Tasmota and Node Red

Automation Central Automation Distribution
#1

I’ve been spamming @jchurch with PM’s, and thought I’d best give him a break.

Given that my Hubitat Node Red integration has errors, I’m transitioning away from Hubitat for Tasmota devices. I already run Node Red, so it’s no biggie.

I’ve got the commands working for Tasmota to Node Red, and have set up a MQTT broker. I know what all the QOS are, but what is best practise?

My main question is how do I store/poll the status of the lights/switches etc? In the Hubitat-Node-Red Nodes, the status was easily available. Do I have to subscribe to each light switch with a MQTT-in node, and then set the status as a flow/global variable?

Also, why is it called MQTT in, when it seems to be coming OUT from the MQTT database?

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#2

Hey @Mike

I’m by no means an expert on Node Red or Tasmota but I understand a teency bit about MQTT…

With Tasmota specifically, you can either use the Tasmota node (node-red-contrib-tasmota) or in the inbuilt MQTT nodes and then reference the Tasmota MQTT documentation (MQTT - Tasmota) to understand how their commands and topics are structured. For the former, most of the statuses are provided within the nodes however with the latter you can subscribe to the RESULTS topic and this generally shows what has changed on the device.

I’m in a similar position as yourself where I’m not migrating immediately, but more on a case by case basis, I’m trying to learn more about node red so I can incorporate it into my overall HA. Tasmota for me is a logical starting point as its a purely local control scenario…

Hope that’s at least a bit helpful.

Thanks

#3

I think @RRodman is using Tasmota and MQTT directly from NodeRed so he can probably share some flows and or provide advice. I did it early last year but I didn’t save any configures.

#4

document, document, document. Gonna have to sick @april.brandt on ya :rofl:

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#5

Yes I was very naughty. I have kept past flows as file exports but unfortunately I didn’t keep that one. From memory I worked through it using these links:

https://diyprojects.io/mqtt-router-node-red-connect-sonoff-tasmota-modules-cloudmqtt/#.X_vIK-gzYuU

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#6

I would normally be happy to walk you through the whole thing, but at the moment my home network and automations are as simple as can be, and can’t even begin to be called smart. If someone else hasn’t helped you, or you haven’t solved it yourself by the time I get around to redoing my smart home I will be more than happy to help you. At that point I’ll have my working setup re-established and can refer to it for any details i need clarification on :slight_smile:

#7

@Mike how did you go with this mate? I’d imagine you have probably learnt a lot about this now and got it cranking :ok_hand:

#8

Yeah. Not sure if it’s the best way, but I’m recording the status of the Tasmota lights as a flow.variable directly from the lights via mqtt. It works, but I’m unsure if it’s the best way.

#9