SuperHouse #21: Six Sonoff Secrets: Storage, Safety, Switches, Sensors, Software, and Sites 

2:27 - Storage 9:08 - Safety 17:32 - Switch 22:08 - Switch (part 2) 23:23 - Switch (light switch) 27:00 - Switch (light switch part 2) 29:14 - Sensor 35:28 - Software 43:43 - Website

I've added a few more images and better descriptions to the episode page now, so it should be easier to find the specific headers, resistors, etc that I mention in the video. I'll keep expanding the page with more information over time, so if you think anything needs clarification please let me know.

"I could spend an entire episode just going through TASMOTA and things that it can do" - Please do, that would be great!! Really enjoyed this episode.

Me again, for years later, I'm living in a SuperHouse. Powered by sonoff (and philips hue, and smart blinds, robot vacuums, air purifiers, etc). Everything is smart. You sir inspired me! Big Thank you!

I must say, One of the best delivered Presentations I have seen on You Tube so far, Many thanks.

Another fantastic video. I've purchased a half dozen of the Sonoffs based on the previous video and have several running lights around the house. Now, with this video, I have lots more ideas for how I can use them. Hope we'll see more videos soon from SuperHouse!!

Thanks, I'm an old-school techie who worked in PC board component replacement for years and long before components became so tiny I can't even seem them any more. Otherwise and in general I am someone who is damn critical of what I see online with all the idiots these days collecting views it has to make one a little disgusted, so this may very well be my first complement I've presented to a youtuber in 20 years but I have to say thanks for documenting this chip removal process. I've seen many people present it from an array of more complicated and costly methods, using heat guns that work like an avalanche to send every component toppling off the board but your technique is the best yet. Thanks!

I like the way you break down the pin options and do the real time illustration, and the neat trick turning the on and off toggle into a three way switching circuit between the device, toggle, and phone.

+SuperHouseTV Most awesome collection of tips. I normally have a short attention span on videos but was glued to the screen for the entire 40+ minutes and then jumped to the blog post for more. Thanks!

Nice, very concise overview of everything Sonoff. Im definitely going to have a go at upgrading the memory chip. OTA updates would be much better than stripping the projects each time to update.

391 people create sonoff content with free floating grounds. Excellent work Jon! Very good explanations. Thank you very much.

Thanks so much! I just came across the Sonoff today and all I could think watching other people's videos was: "Where's the strain relief?" or "This guy is going to electrocute somebody." It seems like once it becomes associated with their smartphone people forget that these things are carrying AC power. I'm looking forward to adding these into my system, even with proper cables and enclosures they'll come in under a third of the price of the TP Link switches I'm using now.

For wiring inline you don't actually need to cut the earth and rejoin if you strip the cable right. I passed the earth straight through my sonoff device. It's tight but you can pass it through.

he's got skills! I love the soldering lessons added in! Amazingly helpful and informative videos, thank you.

Current Sonoff firmware (as of Dec 2019) allows the "program mode" button to toggle the device on and off. It will also allow the switch to work in LAN only mode if there is no internet connection. So far the mods on SuperHouse TV are not needed.... but I'm still watching these great videos!

I'm barely passed 7 minutes and I've already learned something brilliant! Adding more solder to be able to heat all pins at once! So simple, yet I've been scavenging parts from old boards for years and never thought of it. Thank you! (Can't wait to go try it... But I'll watch the rest of the video first.)

Indeed, SONOFF is making the hardware the most of us were developing for our home automation. I just got today my 5 S20 sonoff wall sockets. I was making them myself, but really for the prices they offer them it is not worth the time. My next project somewhere this week is indeed trying to get the I2C bus running on a SONOFF to use a PCF8574Module so will get another 8 (or max 64) IO's. Keep up the good work. Really interesting.

It's 2021 and this is still the most usefull video about the sonoffs I have seen. Thank you for sharing your knowledge!

Hi Jonathan, Your demo's are really, really instructive. Not only from a features point of view (what the device, in this case Sonoff, is capable of), but you're also spending the necessary time to make people aware of the dangers of such projects. You tell the audience about the bad and good way of doing things in a very instructive way. And I couldn't agree more with this approach. Next to this, you're also spending time in explaining the regulations (IPxx stuff and so on) which many people might not know the background of it. And of course, the core of your presentations: how to apply stuff in a helpful way. You're doing it with a lot of good eplanation, both speaking as well as showing. I'm always looking forward to see a next video of yours. Keep up the (very) good work!!!

The Arendst software is great... it is RELIABLE for the SONOFFS and handles ALEXA. Mine does as you've noted but it's not my major area as my software handles much more and is larger - hence needing the FLASH replacement. But for Sonoffs I use the Arendst software. Recommended.

Just a note for UK (probably most country's) the light switches will not replace a normal plate switch in 99% of cases as we have no neutral at the switch. Makes these a little redundant to be honest ? Great video and i am fitting these everywhere. Whats everyone doing with the naming of the dual relay model ? I called mine "the" then renamed the 2 relays "heating" and "gates" so Alexa gets "Alexa turn --the heating-- on"

Well done mate, I have a so off in my home and the state change that you discuss help a lot , hope you do more of this

I agree totally with the earth cable on the Sonoff WiFi switches. There is enough room to run the earth under the original cover soldering the two earths together and protecting with heat shrink. The wires are held nicely in place to securely with the case and cable clamp onto each original cable outer sheath. Nice neat connection in original case. We've replaced manually lamp switches with these for timed operation and for security out of hours too.

Thanks so much! Very informative, especially the waterproofing and connection to an external switch! I would love to see the setup you have at your shop if/when I visit Australia!!

Regarding safety - if it's worth noting to your audience that earth needs to be passed through on three wire connections, perhaps you should also suggest keeping Line and Neutral correctly passed through without being swapped (when using polarized cords). This might not be noticed when using, for example, two wire lamp cord (SPT-1 or SPT-2 in the US). (Connecting the real Line (or Live) to L and Neutral to N, is also good practice, but perhaps less critical).

I have made two of this boxed switches as I wanted to make sure that the wire couldn’t be pulled out as the connection holes are very small especially if you use a. Extension cord cut down. I removed a few strands of wire to thin it out cutting back to the protective casing. Made sure the glands held the cords tight seems impossible to pull out a accidentally. I used a commercial large junction box cut to size with a clear plastic lid. They work well love the fact that with IFTTT the lights turn on before I get in the house.

Wow, I've been looking at how I can keep my vintage light switches in use, thank you! I first came across this yesterday, 1st January, and already I have found a new guru for the year! I've subscribed!

Another fantastic super house episode. I really to enjoy your Sonoff episodes, they are a great affordable product. Cheers!

Very creative, extremely well presented - simply excellent! Keep up the great work. cheers

Just stumbled on Sonoff a few days ago and got it working once it arrived. I was looking for a review but boy did I discover so much more! Thanks for the video.

Great video and EXCELLENT points regarding safety! I watched one of the other videos where the guy was attaching the cut extension cord to each end... First thought that came to mind was the power end of the cord getting pulled out accidently was leaving a live wire exposed.

Really nice work you've done so far. Only thing I have to complain about, in Germany we have to use wire end sleeves/ ferrules for multi-core wires, so shortcuts between a single lead of a wire is reduces. Especially when connected to a screw clamp, which pushes the single cores of a wire to the sides! But I do not know what the "law" says in the USA or other parts of the world.

+SuperHouseTV Great episode! Thanks!

Although I am an engineer myself, I learned a lot of things. Hats of for the clear explanations. Subbed the channel :-)

I just found your site. I enjoy working with these type projects. Your information make understanding how to use them is great. I will pass them on to my friends. Thank you mentioning the safety factors. I work at a museum which you information may be used on displays. Thanks again.

Thanks for a great Sonoff tutorial and as a bonus - teaching me how to remove board components! Add my vote for your doing specific Tasmoto session too.

If your sonoff fails to connect to your router make sure the password is less than 20 characters in length and does not contain hypens.

great video as always! so informative and we appreciate you sharing your work with us!

What a great video. I'm just starting Domotica (for my future new house) with WeMos-ses, DHT& LDR-sensors, RPI3 with OpenHAB. Now i'm sure to buy some sonoff's to make is very smart sensors and controls. Thanks for all the tips.

Want easy I2C? Use the RX and TX after you flashed it as SCL and SDA. You wont need them after flashing and you have already soldered a pin header for them. Super easy :-)

OOOh, I just found a new toy I'm gonna start playing with!

Wow. So much to learn. Many thanks, I am a simple user but keen to learn and do more for now just using a plug to control my aquarium light on a schedule ! Your videos inspire me to learn more.

Great video, I have said most of it before, but here goes again. The way you explain your choices and how thorough you are is so great. Well thought out enjoyable content! I enabled notifications for your channel, so I hope that helps a bit. Great references and acknowledgments as always.

You need a neutral line with the live ( Hot ) line for the smart switch to work

can't believe the whinging about having 'only' 1MB of storage. We used to write entire applications for the BBC Micro in 8K eproms. I can't think of anything you would want to run in a light switch that needs more than that... :-)

Thank you for this video, just started buying Sonoff equipment. I will see if you have later information, as I see my BasicR2 has a different internals. At this stage not looking at a big project, just lights and power control using the BasicR2 and MiniR2, also ordered a NSPanel to play with.

You deserve a medal man. Thank you very very much. Learned a lot from your video. 👍🏻

What changes are need for the switch to work on GPIO14 ? So that the switch toggles the relay/light as shown in the video above ?

Do these have any Australian safety certification ? no electrician will install it without one and it's illegal to do it yourself as I understand it and more importantly your house insurance could be voided if you did it yourself. (This assumes installing it in the wall)

Devo dire la verità, pensavo fosse la solita "cinesata" e invece ho scoperto un buon prodotto a un basso prezzo. Ho acquistato il mio primo Sonoff dal sito Lookathome e l ho utilizzato per accendere e spegnere le luci della sala. Successivamente, ne ho comprati altri e li utilizzo in tutte le stanze. Addirittura ne ho collegato uno al microonde in modo tale che appena rientro dalla pausa pranzo mi trovo il piatto caldo! :) Provare per credere!

Awesome!! Im not using sonoffs but a couple of ESP with i/o extender for switching the relays in my house and also to read the switches states. I was wasting to much time with trying to find some suitable momentary switches for the house :D

"I would have this on the cable first". Who has not had to say that!

Very important! There is always everywhere a chance of MAINS power on all the parts when it's connected. So please isolate everything and yourselves!!! these sonoffs are powered by rectifying mains, very dangerous.

SuperHouseTv: For manual switch, I rewire the NClosed contact instead of Nopend contact from Relay to output. Wire your Line -> Manual switch -> Input supply Sonoff. So when power on light on, power off light off. But inverse action on app button, you should off button to light on.

I'm watching this in 2020. Thank you so much for the informative and concise tutorial!

The biggest problem with using these as a drop-in replacement for a light switch, is that many if not most light switches don't have both an active and neutral wire available.

Thanks for another excellent video. I am considering using the sonoff to control an outdoor water fountain pump. Although the switch will be in a dry location, I plan on putting it in a small IP rated box as you showed in your video. I am however going to remove the sonoff from the original case so that I can use a smaller box as the location is constrained by size.

very, very good video, good explanation and useful stuff. I just bought 3 sonoff from China but I didn't imagine that you can do so much with it, especially I was looking for info how to connect that light switch. Big thank you from England.

Well done! A really good tutorial, clear and to the point, especially as regards safety when mains wiring is involved. One thing that came to mind was fitting a properly heatsunk 25A SSR instead of that dodgy 10A relay, or add a smaller SSR as a secondary power output, using one of the spare GPIO pins. Cheers!

Thank you for these great tipps. I used GPIO14 before and I knew a few other things but GPIO04 was new to me and thanks for reminding me to be extra cautious in regards to someone pulling the cable from the screw terminals - It didn't occur to me that this was of course possible. Usually I will install the Sonoff to the ceiling but since it can do so many things it's quite probable it will end up on the floor as well. Thanks for the great IoT/home automation content you produce. Cheers!

The safety part is absolutely awesome. Like the rest of the video btw. THANKS

Excellent videos!!! I saw some people asking how to use a sonoff as a 2-way switch and, inspired in your toggle button trick, I think there is a solution to it. You can connect two 2-way switches like you normally do between them, i.e. L1 of SW1 to L1 of SW2 and L2 of SW1 to L2 of SW2. Then you can connect the common terminal of SW1 to GND and the common terminal of SW2 to GPIO14. That way every time that you toggle any of the two switches will produce a change to the "state", so the light will be turned on or off accordantly.

Köszönöm! Danke schön! This is an excellent video! Congratulation from Hungary and Germany as well.

One of the good episodes in SuperHouseTV. Kudos!

Very thorough and I particularly like the electrical health and safety tips, not that I need them, but so easily overlooked as these products are not very safe to be working on live. Didn't realise there was so much avid following of these devices. I just bought some Sonoff kit with the view to hacking and didn't think to see first if anyone had already done so, and I'm glad to see so many people have already saved me loads of time. Thanks for this great video.

Good video. Glad to see a safety minded video for DIY home automation. Well done.

Awesome 👍. I've loved the way you presented the proper way to do the casing for it. Subscribed!

Very detailed, very nice info and not only info also practical. Thumbs up!

Wow! What a high quality presentation, especially with the blog post behind it. Now I have to review SuperHouseTV #1-20 and their posts. I like that you are on Patreon. * I do MQTT with Mongob behind it for persistence with both servers running on a low cost Virtual Private Server, $35 per year. I originally hosted both on my Mac but I'm switching to a laptop. I was originally thinking Raspberry PI based server but the VPS is probably cheaper and they do backups and fix the hardware if it breaks. I hate doing my own IT. * My apps are mostly python scripts that run as periodic cronjobs on the VPS.They wakeup, check the status of the world according to Mongodb and decide what to do about it.With that infrastructure I can have lots of things going on at the same time that may or may not know about each other * I run the open source OwnTracks app on my iPhone to log where I am so I can have the system do things based on where I am. And that is just the beginning. * Maybe LoRa for wider local reach than WiFi. * Probably a cell phone modem board to get rid of Wifi dependence altogether for stuff that wants to move (luggage tracker?) Maybe Arduino Fona 808 which does both phone stuff and GPS. * I have some bluetooth things going but they are not connected to this. Yet! * I'm watching LTE-M like everyone doing IOT should. Two months ago I had never heard MQTT and now I'm building my own personal Internet Of Steve. ;-) I wish I knew about your stuff long ago. You'll be saving me lots of time. Thanks.

Hey man, I would just like to say thanx for sharing all your knowledge from your own trials and errors to make everything simple and understandable for everyone else. It is thorough and super easy to follow and I really appreciate what you are doing and for putting me on track from the get go. Keep it up :-)

Awesome video. Just an FYI to anyone thinking about making a submersible sonoff. Don't, it won't work, wifi frequency can't penetrate water, even if it's only a few inches deep.

An amazing amount of time and effort you put into this, you must be married to an angel:) Thank you!

The world's best teacher

what an excellent approach. thank you for your commitment to your passion.

Excellent and comprehensive information - very well done explanation - thanks for sharing !

26:33 You are my hero man! This was my biggest concern about turning to sonoff! This is the best way to combine analog with smart (my dad doesn't like the idea of needing his phone to turn on the light) but now i know how to do this almost at no functionality cost!

Hi, Used X10 years ago, it worked. Your great videos with the new technology have rekindled my interest . Regards Peter

I connected our bathtub and are controlling the water faucets with it. I ordered a 4channel sonoff from aliexpress and also a two water valves from a washing machine, now I control the valves with the sonoff switch. I'm also using the 12v version on our gate motors to trigger the gate to open and close.

Thank you so much for this. Love your attention to detail!!

ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL! This is exactly what I've been looking for. Thank you, thank you, thank you for this video. You now have a subscriber for life!

resolved most of the problems I was facing to synchronize WiFi and physical switch. thanks

Excellent explanation Sir

Really informative and one of your best tutorials IMO. Thanks very much for putting this together and sharing!

Very cools with the light wall switch being added to control the Sonoff, I've been thinking about getting some, but wondered how the light switch would work with it.

Excellent video Jonathan with great ideas and safety info. Thought watching your videos might be a good way to sleep but unfortunately this had the opposite effect! Belated thanks as I've just discovered your channel recently.

That's really good advice. Anything with high voltage should always be in a proper enclosur!.

Great video thank you. I have one suggestion that may appeal to the OCD crowd. I would write the code so that when you change the state of the physical light switch the status of the sonoff is changed (or unchanged) to match the light switch. Only during the status change does the light switch obtain light control, you may have to switch if off and then back on again to turn the light on, but the switch will then match the operation, Not a big deal, but again, it may appeal to those that want the wall switch to only work as normal positions.

Excellent video TY for your detailed efforts and professional video

Thank you so much for such easy to digest informative information .

The ultimate guide to sonoff hackery! Brilliant 👍

I have no clue as to how I got here but was completely fascinated.....well done

Amazing value for me. My learning curve just went from looong to very short. Thanks a lot for your work. Much appreciated !

GREAT resource! Learned so much from this one video alone. Thanks!

Newbie just looking to learn and turn a few things in the apartment "smart", great video and plenty advice

Excellent video. Good work mate. I've learned a lot. Keep doing this kind of videos I'm a fan now from first video I see :)

Just found this video. Didn't know a device like that existed that was open source. Now my curiosity is up I've got to buy some play with them. Thanks for sharing that wonderful information.

Subscribed. The tip of removing the SMT chip by using a single glob of solder, did it for me.

Very useful video. Thanks. So with pin 4&14 revealed and a logic chip one could control 4 separate relays. That, in addition to the on-board relay, would enable one Sonoff to control 5 circuits! If I2C were used on 4&14, then one could control 127 + 1 devices! Holy schmoly! I've got the perfect home lighting task for this.

For #3 using a momentary switch there is a way to use a SPDT switch and convert it to not only a momentary switch but have it pulse "on" for a short duration in either throw direction. This avoids the possibility of someone holding the momentary button too long and triggering the boot loader mode. Its a matter of a proper sized capacitor and relay; however once you start sourcing the parts (with the 3.3v relay being the expensive and hard to find part) you might as well pop for the SONOFF mini or the add-on board (E77 Wall Switch Connectivity Module). Given that, I haven't done it personally because it seems like more time/money than the safety it provides that someone will be malicious but it is possible . I'm not going to go into detail because there are a number of YT videos and instructions out there already; just thought I'd mention it.

Thanks a lot, i was looking for put a external button. And you show that is easy 👏👏