A Blitzwolf Blitz with Tasmota and Tuya Convert

Some time ago I wrote about Blitzwolf battery packs and mentioned the Blitzwolf BW-SS1 – a small mains power controller. Well, the company has a RANGE of such controllers including the BW-SHP6 and BW-SHP7 Smart Plugs as well as the new BW-SHP10 (3680w power monitoring in one version). I have all of them in front of me – see links below..

Having owned several Blitzwolf battery packs over the years, I have high hopes for these controllers.

March 2020 update: Keep an eye out for the Blitzwolf BW-SHP10 Smart socket – this one claims to handle 3.6Kw and one version apparently has power monitoring using a new chip update according to Blitzwolf – mine – according to the box reference POA6204582 does power monitoring – but for Tasmota fanatics – they have changed the pins around and possibly the power monitoring chip. I did the conversion to Tasmota based on a template being discussed in DISCORD before actually checking the power monitoring.

Note that in the image below – I have the relay, button and LED working but not the power monitoring. According to Blakadder on Discord, the box bar code POA6204581 means non-power-monitoring whereas my units – bar code POA6204582 means power monitoring – the best I could get with my desk heater plugged into the BW-SHP10 (POA6204582) units (I have 2 of them) was a completely false (1W) wattage indication whereas a BW-SHP7 shows an entirely reasonable value. I’m guessing this means the template isn’t right. Power output, button and indicator work just fine.

See this BlakAdder site for other device templates. The BW-SHP10 Smart Socket runs 100-240v, 50/60Hz, is largely ABS+PC and is 51x51x77m. So for now we need to treat the Tasmota’d SHP10s as non-power-monitoring regardless of barcode – a shame.

End of March update

BlitzWolf® BW-SHP6 10A EU Plug Metering Version WIFI Smart Socket —  (it seems that the SHP6 is similar – other than branding – to the Gosund SP111). The SHP-6 claims it can handle 2300W. As many of you will know, this means 2300w non-inductive load – i.e. lamps and some heaters, not motors or other highly inductive loads at this power. The device has a manual override button on the top (which also doubles up for programming). Elsewhere I’ve discussed the identically-named 3800w version which also has power monitoring and here are pictures showing the one and only visible difference (ignoring my yellow label on the rightmost unit).

BlitzWolf® BW-SHP7 16A 2 IN 1  Remote Controller with one manual control overide button on each side —  – the device claims capacity up to 3860w. Though not clear on the packaging, I suggest this will be the total for both sockets. On custom software, putting Tasmota onto these units and the BW-SS1 with Tuya-convert is quite easy.

Unlike the tiny BW-SS1 which is an inline controller suitable for, say use in a cupboard, the BW-SHP6 (single, 10A) and BW-SHP7 (double, total 16A capacity) are (in this case) compatible with the main EU wall-plug-socket standard as found for example in Spain – also with every EU wall adaptor I’ve come across in the UK up to now.

Many users will find the standard software suits their purposes (in both cases the free “Blitzwolf” app) available for both Android and IOS.

For those who want more local control, I highly recommend “Tasmota”. Of course, where the BW-SS1 is easily opened up to add Tasmota software with hardware (an FTDI – or serial convertor), the BW-SHP6 units are somewhat different as, to add such custom software, you would need to remove one screw with a PH1 screwdriver before soldering wires onto 5 pins (to then attach an FTDI (serial adaptor) for programming. We decided to use Tuya -convert on all three units.

For Tasmota setup of the devices, the relevant Tasmota Github page is as good a place as any to check. But here I’ll show you what Antonio (Mr Shark) and I just did – flashed all three boards without a soldering iron in sight – using Tuya-convert on a Raspberry Pi. We also happened to have a Node-MCU board lying around so that this could act as a virtual OTA server to start the ball rolling.

To replicate what we did:

Download and “flash” the “donor” bin file from here: https://github.com/digiblur/Tuya-Convert-Donor
on a nodemcu to have something connecting to the “vtrust” ssid network
direct link: https://github.com/digiblur/Tuya-Convert-Donor/raw/master/tc_donor_mini.generic_1M.bin

Start from a fresh install of raspbian LITE, then create an empty “ssh” file in the boot partition (the fat32 one)

Login via ssh (on, say a PC) and run “sudo raspi-config”, go to localisation, wifi country and BE SURE to select your country, otherwise “tuya-convert” will fail to bring up the wlan0 (WiFi) interface – this is important…

Download the latest tuya-convert from here: https://github.com/ct-Open-Source/tuya-convert

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install git
git clone https://github.com/ct-Open-Source/tuya-convert
cd tuya-convert
./install_prereq.sh

Download all needed software… be patient… once done, I suggest downloading the latest tasmota-wifiman.bin file, so you’ll already on updated firmware…

cd files
wget http://sideweb.nl/tasmota/tasmota-wifiman.bin
cd ..

Start the flash process:

./start_flash.sh

and follow instructions… you’ll see the blinking led on the DONOR device (in our case NodeMCU board) turns solid blue once it connects to the vtrust ssid, then you can put the hacking device (in our case the SHP6 or 7 board) in fast flashing mode and press ENTER in the Tuya console

Once the 1st part of the hack is flashed, a menu will pop up, select the option with “tasmota-wifiman.bin” for the latest version, or the “tasmota.bin” for the stock (older) one shipped with tuya-convert…

That’s it…

Templates used:
 https://templates.blakadder.com/blitzwolf_SHP6.html
 https://templates.blakadder.com/blitzwolf_SHP7.html
 https://templates.blakadder.com/blitzwolf_BW-SS1.html

To have Amazon Alexa support, you need to update to latest FULL tasmota.bin file from http://sidweb.nl/tasmota/

Remember to select the BELKIN emulation (for 1 relay devices), or HUE for >1 relay devices

The SHP6 and 7 worked perfectly – next was the BW-SS1 – my earlier blog on the SS1 needs updating. So, having messed up the setup of the SS1 with Tuya convert – I was convinced I’d messed it up as all I got out of it was a dim red almost constant light. So out with the soldering iron – the SS1 is actually quite easy.

With mains power to the device disconnected, I took off the bottom and soldered 5 wires including the progamming link I mentioned in the last SS1 article – but this time using TASMOTIZER software (by far, now, the easiest way to program Tasmota into devices if you need to do it serially). I connected ground, 3v3, serial in and out – and shorted the programming wire to ground. I connected the 5 wires to my handy Chinese copy FTDI and plugged that into the PC. I started the Tasmotizer software on my PC and lo, Tasmotizer said that COM14 was available. I clicked the DEVELOPMENT button and the program automatically grabbed the latest tasmota.bin file without my help.

With “Erase before flashing” ticked, I pressed “Tasmotize” and off the program went. A minute or so later it was done – telling me to power cycle the device. I did that then hit the “send config” button. That opened up a dialog – in which I fed my WIFI and MQTT details and a name for the device as well as the template info shown here.. That all worked well but when complete – all I got was a blue light on – more or less constantly – Antonio was off out with friends so I was on my own.

I figured out that maybe the FTDI was not providing enough power at 3v3 as I was convinced I had done everything right. I desoldered the wires, plugged the SS1 into the mains and tried again – I then looked at my network with “Advanced IP Scanner” on my PC – sure enough – a new device appeared called “tasmota” and not “ss1-1” as I has expected. Using TDM (Tasmota Device Manager) -I looked for the new device and sure enough, there it was – I right-click selected WebUI and the tab opened up to let me change the name in CONFIG – and at the end of that – a working BW-SS1 which I called SS1-1 – complete with Alexa compatibility. This unit, unlike the previous devices, has no power monitoring but it does handle 15A in a tiny box.