Tasmota and Hubitat - Is there any future?

You should post that in the HubConnect thread, where it is most likely to be seen by its developer(s).

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Will do. Have a nice night

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Uuuh! Now do a Zigbee Dimmer!!! :smiley:

I would say just the opposite. They are trying to be as lean as they can so they DON'T become the next Wink or whoever. While they haven't publicly given any hard numbers, they have inferred there are no money problems due to having sales of a commercial line of hubs, the good volume of retail sales of hubs, their subscription services, and the fact that they have a (for a company like this) small number of staff. Hard to say what the real story is, so take that for what it is worth.

Copied from your other thread, but relevant here:

I don't think Hubitat ever promised to support Tasmota, so I don't know how you can say there was a decision to not support it. They have never said anything either way that I am aware of. They didn't announce that they were going to add Lifx until just before the recent firmware update that made this possible. There are many examples of that, they never disclose what their plans are. So I am not sure your statement is quite fair.

While I get why people want the Tasmota stuff, I apparently see it differently than you do.

  • Most of these devices are cheap (and inexpensive, two different things) that are often not UL listed or tested/certified in any way.
  • They require extra steps to flash them, and that takes time. My time is worth more than saving maybe $5 over a switch that you can buy that just natively works with Zwave or Zigbee.
  • You can buy a Zooz Zwave dimmer for $22 that has double taps, nightlight mode, can be wired 3-way with dumb switches, and so on. That is not the only example of an inexpensive switch that is known to work and work well with Hubitat and most other hubs.

So what are you really gaining by using a cheap (and not in a good way IMO) Tasmotized switch instead of something you can just buy and use without screwing around?

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Please don't take offense. I'm sure no one at Wink expected a Black Eyed Pea to buy them out; who would. I've been into home automation a long long time. (X10 in the 1980's) Sure, there are some viable switches now, but my 60+ switches are 2-5 years old and sure, I could replace everything, again. I love Hubitat, its just too bad I need to try to trick my systems into talking with virtual switches and virtual sensors, and a bit of code to think switches are sensors... I just want to turn off my wifi switch with my smartthings button without looping in an obsolete ezlo/vera hub.

Honestly, ten years ago, I could have posted on a vera community forum and had ten people try to help me make my old stuff work. Now I get "ambassadors" on Hubitat telling me to replace everything and explain why I'm wrong for having an opinion. What I have works, it just requires tricking Alexa/Hubitat into playing nice. Vera is gone, I get that, but holy crap, realize everything is going wifi.

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You always have the option of setting up node-red and mqtt to work with tasmota and reuse your old stuff.

Or there are some direct MQTT drivers (bypass node-red) written by community members that you might be able to adapt if you want. But coding skills are required.

Or you could try this [RELEASE] Tasmota for HE - Auto-detecting Tasmota drivers + Tasmota firmware 7.x/8.x for HE (for use with Tuya, Sonoff and other ESP devices)

It seems to be receiving some updates to latest version of tasmota, I have a few tasmota devices myself running markus' original version. I haven't tried the lastest the new maintainer has posted.

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I believe almost any new zwave or zigbee dimmer that requires a neutral will meet this need. If you are using a dimmer without a neutral it maybe a different story.
Older JASCO switches with out the neutral wire on the dimmer needed a min of 40-50 watts and would not meet your requirements. Also some LED bulbs just play nicer with dimmer switches than others.

A smart dimmer has two separate and distinct functions to it. The first is how it communicates with a hub and/or cloud, this typically takes place with one of the these four protocols: zwave, zigbee, wi-fi, lutron clear connect. The second function is to dim the lights. I completely fail to see how the use of one of the communication protocols locks the manufacturer into certain dimming parameters. From an engineering standpoint this makes no sense. Taking a wi-fi switch that has the dimming functionality of dimming loads less than 5 watts, and then changing the same switch to use another communication protocol certainly wouldn't change the dimming functionality of the switch.

So the statement that zwave and/or zigbee dimmers cannot dim low loads, is not a statement I believe. Certainly in the past there may have been certain models of zwave or zigbee dimmers (old Jasco dimmers come to mind) that may have had this limitation. But I don't believe that would be true today. I have a newer zwave jasco dimmer controlling 3 small led lights in my front foyer. I quickly removed 2 of the three bulbs and the switch still dimmed the remaining bulb just fine.

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The stated minimum wattage on new Zooz switches is 15 watts. However, as you have noted, in practice, I too have used lower wattages than that. In my bathrooms, I have Zen27 dimmers controlling 7W LED bulb. The brand of bulb does matter. The two bathrooms with philips LEDs go smoothly down to about 5%. The one with an Ecosmart bulb starts flickering at about 15%.

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They are the worst bulbs ever. I've tried both dumb and smart and have always had issues with them.

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I guess I have a different take on this whole thing other than 'replace your devices'.

If you want to use a device (or a lot of devices, in your case) that is not supported then write an app/driver for it, use a community made app/driver, or use a different hub (home assistant maybe) for those devices. No hub will ever support every device in existence - and that is OK.

So you have multiple paths forward.

Will Hubitat support tasmota devices in the future? Who knows? I doubt they will any time soon though as no announcements have been made and that feature isn't currently in beta testing, so it is really a moot point in your case as you need a solution now not months from now.

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I don't see anywhere where people say to "replace everything"? People reading this now or in the future may be researching purchasing or using Tasmota devices. I think most here are trying to be transparent about the limitations of Hubitat, and give people viable options, not telling you to replace every device.

My recommendation above was for future purchasers to not buy them as they aren't natively compatible, may or may not be natively compatible, and they require extra steps via reflashing (if/when that is possible, not all are at this point) to end up with a device that costs the same as Zwave or Zigbee devices that currently work fine and are supported. (And by natively supported, I mean a built-in driver.)

You mentioned above

so it appeared you are still interested in buying these despite all the limitations associated with them.

There are drivers floating around like you mention, not sure how up-to-date they are. But likely someone could take over and bring them up to date if they don't work. Or write a new driver. Someone might even offer to do either either for fun, or write a new driver if an end-user offered a nominal fee to the author. So it isn't like these have been blocked from working, or can't ever work. Just that there isn't a built-in driver for them for unspecified (by Hubitat staff) reasons.

Semantics, how's "every device in question" instead of "everything" roughly $700 worth of switches. Blocked was a bad choice for a word. Dissuade would have been better. (However, Alexa literal does block the previous workaround and Wink blocked out API access, etc.)
I was interested in Tasmota but kuzenkohome post a link to a switch that would work in my application. It only needs a 5w minimum load.
Anything else you need me to correct?
@Stephan.J wifi switches an on/off relays regardless of load; similar to a zwave or zigbee on/off switch. The dimming function is secondary and only comes into play when the circuit is on. They are different. That's not to say future generations of zigbee or zwave couldn't be do this way, and maybe some have already, its just that they are or will be top dollar vs wifi switches which come free with echos on prime day.

And equally incorrect. No one is dissuading you from doing what you want. It is your expectation that Hubitat development should veer toward supporting your existing devices, or proposed purchases, that is befuddling.

In the post linked below, @xamindar accurately summarized my perspective (and perhaps those of others in this thread) ...

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I said don't discourage, dissuade block people (figuratively). No one ever said you did, but the tone is overall negative and may discourage people. Wink blocked API as have others. Anyway, his is not my thread. I didn't ask the question and I very much regret putting my two cents in. It’s a tough crowd.

About checking on devices are supported or not, I would assume all zwave or zigbee devices are supported to some degree, generically. WiFi, not so much but its a great opportunity.

Just as a side note to anyone.

I just order a cheapie IR Blaster to play with, $12.

It does not work with tuya-convert (used to flash tasmota over-the-air (OTA)). The creators of tuya-convert stated that tuya patched the vulnerability that allowed tuya-convert to work in the first place.

So most new tuya devices most likely won't be able to be flashed OTA with tasmota without opening the device and may not even be compatible due to hardware changes in the device itself. Due to the fact they are no longer using a ESP8266 based wifi module that tasmota requires.

Excepting devices mentioned earlier that specify that they come preflashed with tasmota.

The IR Blaster I purchased can be flashed with a wired connection (requires soldering) to flash tasmota to it. So this would further complicate "ordinary" people from flashing and using tasmota.

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Ashok, I don't own any Tasmota equipment but might get some if and only if it was supported. This thread is about Tasmota and its future with Hubitat. I like the idea, as I would find it useful in some of my switch applications where I couldn't automate or had to resort to wifi. Its just my opinion; I don't know if its feasible. I wasn't trying to argue but I might have come off that way out from my frustrated tone. Any local wifi would work; maybe Hubitat could sell their own. I do own 20 odd switches that have the esp chip and could be flashed. Right now, I uses virtual devices to integrate them, which is fine.

[Also, it is clearly wrong for an "Ambassador" to like a comment where one customer insults another, especially based on a misinterpretation. I have no motive to argue and I hardly ever post so its not my MO.]

Just my 2 cents, after a year of absence from posting on the forum, if someone were to come back on and with their first post claim that some other platform was better because it supported another technology, but then admits after a week of posting comments that all have an edge to them, that they don’t own any of the devices in question, and states that they weren’t looking for an argument, I have to question the authenticity of the statement.

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Thanks everyone for your input. I have passed your feedback to our engineers for future consideration.

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