Tinkering with Tasmota sensors
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@buxton yes it opens up new possibilities. On the Tasmota bluetooth webpage some other devices are listed, e.g. a soil humidity meter.
So far it has been quite stable for more than two months.
The Tasmota ESP32 is still beta, I assume it will get better over time.I will also make the ESP32 to report over Mqtt now that OpenLuup has support for it, hopefully that will make the setup even more stable.
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@archers i didn't want to use a development kit for this, as in my environment they tend to get broken. So went searching and found the Sonoff Dual R3 with an ESP32 chip. Fits nicely in a switch box and runs on mains power. Can't wait to see what kind distance I get as soil sensors are next up after temp sensors.
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@buxton yes I saw the Sonoff Dual R3, looks like a nice solution for getting an ESP32 into the house. The one downside is that some soldering is needed to get Tasmota onboard. I saw a good clip on this on youtube, should not be too complicated.
The distance for me is quite ok 7-8 meters with some walls inbetween, but it probably varies depending on what walls you have etc.
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I have now completed two more CO2 meters. I used a similar enclosure as for the IR tranceiver, but this time 80 x 80 mm. I got it from Conrad, but you can get it from e.g. Farnell also. The enclosure is available in black and grey also.
The sensor contains a D1 Mini ESP8266, a MH-Z19B CO2 sensor and a BME280 temp/humidity/air pressure sensor. I have found the BME280 to be pretty good.
The temp reading from the MH-Z19B is however completely off so a separate sensor is required.A tip is to add a switch for the power to the MH-Z19B, this is needed for switching the MH-Z19B off when (re)flashing the ESP.
I think the MH-Z19B requires too much power from the PC USB when flashing.Another tip is that in Tasmota it is possible to adjust the sensor offset with TempOffset and HumOffset.
There are a few options for the MH-Z19B with the Sensor15 command. I have turned off auto calibration.
The plan is to push the data into OpenLuup from the sensors with Mqtt when I get this fully up and running.
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@therealdb I have not found any really good enclosure for that either.
For my outdoor sensor above I had to DIY a bit, I took the dome from an old PIR sensor I had laying around (similar to this one), drilled a hole in the enclosure and then hot glued the dome and the sensor in place.
It is possible to buy just the domes also e.g. here.
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@sender I discovered that the ESP does not flash with Tasmotizer when the MH-Z19B is connected. Why I do not know, usually it is no problem to flash ESPs with sensors attached.
I think it could be that the MH-Z19B draws too much power or something.The solution I chose (since I soldered the MH-Z19B to the ESP) was to add a simple on/off switch to the 5V VCC connection. That way when flashing I can put the switch in "off" position and then when done I turn it bach to the "on" position.
When using Dupont cables you can simply disconnect the MH-Z19B instead.
Btw this is normally only an issue when re-flashing, I usually do the initial flash before attaching any sensors.
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Buxtonreplied to ArcherS on Apr 4, 2021, 5:38 AM last edited by Buxton Apr 4, 2021, 1:41 AM
@archers Very Cool gadget. I soldered to the flash pins, which given the size of the contacts was challenging, but managed to make it work. Now waiting for my BLE sensors to arrive.
Energy Monitoring built into the dual relay!
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I’m tinkering without any hardware...
...just prototyping an MQTT Tasmota bridge. Does everyone use the default cmnd / stat / tele prefixes?
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therealdbreplied to akbooer on Apr 4, 2021, 9:32 AM last edited by therealdb Apr 4, 2021, 5:33 AM
@akbooer yes. I usually use both /tele/devicename/sensor, and stat/devicename/status8 to get sensors data. It's useful to get both telemetry message and stats pushed via automations/console/UI. and cmnd/ to send/get commands.
EDIT: and tele/devicename/LWT to handle disconnections as well.
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@akbooer You can't really change the default prefixes through the Tasmota UI, just the topic itself.
It can be done through Console CLI along with hundreds of other minor variations to the standard Tasmota defaults, however, I don't know why anyone would given the overall flexibility in sending data with the MQTT standard.
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OK, thanks... just checking as to whether this would need to be configurable or not.
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@archers This is perfect for our greenhouse I'm building right now!
I ordered a Sonoff Dual R3 for heating/cooling fan and lightning control, temp/humidity sensor for visual display and automation/remote readings and a couple of Mi Flora to feed info in to the irrigation system, thanks for sharing!
