From time to time I get ESP8266/ESP32 control units for example Sonoff BASIC lookalikes – basic mains control boards – which I usually de-Smartlife and convert to Tasmota – also Tasmota-pre-fitted bulbs – and more often than not, I end up with more than I need.
Sometimes, dirt-cheap Sonoff-BASIC look-alikes appear on AliExpress at sub-€2 and most of the time I’ve found that converting them from Smarthome to Tasmota is really easy – bringing with it all the usual Tasmota benefits.
So – I’ve thought of putting them on the local Facebook sales pages – but the problem with that is – what about the pretty interface for non-technical users? Can’t exactly say to your average person – go program them from their web interface on your PC – for starters, fewer and fewer people have PCs as non-technical people generally use Smartphones or tablets.
Well, I think I’ve stumbled onto something that COULD potentially do the job – at least for Android though it apparently works on iPhone too – I’ve no experience of the latter.
Tasmotrol for Android – 3 years in the making at the time of writing. Honestly I’ve only just spotted it and have no connection with the authors. For 2 devices (which is a bit useless – for example I have upwards of 30 Tasmota devices in my home) the APP is free for 2 devices then £4.29 thereafter. Not sure why I see that in pounds when the phone and the APP both know I’m in Spain… but there you are. I’ve asked the authors in Germany.
The various screens here show what it can so – so you can add devices in your network (to setup from scratch you still have to use the normal Tasmota method but that can easily be described , is a one-off process and takes no time).
Each device can be controlled individually and you can easily set timers – control colour in lights and status in switches – and create groups to turn them on and off as a group… and if that’s not enough, you also have the normal Tasmota web interface available…
All in – not a bad APP though the free version seems un-necessarily crippled – apparently the pro version is there to justify programming time, I’m sure (I hope) it’ll get better in time – group control of colour would be good. Again I’ve asked the company for feedback on this – got it – most of the things I’ve mentioned are on the roadmap and I will emdeavour to update the blog accordingly as improvements occur. I imagine simple dimming/heat control without colour will be important to some.
Note, of course that this is a LOCAL solution – you can’t use it when away from home wihtout a VPN. Perhaps the authors could come up with some way to make use of Tailscale. Normally, my devices are controlled by a single raspberry Pi running Node-Red – and by putting that Pi on TailScale as well as my phone – I can access everything when away from home securely. I hope this is triggering the authors into pondering the optional use of a proxy device in the home.
app tried and removed… just 2 devices is too few… and i have 1 tasmota acting as inching, if i push it, it stays on for 0.7s then goes off, i use it to open the gate… app does not refresh the status, i had to manually hit the refresh button to see the off state again…
Right – the free version supports two devices. We have been developing Tasmotrol for +2 years with free updates and are financing future development through users supporting us with the Pro version. We don´t take any data from users – we don´t do any ads.
In regard to your refresh issue: There is an automatic refresh each 20 seconds. We have users with a large amount of devices and doing it more frequently would create a lot of network overhead.
Regards – Tasmotrol Support
Hello Peter, thanks for your article on our app Tasmotrol – well appreciated.
We have responded to you by mail with some replies that hopefully should address the concerns you have raised.
Feel free to contact us, in case you want to update this post with it …
Regards – Tasmotrol Support
Home Assistant runs on a RPi and has a companion app on Android which does all you need. I had a large number of Tasmota devices that became a nightmare to manage before HA.
Personally I don’t like HA so that’s out.
What aspect don’t you like? I’ve got 40+ tasmota devices, a number of zigbee devices, some tp link, a tuya and using the ha node-red integration and can deal with them all the same without having to worry about complex MQTT operations.
I run it as a docker container on a Pi4 which makes upgrades very easy.
Life before HA was extremely annoying for me, but I suppose to each their own. I’d hate to have to rely on numerous cloud based apps.
Well, I mainly use Node-Red Dashboard which isn’t cloud-based – works on my phone and my PC – external access is trivial with TailScale. As for complex MQTT operations – like TOPIC “cmnd/SHP7/POWER” and payload “ON” ?
I’m not a fan of DOCKER either but as you say each to their own. Included one of my many tabs on the phone – this one controlling a range of Tasmota-driven lights as well as TV-mode (all living room lights to dim red when watching a movie) – I also have an all-off button on another tab.
re HA, I resisted so long as all my automations were in NodeRed. But then the non-geek users kept complaining about access and complexity so finally moved to HA in mid-2023, but kept all my old recipes by moving NR flows to HA.