Tasmota

Setup

One-time steps.

On the laptop you’ll be using to flash and configure the devices:

  • Git clone tuya-convert

  • cd to that directory

  • run ./install_prereq.sh

Note

It’s not obvious, but the tasmota.bin file included with tuya-convert is a stripped-down version. Don’t try to install the full version of Tasmota with tuya-convert. Install the provided version, then upgrade to the full version.

MQTT broker

An MQTT broker needs to be running somewhere. If you have Ubuntu or Debian, then wherever you want to run the MQTT broker:

  • apt-get install mosquitto

Then in HomeAssistant, set up MQTT discovery:

  • Go to Configuration/Integrations.

  • “Search Integrations” for MQTT.

  • Add MQTT and configure with the MQTT broker’s IP address. Set the topic to something like “homeassistant”.

Each device

This was for EFUN plugs, model SH331W. Tasmota info here: https://templates.blakadder.com/efun_SH331W.html

Note

To be safe, do not use the ‘official’ mobile app with the plugs, ever. There’s always a chance it’ll upgrade them to a new firmware that prevents flashing Tasmota.

Start by running tuya-convert to flash Tasmota to the device.

  • Plug in the device. After a short period, the blue light should flash quickly.

  • Go to the tuya-convert directory

  • Run ‘./start_flash.sh’ and follow the directions

  • When asked, install “tasmota-lite.bin”.

Configure the device WIFI

WARNING: TRIPLE_CHECK the WIFI config. If you enter it wrong, you might never be able to access the device again!!!

  • Connect laptop to the new ‘tasmota-NNNN’ WIFI access point (the device)

  • Go to http://192.168.4.1 and you should see the Tasmota interface

  • Click “Configure WIFI” and fill in the information for your 2.4GHz WIFI network. Also set a hostname. I generally use a short punctuationless string like “readinglight”. Submit and it’ll restart.

  • Connect laptop back to your normal WIFI network.

  • Try connecting to http://hostname, where hostname is the hostname you set. If that doesn’t work, use your access point or something to find the device on the network, and browse to it.

Upgrade firmware

  1. If you tuya-converted using the tasmota.bin that came with tuya-convert, you should upgrade to the full tasmota.bin at this point, as follows.

  2. Once you’ve got the full tasmota.bin flashed, there’s no need to upgrade again unless you need a new feature or a bug fix. Really!

  • Go to the download site http://ota.tasmota.com/tasmota/.

  • Find the latest tasmota.bin.gz and copy the link (do NOT download). At the moment that link is http://ota.tasmota.com/tasmota/tasmota.bin.gz

  • Go to the web page for your Tasmota device.

  • Click “Firmware Upgrade”.

  • Find “Update by web server” and paste the link into the “OTA URL” field.

  • Check the box.

  • Start the upgrade.

  • It might take several minutes until it’s done and you can connect to the device again.

Configure the Tasmota template

  • Find the template for the device at e.g. https://templates.blakadder.com/efun_SH331W.html.

  • Copy the JSON string. Example for my EFUN plugs, it’s {"NAME":"Efun-Plug","GPIO":[56,0,158,0,0,134,0,0,131,17,132,21,0],"FLAG":0,"BASE":18}.

  • In the device Tasmota UI, go to Configure Other (not Configure Template, that’s for editing the details of the template), paste the template, and select the checkbox.

  • Also set Friendly Name 1. I use the hostname I set earlier here too.

  • Save. It’ll reboot.

Configure MQTT and enable discovery for Home Assistant

  • In the device confiGo to Configure MQTT. Fill in the MQTT broker’s IP address, and set the Topic to the same string as the Friendly Name 1.

  • Submit. It’ll reboot.

  • Go to Console. In the command line, enter “SetOption19 1” and hit Enter.

Time zone.

If you’re going to use the built-in Tasmota timer function, the device’s time zone will need to be set. Daylight Saving Time makes this… fun.

I’m in US Eastern. The offsets from UTC are EST -5, EDT -4, or in minutes:

EST: -5 * 60 minutes = -300  TimeSTD
EDT: -4 * 60 minutes = -240  TimeDST

Let’s work this out. Go to https://tasmota.github.io/docs/Commands/ and search for TimeSTD, and we find:

Set policies for the beginning of daylight saving time (DST) and return back to standard time (STD)
0 = reset parameters to firmware defaults
H,W,M,D,h,T
H = hemisphere (0 = northern hemisphere / 1 = southern hemisphere)
W = week (0 = last week of month, 1..4 = first .. fourth)
M = month (1..12)
D = day of week (1..7 1 = sunday 7 = saturday)
h = hour (0..23)
T = timezone (-780..780) (offset from UTC in MINUTES - 780min / 60min=13hrs)
Example: TIMEDST 1,1,10,1,2,660
_If timezone is NOT 99, DST is not used (even if displayed) see

USA rules are at https://www.nist.gov/pml/time-and-frequency-division/popular-links/daylight-saving-time-dst and say that daylight saving time in the United States:

  • begins at 2:00 a.m. on the second Sunday of March (at 2 a.m. the local time time skips ahead to 3 a.m. so there is one less hour in the day).

  • ends at 2:00 a.m. on the first Sunday of November (at 2 a.m. the local time becomes 1 a.m. and that hour is repeated, so there is an extra hour in the day).

So the commands for US Eastern will be:

TimeSTD 0,1,11,1,2,-300
TimeDST 0,2,3,1,2,-240
TimeZone 99

All-in-one

You can speed up some of this if you’re doing it over and over using the Backlog command, which lets you string multiple commands together in the Console. E.g.:

Backlog FriendlyName efun-f;DeviceName efun-f;Hostname efun-f; Topic efun-f; MqttHost 192.168.1.2; SetOption19 1;TimeDST 0,2,3,1,2,-240;TimeSTD 0,1,11,1,2,-300;TimeZone 99;Latitude 35.913200; Longitude -79.055847

The available commands are documented at https://tasmota.github.io/docs/Commands/. Backlog command.