Prebuilt ESPHome Temperature Sensors/Smoke Detectors/CO Detectors

SaaX

Hi guys,

I’m wondering if you are planning to add prebuilt ESPHome WiFi temperature sensors, smoke detectors and/or CO detectors to your portfolio or know of a place that can provide these?

I’m slowly but surely trying to eliminate my remaining cloud connected devices (Tuya)…

Cheers,
Axel

SaaX

Hi again… So, I suppose that means ye’re not planning any of these?

MichaelMKKelly

you should try looking at the everything presence one if your looking for variety of sensors. can add co2 to it with an addon. but I would suggest caution when it comes to smoke/CO sensors. don’t mess around when it comes to safety. get something you can trust. and potentially something your insurance company trusts…

but wait…
Whilst typing this I had an idea. in the UK most mains powered detectors are now 4 wire with an interlink cable. the purpose being that if 1 alarm goes off then they all go off. I am not totally sure how this works but I think its a 1 wire circuit that runs on 9v (the voltage of the backup battery) making a device that can read the signal could potentially allow you to use any off the shelf 4 wire detector you like and be able to detect an alert and also potentially know which device that went off. further research on this must be conducted.

WARNING: be very careful when messing with safety devices that you depend on to protect you and your family.

SaaX

@MichaelMKKelly yeah, very valid input and thanks for pointing out Everything Presence, haven’t found them before. I’ve ordered stuff at AZDelivery.

I’m actually not too worried about the smoke & CO alarms (I have 6 perfectly fine smoke alarms, but these are Tuya devices. The CO ones are offline devices).

The main thing I’d like to replace asap. is the H&T sensors. I’ll try to build my own ones soon (ESP8266, DHT22, TPL5110, 18650 battery shield and 12W solar panels) - but a ready to use one would be my preference since I have the feeling my approach might fail.

The only ones I could find with a decent battery life are the Shelly ones. I’d much prefer if LocalBytes would add something ESPHome based to their catalogue.

MichaelMKKelly

SaaX I tried 2 of the shelly ones and ended up returning them as they were terrible. its the only shelly device I have ever had issues with and still highly recommend them as a company but just not the h&t sensors. This being said… this was not the latest generation of them so they may have improved.

what’s the use case? where are you looking to put the sensors? something like the EP1 is great but getting power to it can be tricky at times. although I came up with a couple off inventive ways recently to power EPL’s which take the same power as the EP1.

SaaX

@MichaelMKKelly So what was the issue with the H&Ts? We’re they not reporting the readings properly?

The greenhouse down the garden is the use case: no power but good WiFi signal after adding an additional AP in the shed last week…

Do you think my “ESP8266, DHT22, TPL5110, 18650 battery shield and 12W solar panels” approach is a waste of time or could it do the trick? It’s more a PoC (and my first baby steps). If it fails I’ll just run a 3× 2.5mm2 SWA down to the greenhouse 😂

PS: I have a batch of Shelly 1 Mini Gen3 and I absolutely love them, 100% reliable.

MichaelMKKelly

readings were well off and that’s when they actually reported. they kept going non-responsive whilst trying to configure them. and a few other things. I just found they were awful. maybe got some from a bad batch but 2 failures was enough for me to go in another direction.

I cant see why your system wouldn’t work. just remember greenhouses can get very hot and humid which batteries don’t necessarily like. get an 18650 that’s rated for that kind of use. you don’t want a lithium fire.

you can really make the esp32 efficient. with it going to sleep and waking up to check sensors after an interval. and if its changes then power up the antennas and report. in the use case you probably don’t need a super rapid reporting interval. every 15 minutes sounds about right? but you can adjust as needed. potentially add a switch to put it into config mode where it stays awake so you can access for flashing or whatever

SaaX

Thanks for all that input, really appreciated! I’ll report back once I have one up and running and a rough idea about the battery life.

Thanks again,
Axel

AAllport

Hi @SaaX,
Thanks for the idea!

I’ve been considering developing an environmental sensor, albeit not for emergencies.
There’s no time frame at the moment, but, it’s great to see there’s demand!

SaaX

Oh, there is 😏 I’d be ordering straight away! I’ve built the H&T sensors now myself but would replace them with something readily available… Still working on a low power version to power it by battery plus solar.