digiblurDIY

I recently picked up the Sonoff S31 and Sonoff S31 Lite smart plugs.   They both bear the UL listed logo on the box and the back of the unit itself.  Let's crack them open and see what makes them tick.



The Lite version is the same plug except it does not bring any power monitoring capabilities to the table.  With all new hardware revisions of various products I was worried that my favorite smart plug was going to go the way of the Sonoff Mini and not have any easy access headers for flashing the open source firmware of your choice.  The Sonoff S31 line of plugs easily fit two plugs on the same wall socket with ease, utilizes screws in case you want to open the device, and has easy to solder RX/TX pin headers; which is why the S31 is still my favorite smart plug!

Of course I took the device apart and compared it to the previous S31 model (pics below).  I was excited to see they kept the same PCB that handles the ESP8266 side of things which meant the header is still there!  Remove…

The Extensive Smart Light Comparison of 2019 | Teardowns included at the End

We spent quite a bit of time setting up 15+ bulbs, photographing, videoing them and testing out each channel with LUX sensors.  All the data and video has been compiled for you to make your own decisions, although I do tell you which bulb is my favorite based on various factors/features.

Bulbs
Lohas A19 60W RGBW
Lohas A19 E26 CW/WW
Lohas A21 100W RGBW
Edison Tunable E26 CW/WW
Novostella 120W A19
Reafoo E26
Anoop 60W CW/WW
Aoycocr A19 750lm
Enshine A19 60W
Esicoo 60W
Luntak E26 60W
Merkury A21 75W
Teckin SB50
Lifx A19 1100lm

Google Spreadsheet of Smart Lights 








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First you may ask why do we need this if we can currently do these with Tuya Convert?  Pay attention to that word "currently".  You can never beat the tried and true method of connecting up those RX/TX lines via serial to flash your ESP82xx devices.  99.9% of the time it just works!  If you have any issues or firmware corruption it is stupid simple to just recover your device. 

Luckily the quite awesome performance to cost ratio bulbs that Lohas provides they also have the RX/TX pins exposed for us right on top under the diffuser.  That's quite rare in a bulb, especially in one of my favorite bulbs!  The only issue I've found is the 3v3 pin does not work!  But no fear!  It is easy to solder to the 3v3 pin on the flash memory chip. 

First apply a bit of flux to each pad you will be soldering to then apply a small bulb of solder to the pads. 

Next take a dupont jumper wire and cut off the ends.  Apply a small amount of flux and then tin them with solder. 

Then simply …

Tearing down a unique RGB night light switch from top to bottom.  We show the investigative work of figuring out the pins for flashing and usage of the switch.   Join the fun and remove the cloud dependency from your switches making them yours!

RGB Smart Switch
Alternate Switch

Volt Meter
Dupont Jumpers
CH340G Usb to Serial

RGB Switch Tasmota Template
{"NAME":"RGB Switch","GPIO":[30,255,32,10,39,38,0,0,31,9,37,21,255],"FLAG":0,"BASE":18}

Addtl Links
Tasmota - https://github.com/arendst/Sonoff-Tasmota
NodeMCU Pyflasher - https://github.com/marcelstoer/nodemcu-pyflasher

Devices/Toys we use - https://amzn.to/2YZNDeO
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Come chat with us!
Discord - https://discord.gg/bNtTF2v
Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/digiblurDIY

Review of the Argus Eco - Wire Free Solar Powered Camera.  Put it Anywhere!

Congrats to Mike S on his win of the giveaway on Discord/Facebook.  Be sure to read his review of the camera here -  Mike S's review of the Argus Eco (PDF file)

Argus Eco(US)
Argus Eco(UK)

Direct Reolink Argus Eco Link
Additional 8% off coupon code from Reolink - ytbreo8offustravis

Devices/Toys we use
Amazon UK Link
Amazon CA Link

Come chat with us!
Discord
Patreon

For the folks using the awesome Martin Jerry SD-01 and Tessan/Acenx MJ-SD02 dimmers, I've updated the fork to 6.6.0.6.  There aren't any additional features except for what came with the rebase on the updated base of Tasmota.  If you do decided to update your dimmers you'll need to select the MJ-SD01 module again after the reboot since the module number changes with this version.  More info on setup/flashing to be found here.

Even though Tuya Convert seems to be getting more rare and rare each day, I updated the generic bin with wifi manager (AP mode) as default to 6.6.0.7 as well, this can be used for many other flashing applications too!  Download here.