There’s all sorts of threads on re-flashing these to esphome, as well as an integration for native use via wifi. I have a set on order to try, but a basic question:
Does the as-shipped version of these controllers and associated Magic Home app communicate only locally? I.e. if the integration for driving it as-is works, is there a good reason to re-flash it?
Or is this another ‘requires a cloud’ mess, or “does suspicious stuff on your network” risk that is best erased and reused?
OK, found a really good reason. I had to order a serial converter (I had a USB breakout didn’t realize I needed the converter) and while waiting decided to try the home app… you have to create an account, and give it access to your location, camera, microphone, and modify your storage. Some of that I get, but why an account? Just harvesting more information.
Waiting for programmer, warming up soldering iron, and going to order a spare for when I mess up the first.
I take it that if Tasmota works ESPhome should work?
In theory yes, I’ve never used ESPhome however, Tasmota does everything I need it to
Why did you flash Tasmota?
It allows the light to show up as an MQTT device in HA, I can turn it on, off, change colours and there are even some LED effects.
Waiting for programmer, warming up soldering iron, and going to order a spare for when I mess up the first.
Unless you really get it wrong during flashing, you may not even need a spare. If it’s your first time it’s nice to have however. Depending on what PCB you get, you may need to solder, but I just followed the instructions on the Tasmota wiki and it worked for me.
Thank you. I have a momentary setback, as Amazon shipped me a green LED strip instead of RGB. In the meantime I found what looked like easier techniques with a ESP8266 directly and a bit of hardware to drive addressable strips, so rather than getting another (poorly or incorrectly labeled) box from Amazon, ordered different lights. So I may just throw away this controller, but I may come back to it depending on how troublesome a DIY version is to get packaged and built.
I did though I cancelled the spare order; I had already scuffed up the case opening it, would not feel right returning, and besides, I definitely may want to shift back. Thanks again.