Tasmota vs ESPHome

mark

Hi,

I'm looking for some advice on choosing between these two options. I use HA and I currently only have Zigbee devices, but I'm looking for some better smart plugs and yours have been recommended. I've tried to do some research myself but to be honest I'm struggling to choose. Do you have any resources which will help? Maybe some objective pros and cons.

Thanks in advance.

archie

Hi mark . The short answer is that it really comes down to personal preference. Both are open source, and both are going to work with Home Assistant. However, there are some differences.

ESPHome is owned by NabuCasa, the same organisation that develps Home Assistant. The result being that ESPHome communicates with Home Assistant via native APIs.

Tasmota, on the other hand, is communicates via MQTT. This is a communication protocol that a number of smart home systems can communicate over, but does require you having an MQTT broker somewhere on your network.

I tend to prefer ESPHome now, over Tasmota, due to the tighter integration with Home Assistant. However, both should work.

For a more detailed comparison, you may find this interesting: https://techbreakthroughs.info/esphome-vs-tasmota/

mark

archie Many thanks for the response, I'll have a read of the link. I think my issue, if you can call it that, is that there are no deal breakers for either, and both would be a perfectly good choice! I'm leaning towards ESPHome at the moment I think.

Do you know, with the Local Bytes Smart Plugs, it is possible for the end user to re-flash them? Just thinking worst case scenario if I were to order some plugs, and then in 6 months want to change, would I be able to re-flash the devices myself?

archie

mark

You absolutely can swap firmware from one the the other, instructions for that can be found on our knowledge base. However it should be noted that incorrectly flashing firmware can result in breaking the plug.

kabadisha

archie A slight tangent but for future reference: If I ever do end up with a bad flash via wifi can you advise how to take the smart plugs apart non-destructively?
I'm guessing that they have either a USB port or a serial/uart header or similar that I can solder a header to and flash that way in order to recover. Looking at my plugs though, I can't see an obvious way to open them without risk of damaging them.

Cheers.

AAllport

Please be aware for safety purposes, our plugs are not designed to be user-serviceable.
Realistically, as long as you take your time and double-check things as you go (e.g., keeping the files in the bin.gz format, giving the device time to settle between flashes), it shouldn't be an issue!

Most of the time, if an issue occurs, it's when trying to upload firmware whilst the device is already being uploaded.
E.g., you use Tasmota's OTA flashing, then press the button to update again without letting it go through it's self-update cycle!

kabadisha

AAllport Ok fair enough - You guys don't want any liability associated with someone fooling around inside a mains-rated device. I can understand that.

I have been flashing by enrolling into my ESP Home dashboard self-hosted as a docker container. Any concerns with that method?