Go in any big box store and you’ll find dozens of smart home appliances.  Light bulbs, security cameras, smart outlets, smart switches, LED strip lights, etc.   There is no end to it.

So you buy something.  Then you have to download the app, and create an account and then you wow your friends by demonstrating how smart your home is becoming.   Then you buy another device which means you need another app and another login account.  Then you do it again and again and again.

Pretty soon your phone is full of apps and you can’t remember the passwords to all the new accounts you have.

Is it really convenient?  There are ways to get all those devices under one roof so to speak with home automation software but this blog isn’t about that.   It’s about your security.

All those devices are connected to the INTERNET, aka “The Cloud”.  You don’t know who wrote the app.  You don’t know if the app has gaping security holes or intentional malware.  Also you grant network access to that device.   Also when you fill in the app you provide your network credentials to the app.  Do you use your wifi password with any other account anywhere?  Does the app writer transmit your credentials back to their server?

In 2016 there was an exploit on Internet of Things (IoT) cameras and routers called the Mirai Bot Attack.  The attacker focused a Denial of Service (DDoS) attack using HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DEVICES.  That kind of implies that in 2016 there sure were a lot of infected Internet of Things devices.  Wonder what that statistic looks like in late 2021.  Better?  Worse?  My educated guess = WORSE.

How can you make it better and more secure?

Get Off The Cloud.

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This is one tiny camera.  Maybe a bit too tiny.

ESP32-CAM

For some perspective, the breakout board next to the ESP32-CAM has a Micro USB charger on the end of it like you would use to charge your phone.

The whole camera board isn’t a lot larger than a quarter.  A bit taller though.

But look at the camera lens itself.  It’s roughly the size of the USB connector on that green board.

You could put this cam anywhere there was a tiny hole.  Look around your room or even worse, YOUR HOTEL ROOM, and think of all the places a tiny camera could be.

Comparatively, look at the screen on your smart phone and look at the camera lens.  On a day to day basis YOU DON’T EVEN NOTICE IT, DO YOU?

Anyway, I’m not trying to creep you out but I am pointing out that it is easy for ANYONE to build a tiny spy camera or security camera.  This thing will live stream as well.  Let’s check it out!

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I have decided to try some Shelly Home Automation products and stumbled across the Shelly Flood Sensor.

Shelly Flood Sensor

Very cool little device and I while I won’t repeat the specs because you can look all that up at the link above I will tell you what I think is good about the device and what I think is bad about it.

Having a water sensor is pretty important in my estimation. While I’ve never had a pipe burst I did work with a guy once who deployed overseas for several months and his ice maker hose ruptured right after he left and leaked for MONTHS!

So I’m going to get several more of these now that I’ve worked through the installation of one of them. I intend to place them by the ice maker hose, the washing machine, under the sinks, in the hot water heater pan, and in the A/C secondary pan.

First I’ll start with what is bad about this thing.  And I’ll pull no punches.

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Sonoff iFan04

Introducing the Sonoff iFan04. In MOST cases you WILL NOT need one of these, however, if you have an older home where your ceiling fan and light are wired to a single wall switch and you have to control the fan by pulling on the chain………..then you need one of these.

If you have two switches it is WAY easier to buy smart wall switches.  One for a 3 speed fan and one for a regular switch.

Note, that I didn’t say it was cheaper to buy 2 smart switches.  It is EASIER to install the switches though.

The iFan04’s are about $18 each.  That is a bargain.

One real big limitation of the iFan is that it is, errrrr…….big.  Meaning you have to have space to install it in your fan.  The first fan I tried to install this on in my house………….there was just no way.  The ceiling baseplate cover was just too small with absolutely no room to install it.  I would literally need a whole new ceiling fan before I could make it work.

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I generally like most tech I review.  I have mixed emotions here but this may be a cluster f*** of my own making.

I dig home automation.  There is nothing better than asking a smart device to turn on a light or a fan or effect lighting or play a song …………and it works.

I’m a long time user of HomeAssistant .  It was kind of hard in the beginning but it is super smart and more intuitive now. Again, you don’t have to go off the deep end.  Turning a light on and off or hooking up to your thermostat can be huge.

I’m a big fan of taking Internet of Things (IoT) devices and flashing them with open source firmware such as Tasmota.  And my house was AWESOME.  But then I moved and I had to start all over.  ESP8266 is kind of slowly being phased out by ESP32 chips and Sonoff devices have some competition now such as Shelly.  I had seen the Shelly 1 a couple years back but opted to stick with Sonoff devices.   Fast forward a couple years and Shelly has really advanced.  They have some cool offerings and I decided to give them a trial run.

So since I’m starting over I grabbed some Shelly devices.  The internet bubbas love them. But I wonder if they have ever deployed them other than in lab conditions for a YouTube video because I had a hell of a time with my first installation.

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The subject line is “Add a temperature sensor to a wifi chip”.  Why would you want to do that?  I can think of a few reasons.

• Know what the temperature is in the attic and also use the chip to control an attic fan.
• Know what the temperature of the hot tub water is and have it send you temp alerts if the water starts getting cold, or even worse, too hot.
• Know the dew point which is vital when using a laser engraver which has a water cooled laser tube.  Too much condensation means you’ll shorten the life expectancy or the tube or cause it to catastrophically fail.
• Have a remote temp sensor for other rooms.
• Monitor humidity where you store important papers, or cigars or stuff like that.

Now that we know it is useful, let’s do it.   This is actually one of the simplest things you can do with an ESP8266 or ESP32 Internet of Things, wifi chip.   It isn’t hard at all.
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Found another somewhat easily Tasmota flashable Outdoor plug.  It is the Etekcity ESO15-TB, (approximately $20).   It can only be flashed via serial to USB and oddly enough I found no good solid guide online for flashing it.   When I opened it up I saw that it had an ESP-01E chip.  I also discovered that it required a complete disassembly to get to the bottom of the board.

When I first flipped it over I thought all was lost because the ESP-01E is kind of a plug in module and the solder points are SUPER close together.  Closer than my 59 year old eyes can navigate, at least not without mumbling some special words I learned in the Navy.   A closer inspection revealed clearly marked test points with the exception of GPIO0 which almost always has to be held to ground to put the chip into boot loader mode.   The pinout in the ESP-01E doc shows that GPIO0 is pin 8.

ESP-01E Pinout

And I confirmed this by looking at the chip itself.
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There are no shortage of Internet Of Things (IoT) devices in the big box stores that promise that their app or Alexa and/or Google integration will make your home smart.  There is no doubt you can walk into Walmart or Best Buy and walk out with a smart switch or outlet or LED strip or whatever.

Pretty soon though you end up with a multitude of apps and instead it is chaos instead of convenience.   Also if you add something to Alexa, and remove it then add it again you may have two instances in your Device log with the same name which will cause problems.

Another problem I have with these devices is that they are mostly all made in China, and so is the app.  A few years ago when I first started doing home automation there was a popular plug (which is still around) that one geekster used a packet sniffer and proved the device was sending your network credentials back to its server in China.  I won’t dwell here too much but if someone has a back door in the software of a device that resides on your network………..THEY ARE IN YOUR WHOLE NETWORK.

My requirements for a smart device are this:

1. The ability to remove their firmware and flash it with Open Source firmware.  This is number 1 on my list for a reason.  Security.  Many devices with IoT chips are now blocking the ability to reprogram their devices.  Tuya, which makes about a zillion guts for smart devices has been doing this for a couple years.
2. The ability to incorporate the device into my Home Automation.  I use a program called  HomeAssistant.  I don’t necessarily want the Googler or the foreign agent, Alexa running the whole show.  I want a web interface, dashboard that I can control from FAR AWAY.  Can’t tell Alexa to turn the thermostat down if you aren’t in the house.   And again this goes back to my previous point of having multiple smart apps = chaos and confusion.
3. The ability to control it manually should automation break.. If it breaks 100% when the internet goes down………what good is it?

Now, lets get on with making dumb stuff smart.

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Decided to put some landscape lighting up at my new home and figured I might as well make it home automation friendly.  That means I want to control it from a browser or by Alexa or Google commands.

It’s actually not very complicated, as far as home automation goes.  The whole project is centered around a Sonoff 4 Channel Relay.  The device I linked is actually a newer model than the one I have.  I have the Sonoff 4 Channel Relay R2 Pro.

Sonoff 4CH R2 Relay

Figured I may as well use it.

It can control 4 different lighting circuits however I’ll probably only install 2 or 3 circuits, and this of course will give me room to grow.

These things come ready to roll but the device and smart app are Chinese and I don’t dig that at all.

So I flash mine with Open Source firmware called Tasmota.  At least I know my information isn’t being sent to some server in China.

NOTE: These devices are rated to 10 amps only.  If you use them on an AC home circuit breaker it is likely a 15 or 20 amp circuit.  Translation:  The Sonoff will fail catastrophically before a circuit breaker trips if something goes wrong.  We are powering this device with DC power and using low voltage DC landscaping lights that are 12 volt.  This will be safe.

So basically what we need to pull this off is:

• Sonoff 4 channel relay
• 12v power supply (I use a 360 watt)
• Low Voltage Landscape Lights (from anywhere, Lowes, HomeDepot, Amazon, etc.)
• Low voltage wiring. 2 conductor usually 14 or 16 gauge.

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Sonoff 4Ch R2 Relay

I have an older Sonoff 4 Channel Relay (R2 Pro) which I had flashed with Tasmota firmware version 6.4.1.

In the interest of incorporating easily into my home automation I decided to upgrade the Tasmota firmware to the latest version (9.5.0 at the time of this writing). I want to use it for landscape lighting.

I uploaded the Tasmota minimal which did upload but when the relay rebooted the relay 2 light came on and the relay 1 relay began furiously clicking.

The WiFi was NOT connected as well.   No problem.  I’ll just put the device in boatloader mode and rewrite the flash memory.  You do that by holding down this button while powering up:

Enter boot loader mode (click pic to enlarge)

Great, except it didn’t work.  I was pretty sure it was bricked for all eternity and I was ready to throw it in the trash.   Holding the button down is supposed to short data pin GPIO0 (zero) to ground causing the device to enter boot loader mode.

I decided I would try to manually short GPIO0 to ground by using these pins while the FTDI controller was connected.

Continue below:

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