Marcus Young Details His ESP8266, ESP32-Powered Secure Yet Smart Home Setup
With multiple layers of network, Young's smart home aims to be secure — and also standardizes on only ESP family gadgets.
Developer Marcus Young has offered a detailed look at his homebrew and as-secure-as-possible smart home setup, based entirely on Espressif ESP8266 and ESP32 microcontrollers managed through ESPHome.
"I’ve spent the last year figuring out what I want to control 'things' in my house," Young explains. "And after wasting a bunch of time and money I finally have a set up I like. After playing around with way too many things, I finally landed on ESPHome.
"ESPHome is amazing. It has over-the-air updates, it automatically compiles based on some YAML and uploads it! If it cant upload it (like the initial flash) I would simply set up the YAML, compile it, SCP it locally and flash it with ESP Tool. If this worked, it would now support OTA updates. Because its a bunch of YAML I can source control it too! It uses passwords for both API integrations (home-assistant) and for OTA updates (same or different password) which makes me feel good."
ESPHome, naturally, requires that everything to be managed is driven by an Espressif ESP family microcontroller — so that's the hardware on which Young has built his "things." A garage door opener is built around a NodeMCU ESP8266 development board with a reed switch and 12V relay connected to the garage door trigger; a sprinkler system, still in progress, uses a Wemos D1 Mini ESP8266 board with two 12V solenoid valves; a security camera is an ESP32-CAM in a 3D-printed housing for ease of mounting.
Accent LED lighting is provided by an off-the-shelf Mexlux Wi-Fi LED Controller, itself based on an ESP8266 and flashable with custom firmware once shucked from its original housing; for main lighting, Globe-branded smart bulbs based on the ESP8266. Getting the latter running, though, wasn't straightforward: "For 2 of 3 of these I had success with tuya-convert which was pleasant," Young admits. "For 2 of them (1 I broke), I had to get down and dirty. I basically tore it apart and followed this guide. Temporarily soldering and removing all the heat safe gunk is not fun. But 1 flashed. 1... caught fire."
Finally, Sonof S31 ESP8266-based smart plugs provide remote control of mains-driven devices. "These come in handy for seasonal stuff like Xmas lights, etc," Young writes. "But especially for my 3d printer as an emergency safe-measure (forget to turn off etc.)"
Young's full write-up, including YAML configuration files for each device, can be found on his personal website.