Hello from NL.

[Duende]

I started long time ago with KAKU (CoCo?) switches. Because I wanted to schedule the lights in the 2 locations I live, I bought 10 years ago 2 ALL3000RF's from ALLNET which could work (more or less) as a primitive HTTP server switching the lights. By programming those devices they could also schedule the lights stand alone. The problem was, that the protocol was not very reliable, so every now and then lights remain on.

To replace all those switches and infrastructure to Z-Wave was no option: too expensive. But last year I discovered the SONOFF switches based on the ESP8266 chip, and more: the beautiful MQTT protocol. As a retired IBM Systems Engineer I was right away interested and I decided to implement this protocol. The intention was on a RPI, but Mosquitto with websockets runs also on a Synology NAS and that was much easier. So I have my 2 locations now managed by an own MQTT broker, the KAKU switches are replaced by Sonoff-RF and Wemos D1 mini switches and they are programmed with NodeMCU firmware and own LUA application code. The scheduling of the lights is done now by a Python program in the Synology NAS. Besides, the NAS runs a HTTP server, so I can manage the switches too from a browser. Because the switches have a RF function I can also use a remote control for local use.

I have choosen for NodeMCU, because it came on my way and I could understand how it worked. Later I read about other possibilities as ESP Easy and I like to know how it works. This forum gives a wealth of information, thank you for that.