Sonoff RF Bridge

Hardware
1

Quick one;

How quick/easy would it be to make a Sonoff RF bridge read the outside temperature from my Acurite RF sensor and put it on the dashboard? Is it possible? Any links for where to start would be great.

I thought I was good at searching before I discovered HA; now I can’t seem to find anything I understand :rofl:

Thanks!

2

It really depends of the device and the firmware you have on the RF bridge. With ESP home, just open the logs of the RF bridge in the ESPHome pannel and blow on the thermometer to make it upload and send the new state. Then look if something appears in the logs. From this I guess you could setup a template sensor or something that would make it more usable in the frontend

3

Template sensor. Whoosh. Straight over my head. Thanks though; at least in theory it may be possible! HA is waaaay harder than I first thought.

4

The sonoff rf bridge is limited in the number of protocols it supports, so just blowing on the thermometer might not work if your acurite is not supported.

5

If you already have the RF bridge and the thermometer, you could at least try to see if you get a reading with the bridge. Then people in the forums will likely help you with the template sensor if it is needed :wink:

6

Good to know, thanks. Unfortunately I don’t have the bridge though and probably won’t bother now, this was the only use case I could think of for it!

7

From

You could try an rflink,

8

That looks great! I have some milights as well that I was going to control via the bridge but wouldn’t need to with this.

9

Hi, I’m looking for a RF433 battery based room thermometer which can send updates that can be read via the Sonoff RF bridge.

Anyone got a current front runner for 2023.

10

Why does it have to be 433MHz? There are several temperature sensors that can connect directly to Home Assistant. WiFi, Zigbee, Bluetooth, are plentiful, but right now I can’t recall ever seeing a 433MHz temperature sensor.

11

I have about 11 or so 433MHz temperature sensors, but my Sonoff bridges do not read them, only my RFlinks.
https://m.mydigoo.com/wireless-weather-station-outdoor-sensor-p-157984.html

12

I didn’t say there were none. I just hadn’t seen any.

13

I am not too bothered how. I dont think wifi would work, as would need to be low power battery kind. I have door sensors like that, which the RF bridge can see data from, so that seemed a good starting point.

I am actaully using openhab, but it’s really the low power therm that i’m bothed about, so backend doesnt really matter.

Is there another hub, BT or zigbee or something that offers more options for the thermometer? I’ve no issues using non 433, so long as I can use Tasmota on whatever hub/bridge it is, I dont care about the RF used.

So, a non-433 suggestion?

14

:point_down:

image

Can be even owned and flashed with custom *ware. That way it is for example possible to extend functions like adding a clock :clock1: and/or use it as a wireless display :tv:

15

Is that Bluetooth? Range, might be the issue with that one…

16

Bluetooth low energy (BLE) to be precise - like written in the linked docs. :point_down:

The xiaomi_ble sensor platform lets you track the output of Xiaomi Bluetooth Low Energy devices

Range might (or might not) always an issue with wireless devices as airtime isn’t guaranteed. :man_shrugging:

Lucky you all that’s necessary for catching payloads from that type of devices are a bluetooth proxy in range. :raised_hands:

Often it’s not even necessary to even buy a new esp32 (~$4 from the country of origin :cn:) but every esp32 already deployed (wall switches, plugs, etc.) can just be extended with the bluetooth proxy functionality thank’s to esphome :muscle:

17

Why are you so fixated on Tasmota? As impressive as Tasmota is, I have switched all of my ESP devices to ESPHome because it is already part of Home Assistant and uses the Home Assistant API. No MQTT or hub required. (If you have to, ESPHome can use MQTT, but I haven’t found a reason for MQTT).

I think your biggest problem with the original question is the data protocol used by the thermometer. The Sonoff Bridge is likely to ignore the signal as noise because it doesn’t recognize the data protocol used. (There is a hack to make the RF Bridge into a no-protocol sniffer, but I haven’t tried it).

Yes, there are dozens of projects where you can build a 433MHz RF Sniffer, but do you want to experiment at the breadboard level? This article recommended by @francisp will give you an idea of what you may be looking at to decode the data from your thermometer.

You are better off getting a Zigbee thermometer.

If this would be your first Zigbee device you also need to add a Zigbee Dongle to your Home Assistant computer. But this opens a whole new world of sensors, lights, switches and other Zigbee devices.

18

You can build a RFLINK for about € 25, all you need is an arduino mega, an ESP01, a rf receiver, a rf transmitter and some dupont cables.

I have 433Mhz, Zigbee, Bluetooth and a Wifi thermometer sensors, and they all have their pro and con.

19

But why in 2023? A D1 Mini with a pair of (super)heterodyne rf receiver/transmitter could even cost less than $5 and should be (much) easier to deploy (no arduino involved) and to manage/update. :money_mouth_face:

When investing $2 more and using a esp32 the thing can even work as bluetooth proxy the same time it acts as RF hub :raised_hands:

20

I think I’m going to go for this;

SONOFF Zigbee 3.0 Bridge PRO
+
SONOFF SNZB-02D Zigbee LCD Temperature Humidity Sensor ZigBee

And put Tasmota on the bridge.

Thanks for all the feedback.

I did get an RF433 weather station, but was never able to get anywhere reading the 433 data. Is there a good zigbee weather station? (wind/rain?). I might look at that next if getting a zigbee bridge.

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