The minkeFLIP Switch “Opens Up” Home Automation

If you’d like to automate certain electrical appliances in your home, there are several solutions on the market, generally made by large companies that are household names. These certainly do the job they were designed for, but don’t always “play nice” with the competition, using proprietary communication protocols that often require the use of expensive hubs.

The open-source minkeFLIP light switch by Inadvance eliminates the need for a hub and proprietary protocols, by communicating via Wi-Fi. Setup is meant to be quite easy, as the unit fits into an electrical box for use with a light switch or a power output. You can then log onto the network it generates and point it to your home network for control.

The user interface is flexible, making it easy to control from a web browser or to integrate with existing automation systems and software. We branched off of a popular open source project built on the ESP8266 microcontroller (esp-httpd), which essentially provides a web server on a chip.

Sound like something you’d want in your house? Be sure to check out and even possibly back their Kickstarter project.