I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of integrating affordable hardware into my SmartThings ecosystem. When I came across the Sonoff Mini, I knew it had potential, but little did I know the journey it would take me on. This is my story of triumph, complete with trials and lessons learned along the way.
The Quest Begins
I first laid my eyes on the Sonoff Mini and immediately saw its potential for a specific use case: controlling a light switch manually. The device promised two terminals for manual switching, a feature I couldn’t resist. But as soon as I flashed it with Eric’s firmware, I lost the ability to use those terminals—a frustrating setback.
Enter Tasmota
After some research, I stumbled upon Tasmota. I had no prior experience with it, but Eric’s firmware made it surprisingly easy to flash via OTA. The GPIO settings were the key—setting GPIO4 to Switch1 (9) unlocked the manual switch functionality. But then came the next hurdle: integrating it into SmartThings.
The Search for the Perfect DTH
I found Brett Sheleski’s DTH and followed the instructions, but nothing worked. The device wouldn’t spawn a child. Frustrated, I reached out to Eric for help, only to learn he no longer supported that firmware. He suggested his forked Tasmota firmware, but I was still stuck.
The Eureka Moment
Determined to solve the puzzle, I revisited Brett’s DTH. After some digging, I realized the module ID for my device wasn’t listed. A simple code tweak later (adding a case for module 0), and voilà! The child device appeared. It worked, but there was a catch—the switch didn’t update the device status. Luckily, Brett’s SmartApp came to the rescue.
Lessons Learned
This journey taught me the value of persistence and the importance of community support. I’m now using the Sonoff Mini seamlessly, and while I’d love a single DTH solution, I’m more than happy with the current setup.
If anyone else is tackling similar challenges, I hope my experience offers some guidance. The journey may be winding, but the destination is worth it. Happy tinkering! 