Alice Averlong🏳️‍⚧️Aug 24, 2023
the market for network-controllable power strips is weird
it's two things:
1. 50$ devices intended for use in the home. 3 plugs, connects to some cloud service, shiny and available on amazon
2. 300$ devices with 8 ports and you can talk to it over RS232 and 10/100 ethernet and the web stack fits on a 64kb eeprom and it's only purchasable on a website that was last updated in 2008
Show threadWilfried Klaebe
@foone should be not that complicated to do an ESP32 based version running Tasmota.
Aug 24, 2023 at 5:11pmWeb
Show threadGraham Sutherland / PolynomialAug 24, 2023

@wonka @foone it often is, because the ecosystem vendors are buttholes.

for example, Tuya. for the longest time you could OTA flash Tasmota onto Tuya devices, and they were comparatively cheap because Tuya licensed their ecosystem to hardware developers who all compete with each other.

but Tuya are greedy, and they want to lock you into their ecosystem. so they locked their protocol down with a custom key exchange. folks broke it, so they hardened it, and now you can't OTA flash.

Show threadGraham Sutherland / PolynomialAug 24, 2023

@wonka @foone on top of that, Tuya now requires that all hardware manufacturers ultrasonically weld their devices shut to prevent cracking them open and flashing them directly.

worst part: none of the open source firmwares or tools made it obvious that this was the case, leaving the problem in the GitHub issues and continuing to signpost that Tuya devices were supported.

I bought £70 worth of Tuya smart plugs and found that they're stuck tied to the Tuya cloud crap.

Show threadSid (谷思谛) 🐺Aug 24, 2023
@gsuberland @wonka @foone That's why I avoid Wi-Fi stuff, instead try to use ZigBee or Z-Wave where possible.
Show threadGraham Sutherland / PolynomialAug 24, 2023
@autinerd @wonka @foone yeah, I'll probably be going that route from now on. just frustrating that there's additional upfront cost and consideration for the hub.
Show threadSid (谷思谛) 🐺Aug 24, 2023
@gsuberland @wonka @foone Home Assistant is the best in my opinion (and has the Home Assistant SkyConnect available as a dongle for ZigBee and later Matter/Thread)
Show threadWilfried KlaebeAug 24, 2023
@gsuberland @foone I bought my last Tasmota devices via AliExpress pre-flashed with Tasmota. Might have been a little more expensive than Tuya devices, but they were guaranteed to run Tasmota.