LocalBytes Plug - adding to ESPHome

Fanagolo

I’ve just received 4 new ESPHome plugs and have got the first linked to WiFi and HASS but I cannot see how to add the plug into the ESPHome dashboard so I can review and edit the yaml etc.

I’m probably missing something basic but can’t figure it out so any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

BertQuodge

My plugs didn’t need manually adding to ESPHome, ESPHome just displayed them as soon as they connected to WiFI. I think ESPHome uses mDNS to announce its presence, so ensure nothing is blocking 224.0.0.251 udp 5353 on your ESPHome server & the plugs are on the same subnet as the ESPHome system.

Fanagolo

Thanks, #BertQuodge. I don’t have those restrictions. They (I since tried a second one) connected, but did not populate the ESPHome dashboard.

In the hope of helping others, perhaps, this is how I fixed it:

I set the WiFi settings as per the documentation
I downloaded the yaml code from Github then added a new node to the ESPHome dashboard
then pasted the downloaded code to that new node
edited the code to update the name, add the WIFi settings and added use_address: W.X.Y.Z (the address of the new device as provided by my DHCP server
I then did the OTA install
The plugs reset and then reappeared on the network, complete with the fixed addresses I’d set
I then changed the YAML to comment out the use_address line.

Now I have full visibility of the code, and they work as they should.