UK WIFI Smart Socket - Screwfix - Testing

Configuration
9

have you tried taking the label off this chip? Might be an ESP underneth, they certainly look similar.

cheers

1 Like
10

At the very least, connect a USB-to-TTL cable to the RX0, TX0, and GND pins and see what you get. If I had to guess, I’d say that’s an ESP8266 for certain, much like a Wemos D1.

11

It’s in use at the moment but as far as I remember it has approximately a 20% smaller footprint than the esp8266 v12e that is on the wemos d1 mini.

12

https://fccid.io/png.php?id=3509489&page=1 is for a slightly different variation, but the internals picture shows it is indeed a Broadlink ARM chip of some sort, so NOT an ESP at all.

13

WiFi IoT devices generally use UDP… That should tell you about the reliability… :slight_smile: Obviously if your devices use TCP/IP then that is another story… but depending on how tightly you control you LAN, I find it way more reliable to use a dedicated IoT protocol for IoT devices… but each to their own, with all the permutations and combinations of availalbe setup/devices etc etc, I am sure that if you ask 100 people, you will get 100 different answers… :slight_smile:

14

Hi there,
There has been some progress with these sockets
I was trying to integrate these with openHAB (Sorry guys…) and I came accross your thread here.
I found out that they use a broalink chip so I raised an issue here:


A kind soul ammended a branch to integrate the BG socket: Here:

There existed a broadlink to mqtt python script that has now been ammended to used these sockets:

And that work like a charm
Good luck

Back to openHAB now…

2 Likes
15

How are you getting on with these plugs? looking to buy some myself.
Do I need a Broadlink RM2/3?
Also do these sockets update their status to openHAB

16

No

You need broadlink2mqtt as above

Yes

I have 3 spares to sell. Make me an offer on a PM

17

After reading this thread, I picked up one of these sockets yesterday. Impressed, especially given the price. I’ve taken the stock HA broadlink component, incorporated the updated python-broadlink library, and extended it to support these sockets. I’ve not used this in anger yet (like I said, I only got the socket yesterday) but so far so good.

You can add this as a custom component to HA, and add switches directly without needing an MQTT bridge. Note; it polls every 30 seconds (default for the component), so if you use the switches on the socket there will be a delay before it’s reflected in HA.

When the python-broadlink library with the BG1 support is released to pip I’ll create a PR into HA so you won’t need a custom component :slight_smile: I can’t do that yet AFAIK because of the way HA installs libraries for components.

Here’s my custom component for in the meantime: https://github.com/b4dpxl/custom_broadlink

2 Likes
18

I’ve literally fitted one today and got annoyed with the thing, its well made from a genuine electrical company, its responsive, the wifi works in an area with iffy reception, and it wouldn’t work with HA really annoying.

Ill give your addon a go soon, thank you
Tim

19

…just saying… :slight_smile:

20

Not sure what I am doing wrong. Have downloaded and extracted from GitHub to my custom components folder but it doesn’t appear to be working. I don’t get the warning in the log of a custom component for broadlink. Anything I could be missing? Other custom components seem fine.

21

Still struggling. Its not liking the bg1 as type.

22

Hi. Have you set the platform type as custom_broadlink in the config, instead of broadlink? Sorry, I should have mentioned that, and it’s all I can think of. It needs to be a different name so as not to interfere with the native one. This is my configuration:

switch:
- platform: custom_broadlink
  host: 192.168.2.123
  mac: "24:df:a7:aa:bb:cc"
  type: bg1
  friendly_name: "Hall socket"
  timeout: 2
23

Thanks, that has progressed things. Facepalm moment on my behalf. I now get this error though when running config check.

Platform error switch.custom_broadlink - cannot import name ‘async_setup_service’ from ‘custom_components.custom_broadlink’ (/config/custom_components/custom_broadlink/init.py)

Any idea?

24

Hi. No idea, sorry. async_setup_service is from the original broadlink integration, nothing I added/changed. What version of HA are you running?

25

I did install 1st BGsocket together with your custom component today.
Works just awesome, much better than other chinese analogues.
Thanks for your contribution, will probably buy more sockets soon, unfortunate they didn’t make different styles so can’t replace in many places where I used stainless still brushed colour

26

Do these switches give feedback on status? I.e. when you fire the switch and for some reason the command does not go through, will ha say the switch is on when actually it is off? If you manually turn the switch on/off is this reflected in ha? Afaik, broadlink is 1 direction only?

27

Completely deleted it and reinstalled an all seemed fine. I do have a slightly different product and was hoping this may custom component may work with but unfortunately not compatible – https://www.diy.com/departments/british-general-smart-plug-through-socket-adaptor-240v/5050765176590_BQ.prd#icamp=SRD_BGSMARTPLUG

28

I don’t know for sure, but that looks more like the broadlink SP2, which was already supported. Have you tried different “types” ?