, -125, 201, -160, 447, -133, 466, 
[15:29:13][D][remote.raw:028]:   -175, 157, -126, 232, -141, 102, -144, 156, -173, 460, -174, 181, -403, 167, -2971, 2155, -818, 1920, -806, 226, -508, 469, -144, 191, -128, 1385, -760, 211, -117, 1080, -163, 730, -165, 171, -783, 445, -148, 195, -4306, 782, -787, 370, -702, 789, 
[15:29:13][D][remote.raw:028]:   -906, 222, -213, 141, -781, 183, -140, 417, -151, 503, -143, 726, -192, 172, -121, 224, -401, 470, -195, 139, -123, 232, -401, 161, -187, 424, -180, 464, -174, 153, -4306, 867, -692, 399, -686, 735, -502, 666, -190, 757, -183, 188, -137, 422, -208,

Can I actually make sense of any of this information somehow? When I try to capture the RF signal of the device I would like to eventually use in HA, how do I spot that RF data in amongst all of this raw data?

mateine · July 1, 2022, 5:06pm

You can use this to visualize and and analyse the raw outputs.

https://dbuezas.github.io/esphome-remote_receiver-oscilloscope/

If you like it, you can give the project a star too
Here https://github.com/dbuezas/esphome-remote_receiver-oscilloscope

NCO3 · July 4, 2022, 4:29pm

obviously there is a lot of brain power accumulated here, so I would like to get things straight.

Just a few questions:

The RF bridge (v2.2) will enable me (after flashing with tasmota or ESPHome) to teach and send RF 433 signals to my awening
this will be controllable through HA using RFLink.
Will this work for flashing: sds011_usb2ttl_004 ?

I jus want to make sure before starting the direct hack above.
Thanks in advance!

Please allow one more question:
The RF Bridge with the original FW does not learn my remote (Warema Awening using 433.92 MHz).
Is there a better chance that Tasmota / ESPHome will do it better?

Scoff · July 4, 2022, 6:34pm

Thank you for providing that, a very useful tool! Now I need to figure out a way of decoding the signals using either ESPHome or Tasmota, as I’ve bypassed the on board chip.

From more reading though I’ve not found a combination of software for the Sonoff v2.2 that will work for reading the Watchman device I have, which uses a Si4320 chip /FSK protocol. It looks like I may have to park the Sonoff and use a SDR USB device plugged into my HA host instead…

I know that RTL_433 can decode the Watchman RF signals using protocol 43, and there is a RTL_433 Addon available for HA, so would just need a SDR USB dongle instead of the Sonoff - unless there’s any way to use RTL_433 with either Tasmota or ESPHome.

mateine · July 4, 2022, 6:59pm

For FSK, you’ll need a cc1101 chip. Here’s how:

Scoff · July 5, 2022, 12:13pm

Thank you! Completely new to RF so looking up all the terms and meanings currently. I’ve got some spare D1 Mini boards not being used, so I’ll pick up a CC1101 and hook them up and do some testing. There’s nothing I need to transmit in terms of RF, just receive, and send to HA, and it sounds like this will do the trick.

agala68 · July 8, 2022, 2:37pm

Hi,
sorry, but I am really new and trynig to understand how to program my rf 433 sonoff R2 V2.2 with Tasmota firmware, if it is needed to work better, outside clod, and to manage, for example, my wifi siren DG-ROSA 433.
I also have a programmer CH341A and I use flashrom but I am not able to put all the informations together and get a real complete guide to flash it.
Thank in advance for help

tensopiseth · August 12, 2022, 4:25am

hi have you backup the original firmware? (.bin)
i acdently backup but select 4Mb now won’t be able to use it. can you share the bin file?

sophof · August 25, 2022, 7:52am

I have successfully soldered the v2 board and flashed esphome. I’m sure of this because I see a constant stream of pronto messages in the log, probably from a neighbour. However, I’m trying to replicate the messages to my doorbell, just as in this post: https://github.com/Portisch/RF-Bridge-EFM8BB1/issues/118 and I’m not receiving anything but the pronto messages. Is there a trick I can do to somehow force esphome to show me that data? Apparently it requires different settings for Portisch, but I can’t flash that…

I’ve already tried a few different receiver settings at random, but the issue is the same for all (and all receive the pronto messages). My current settings are:

remote_receiver:
  pin: GPIO04
  dump: all
  tolerance: 50%
  filter: 10us
  idle: 100ms

Oh and does anyone know of a way to disable the Pronto messages so I can actually see anything else in the log? It is downright spammy now.

mateine · August 26, 2022, 8:45am

You could try dump: raw and use the tool here New Sonoff RF Bridge Board - Need Flashing Help - #116 by mateine to visualise all signals.
It will be very spammy, but hopefully you can find your ringbell with the help of the “oscilloscope” tool

sophof · August 26, 2022, 2:51pm

Thanks, I will definitely give it a try! So with raw it’ll just log any ‘signal’ no matter those other settings?

rossco555 · September 20, 2022, 2:22pm

Hi Expello, did you get any response from the manufacturer. The images of your remote look very similar to mine, again re-badged.

reedy · September 24, 2022, 9:28pm

I wonder has anyone flashed the r2 v2.2 sonoff rf bridge successfully and got it working yet with tasmota/esphome acceptably.

I’m still running the standard ewelink sonoff login. It works but it continually reconnects to wifi as it’s packet filtered from accessing external networks. It still does this even though the mode is set to local in the HA config. see:

sonoff:
username: [email protected]
password: !secret sonoff
mode: local

some of these cheap chinese iot devices do the job but have some really shitty quirks.

reedy · September 24, 2022, 9:40pm

doesn’t look like it…

zain1144 · September 26, 2022, 3:36am

Last week I got my sonoff bridge rf. At first, I ran it with the sonoff integration but I noticed a delay for about 1 - 1.5 sec until the device recognize any code.

I flashed the bridge with tasmota but the delay still there, I only need the bridge to responded to my rf remote and I need immediate response.

luckly I saw @mateine post about the direct hack and I modified the bridge.

I installed the tasmota-sensors.bin and configured GPIO4 to RFrecv and GPIO5 to RFSend

On the home assistant side, I used automation with MQTT triggers

platform: mqtt
topic: tele/rf/RESULT
value_template: "{{value_json.RfReceived.Data}}"
payload: "Rf Code"

So far it works fast and the delay disappeared.

SaschaMuehl · September 26, 2022, 8:16am

Dear @Mateine and @schmurtz,
thanks for your nice and easy understandable documentation! I do have a struggle question with ESPHome.

I’ve successfully flashed RFLink32-For-Sonoff-RF-Bridge according to (schmurtz).
The Sonoff RF bridge is successfully integrated in my Wifi by static IP 192.168.178.42 and is accessible via the web browser in my local WLAN.

Now I’m struggling with the Homeassistant Integration ESPHome.

Trying to install your configuration wirelessily with slightly different parts I get an Error:

> ERROR Connecting to 192.168.178.42:8266 failed: [Errno 111] Connection refused
Why is it refused? Do I need to configure a special port or a special password for it

My sonoffrfbridge.yaml look like:

#credits @ https://community.home-assistant.io/t/new-sonoff-rf-bridge-board-need-flashing-help/344326/17?u=saschamuehl

esphome:
  name: sonoffrfbridge
  #platform: ESP8266  #the compiler says it's not necessary anymore
  #board: esp8285        #the compiler says it's not necessary anymore
  build_path: ./build/sonoffrfbridge

esp8266:
  board: esp01_1m

# Enable logging
logger: 

# Enable Home Assistant API
api:
#  encryption:
#    key: "+Uba/lSQfch3jm6lOJVHD/EqWmpOs0EfJxDpKZErpGo="

ota:
  #password: "2c24e942d13ac5a4cebdef6eebc7171a"
   #->where integrated automatically, I decommented it
  #password: !secret ota_password
  # ->is this the PSW for mqtt?
wifi:
  ssid: !secret wifi_ssid
  password: !secret wifi_password
  fast_connect: true
  #use_address: 192.168.178.42
  
  manual_ip:
    static_ip: 192.168.178.42
    gateway: 192.168.178.1
    subnet: 255.255.255.0

  # Enable fallback hotspot (captive portal) in case wifi connection fails
  ap:
    ssid: "Sonoffrfbridge Fallback Hotspot"
    password: "xyz"
   #->where integrated automatically
captive_portal:

web_server:

status_led:
  pin:
    number: GPIO13
    inverted: yes

# USBRX = GPIO4 ---> receiver
# USBTX = GPIO5 ---> transmitter

# receiver = pin 5 of the 8-legged chip (the one closer to the wifi antenna)
# transmitter = pin 4 of the 6-legged chip (closest to r12)


remote_receiver:
  pin: GPIO04
  dump: all
#  dump: raw        #for raw-Code recieving

remote_transmitter:
  pin: GPIO05
  carrier_duty_percent: 100%

# this will log received commands, and can also transmit. Read up here:
# https://esphome.io/components/remote_transmitter.html#remote-setting-up-rf

Credits @mateine

Credits @schmurtz