UK Plug via eWeLink - Only appears when logged in

Hi

First time post and n00b to the HA world but I decided to install HA and get a UK plug to try it all out. I have a Sonoff plug from eBay and have installed the eWeLink smart home add-on in my configuration. I’m using this as a guinea pig to see if the setup is easy enough for me to rollout such plugs for my home. I have my eye on this one from mylocalbytes: https://www.mylocalbytes.com/products/smart-plug-pm

I log in to the cloud service and bingo, the device appears and I can control it.

Sorry if this question comes across as naive, but I would like to use the device without being logged in to the cloud service, I suspect like everyone else who is using HA. Is this possible? I have read a few posts about flashing firmware etc. - I don’t really want to go down this route, and would like to think that these devices are usable relatively easily without opening them up.

Thanks in advance - all advice appreciated

I don’t use the ewellink addon but I think you the devices need to support LAN mode to work without the cloud.

The plug you have linked uses tasmota and is as simple as adding the tasmota and mqtt intergrations and the device should just show up in HA and will work 100% locally.

Ah OK, thanks. I’ve added the MQQT broker add-on as well, I’#ll see if I can get it working.

The one I bought is from a UK based Chinese supplier and they say “The product supports Tasmota, but you need to operate it yourself, thank you for your understanding!” so not sure what that means exactly. I have asked them for advice but the response was not helpful.

I did forget to say you need to set up the mqtt login details in the tasmota devices also.

Is that straight forward? Is it done via a pairing process?

You do it via the webUI.
https://tasmota.github.io/docs/MQTT/#configure-mqtt

Thanks for your help, Adam