Which device to switch power

Hardware
1

Hello Community,

I would like to control some devices using Home Assistant on my Synology NAS. Home Assistant is installed.

I now need to choose a possible device to do the job. Unfortunately exactly the one I happen to have here (Sonoff BASICR3) will not work.

What device would you suggest?

  • Must work without cloud service (only local control on my synology) because Internet here is unreliable

  • Ideally I can connect directly the electric cables (to avoid having a Wall socket, in it a smart plug and in iot a plug)

  • must connect to WiFi

The list available on the Home Assistant page is overwhelming. Wall take me days to work my way through and find something

2

Why does the Sonoff BasicR3 not work ? It ticks all the boxes.

1 Like
3

Hi Francis,

I am pretty technical, but not a programmer. Sonoff does not appear anywhere in the list of devices. I am supposed to install HACS which to me looks like a hack. Or I am supposed to flush my Sonoffy with some other firmware.

All in all too technical for me. I was hoping something more plug & play

4

More plug and play is going to be hard.
The Sonoff is probably as close to plug and play you will get when using wifi and local control.

But yes install HACS and the Sonoff addon in HACS.

5

Then the project dies. I will not put in danger the integrity of my Synology by opening up root windows and installing things with “documentation” that tell you to do thiungts that do not work.

To many prerequisites for an unexperienced user like me. I really will not install unzip (which makes the first install step stumble), “Change directory to your Home Assistant configuration directory” without knowing where it is, stumble over permissions even though I am root.

I have a running Synology and would like to keep it so. This here for $3.50 will also do the job:

Clipboard03
Clipboard03595×908 35.8 KB

:slight_smile:

6

By the way: I would be happy to pay money for something working. I am not trying to save costs.

7

I can’t comment on the install of HACS. It was no issue doing it on a Raspberry.

8

Nothing wrong with HACS (Home Assistant Community Store). Take your time and read about it. The name sounds dangerous, but is a typical IT people’s joke… :slight_smile:

I use the Sonoff LAN addon within HACS with about 10 Sonoff switches and it works like a charm.

9

Hi,

I got it that HACS is an IT joke. The reason why I meant it is a hack is that they really describe it in a way to stop you from installing it. EITHER YOU ARE A PRO THAT KNOWS WHAT HE IS DOING OR LEAVE IT. That is the message they convey.

In the prerequisite: You know how to access the Home Assistant log file
Why don’t the tell me where it is?

First install step “wget -O - https://get.hacs.xyz | bash -” fails because unzip is not installed.

They tell you to Change directory to your Home Assistant configuration directory. Found one in ./volume1/@docker/btrfs/subvolumes/270943948ce4f606077210xxxxxxxxxxxxx07335296345e0bc349750de15b/usr/src/homeassistant Is it the one?

They tell you to go inside the container with docker exec -it homeassistant bash but it fails telling me there is no such container

The whole thing is described in a way that only a Unix Hacker can do it. Had my first Unix system on my Desk in 1988 but in 2021 I am not willing anymore to hack around.

10

I can’t remember it as being hard, but I run it on a raspberry

11

Back in the days it was just ‘download from github’,‘unzip through Samba to the /config/custom_components folder’, restart HA.

12

Check out the devices made by Shelly. They work locally and are discovered by Home Assistant without the need for ant firmware flashing:

13

Shelly would work :wink:

14

Hello,

I ordered one (Shell Plus 1). It will take a while to ship to Thailand. It was cheaper WITH postage than buying one on Lazada (like Amazon) locally.

I will inform here how the test went. Acording to ther support, internet is only needed for setup. Later they work offline in the local network…

15

Internet is not required at all. At lease it wasn’t for the older non “Plus” devices. You would do it like this:

Power up the device and connect to the wifi access point the device broadcasts (e.g. shelly1-XXXXX).

Navigate to the default device IP using a web browser (192.168.33.1).

You can then configure the device to connect to your wifi network.

Then configure it in Home Assistant.

The newer devices have bluetooth so you may be able to get it to connect to your wifi using that.

16

Hello,

for whoever reads this: tested and works. As long as the authentication is not activated. But with no authentication that means the shelly device is open for anybody in the WiFi.

This as per April 2, 2022

Talking about it in another topic