Flashing the Tesmota 433 Megahertz Wireless Bridge: A Step-by-Step Guide

One of the advanced features of this device is that there are general-purpose IO pins here that can be repurposed for other things. This is considered a 200-level thing, which means it's not something for beginners. However, if you do plan to flash the radio in this thing from normal operation mode, I would suggest cutting a couple of traces on the motherboard. This is also outlined in the guide on how to do that.

The documentation doesn't really super explain what's going on with these pins, but they connected the USB pins to the general-purpose IO pins, which means that if it's powered by USB, data will interfere with flashing the radio firmware and so with Tasmota. On this thing, we can use Tasmota to actually flash the radio firmware, which is key. The documentation doesn't really super explain that, but the radio firmware and the radio controller are a separate controller from the one that has Tasmota running on it. They talk to each other over a link, but it turns out Tasmota can be used to actually flash the other microcontroller that's in the little Sona 433 megahertz puck, and then you're off to the races.

You should definitely flash the one recommended by the guide, double-check the guide at the time that you're doing this to make sure that you know what I'm showing you on screen is actually still relevant because that might change. There are actually several different radio firmwares that will run on this thing, but only a couple of them are getting active developer attention. I would definitely flash the one that is recommended by the guide.

I also machined out my own slot in this and I went ahead and cut the traces to make it a little easier to reflash this thing in the future. This makes it super easy to do debugging and that kind of thing. There are a few bucks on eBay if you want to pick up one of those, sets of probes, not really a big deal, makes your life easier.

Using an FTDI Flasher is also a pretty easy process. I set mine up to provide 3.3 volts, you won't want to give it 5 volts, you'll murder it. If you've already set it to 5 volts and you're not getting any results, I'm sorry, it was 3.3, your prize is that you now have a dead device, you'll have to order another one.

This thing now with the updated radio firmware can hear pretty much anything of 433 megahertz. You can actually log into the web GUI and it gives you a console to type commands in. If you have an alarm motion sensor, you can go wave your arms and then come back and say hey did you see that event, and if you did, you can subscribe to events from that and actually forward those on to Home Assistant.

However, this only supports remembering about eight devices that will vary a little bit with hardware and some other parameters. You may be able to squeeze some more out of it depending on how willing to get your hands dirty that you are, but eight wireless devices per puck that it can listen for and then forward the events to Home Assistant is fine with me. That's basically okay.

Personally, as I explained in a couple of videos ago, I actually just augmented my home alarm panel so my alarm panel passes through to Home Assistant, so I don't need to do something like this a lot of my sensors aren't wireless anyway, some of them are most of them aren't and instead of having my sensors go to this thing directly, they go through the alarm panel and secondarily into Home Assistant. That's another way to do it, and that is a more reliable way because there are less wireless components in it.

But with the appropriate firmware, I was surprised how reliable this was.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enin our continuing series on the internet of things we're talking about 433 megahertz and the terror at 433 megahertz and how you can build your own bridge that'll integrate directly with home assistant or other iot gateways that you may be working with and there isn't anything on the market that's not complete garbage so you gotta diy it and that's why you're here at level 1k vms i have a feeling it's going to be level one home automation kit with things that don't completely suck i mean am i right or am i am i right is it is that foreshadowing we're taking a look at another sonoff product the wireless 433 megahertz bridge now there's two important things you need to know there's other level one content about general wireless devices and software defined radio ryan did an excellent excellent video you should definitely check out on using software-defined radio to pick up and do stuff with all of these sensors that is drinking from the fire hose that will let you do darn near pretty much anything that you need to do the problem is that it's it's not in a sexy little package that you can make use of immediately for your internet of things devices well enter sonoff now sono has their own devices that operate at 433 megahertz the problem is that you don't necessarily only want to use devices at 433 megahertz you see the reason 433 megahertz is popular is because the fcc doesn't really require licensing but there are certain rules that you have to follow if you're going to use the 433 megahertz band for one when you transmit you can only transmit for a very very very short period of time because the fcc figures that there's going to be a whole bunch of devices that operate on this band so your you know your your blips can only last a few milliseconds out of every second and there are power limits and that kind of thing you know the receiver can be pretty powerful so it can pick up a weak transmitter but if you need two-way communication or transmit or anything like that a little bit of a problem the type of sensors that operate at 433 megahertz are typically home alarm system sensors so just like ryan covered he was doing home and a home door and window sensors and things like that you know that's an option but sonoff makes a lot of 433 megahertz sensors that you can use for all kinds of other things there are you know basement flood alarms so if you get a little bit of water in your basement you can get a notice through your alarm system and you don't have to run pesky wires the problem is plugging that into your other automation systems and that's what this little puck does but not with the default firmware the default firmware only works with sonoff devices that's not acceptable we need to fix that enter tasmota yeah just like their wireless control system switches where we modified switches to turn them into our own internet of things thing and we set them up to subscribe their events to uh the mosquito broker running on home assistant then yeah you can do that now if i just started speaking some crazy foreign moon language we've actually done five or six videos on the internet of things starting with the uh the iron fire man and repurposing the iron fireman's thermostat for our modern home control system and i'm sort of assuming that you're to a point where you have home assistant or you know something like that that is ready to receive events from these iot devices you may even have a separate iot network i've covered all of that in past videos and so if you're interested in doing that watch those videos they'll get you up to speed or you can continue on from here i'll wait so because the sono 433 megahertz wireless bridge only works with sonoff devices out of the box we need to put new firmware on it but it's not just new firmware on the controller which is of course the esp8266 that we we've all come to know and love but also the radio because the radio firmware by default really only works with the devices that sonoff makes and we can change the radio to listen for our near everything so in order to do that we've got to follow the guide now it turns out there's a couple of different versions of this puck from sonoff i've got the the v2 version and for my initial modification it wasn't necessary to modify the pcb because i'm actually running it off the programmer so they do actually break out headers here internally you can take it apart and run through it and remove some foam and carefully bend the uh the light thing up out of the way there's a switch here that you can slide over to put it in programming mode and then there are three sets of pin headers that they're useful for interfacing both the wireless microcontroller as well as the radio which is used for the you know the radio part of the microcontroller and flashing those are two separate operations now flashing the initial tasmota on this you're gonna need a programmer i'm using a simple ftdi programmer and i'm programming it from linux no big deal i've covered that in other videos if you really need help with that check out the sonoff video for reflashing the outlet controller instead of this one the process is largely the same and in fact the firmware image is the same as well once you get the firmware set up you actually pick this thing in a drop down menu so yeah yeah tazmoda is so universal that you just flash the same thing and then in the web gui the tasmota provides you you say oh no this is a wireless bridge this is a 433 megahertz wireless bridge now there are general purpose i o pins here that you can repurpose for other things that's an advanced that's a 200 level thing let's not worry about that for right now if you do plan to flash the radio in this thing uh from a from like normal operation mode then i would suggest that you cut a couple of traces on the motherboard that's also outlined in the guide in how to that's a how-to that level one didn't have to write thank goodness so there's a link to it here uh and what that does is it disconnects the general purpose i o pins from the usb pins i'm not sure why exactly but they connected the usb pins to the general purpose i o pins which means that if it's powered by usb data that will interfere with flashing the radio firmware and so with tasmota on this thing we can use tasmota to actually flash the radio firmware that's key the documentation doesn't really super explain that that's what's going on but the radio firmware and the radio controller is a separate controller from the controller that has moda is running on they talk to each other over a link but it turns out tasmota can be used to actually flash the other microcontroller that's in the little sona 433 megahertz puck and then you're off to the races you're good to go now there's actually several different radio firmwares that will run on this thing but only a couple of them are getting active developer attention so i would definitely flash the one that is recommended by the guide double check the guide at the time that you're doing this to make sure that you know what i'm showing you on screen is actually still relevant because that might change but that's basically the other sort of part two of this now i also machined out my own slot in this and i went ahead and cut the traces to make it a little easier to reflash this thing in the future so basically i just used some some circuit grabbers you get one of these with the logic analyzer or bus protocol analyzer they're like tweezers that can actually just grab on to uh the holes or traces or pins that you have sticking up pretty much anything that makes it super easy to re-flash these devices that make it super easy to do debugging and that kind of thing there are a few bucks on ebay if you want to pick up one of those you know sets of probes not really a big deal makes your life easier and then of course the ftdi flasher here smells like five bucks it's a pretty easy uh thing to do it's a pretty easy process i set up mine to provide 3.3 volts you won't want to give it 5 volts you'll murder it so if you've already set it to 5 volts and you're i'm just not getting to that i'm sorry it was 3.3 you've uh uh your your prize is that you now have a a dead whatever uh you'll have to order another one i'm sorry but there you go this thing now with the updated radio firmware can hear pretty much anything of 433 megahertz you can actually log into the web gui and it gives you a console to type commands in so if you have a a an alarm motion sensor you can go wave your arms and then come back and say hey did you see that event and if you did you can subscribe to events from that and actually forward those on to home assistant now this only supports remembering i think about eight devices that will vary a little bit with hardware and some other parameters you may be able to squeeze some more out of it depending on how uh willing to get your hands dirty that you are but eight wireless devices per puck that it can listen for and then forward the events to home assistant i'm fine with that that's that's basically okay i'm good with that this has been a quick look at flashing the tesmota 433 megahertz wireless bridge if you already have an alarm in your home that you're not using and you want to use it for non-alarm things you totally can now me personally as i explained in the video a couple of videos ago i actually just augmented my home alarm panel so my alarm panel passes through to home assistant so i don't need to do something like this a lot of my sensors aren't wireless anyway some of them are most of them aren't and instead of having my sensors go to this thing directly they go through the alarm panel and secondarily into home assistant that's another way to do it and that is a more reliable way because there are less wireless components in it but with the appropriate firmware i was surprised how reliable this was i'm one of those level one i'm signing out and you can find me in the level one forums especially if you have any questions youin our continuing series on the internet of things we're talking about 433 megahertz and the terror at 433 megahertz and how you can build your own bridge that'll integrate directly with home assistant or other iot gateways that you may be working with and there isn't anything on the market that's not complete garbage so you gotta diy it and that's why you're here at level 1k vms i have a feeling it's going to be level one home automation kit with things that don't completely suck i mean am i right or am i am i right is it is that foreshadowing we're taking a look at another sonoff product the wireless 433 megahertz bridge now there's two important things you need to know there's other level one content about general wireless devices and software defined radio ryan did an excellent excellent video you should definitely check out on using software-defined radio to pick up and do stuff with all of these sensors that is drinking from the fire hose that will let you do darn near pretty much anything that you need to do the problem is that it's it's not in a sexy little package that you can make use of immediately for your internet of things devices well enter sonoff now sono has their own devices that operate at 433 megahertz the problem is that you don't necessarily only want to use devices at 433 megahertz you see the reason 433 megahertz is popular is because the fcc doesn't really require licensing but there are certain rules that you have to follow if you're going to use the 433 megahertz band for one when you transmit you can only transmit for a very very very short period of time because the fcc figures that there's going to be a whole bunch of devices that operate on this band so your you know your your blips can only last a few milliseconds out of every second and there are power limits and that kind of thing you know the receiver can be pretty powerful so it can pick up a weak transmitter but if you need two-way communication or transmit or anything like that a little bit of a problem the type of sensors that operate at 433 megahertz are typically home alarm system sensors so just like ryan covered he was doing home and a home door and window sensors and things like that you know that's an option but sonoff makes a lot of 433 megahertz sensors that you can use for all kinds of other things there are you know basement flood alarms so if you get a little bit of water in your basement you can get a notice through your alarm system and you don't have to run pesky wires the problem is plugging that into your other automation systems and that's what this little puck does but not with the default firmware the default firmware only works with sonoff devices that's not acceptable we need to fix that enter tasmota yeah just like their wireless control system switches where we modified switches to turn them into our own internet of things thing and we set them up to subscribe their events to uh the mosquito broker running on home assistant then yeah you can do that now if i just started speaking some crazy foreign moon language we've actually done five or six videos on the internet of things starting with the uh the iron fire man and repurposing the iron fireman's thermostat for our modern home control system and i'm sort of assuming that you're to a point where you have home assistant or you know something like that that is ready to receive events from these iot devices you may even have a separate iot network i've covered all of that in past videos and so if you're interested in doing that watch those videos they'll get you up to speed or you can continue on from here i'll wait so because the sono 433 megahertz wireless bridge only works with sonoff devices out of the box we need to put new firmware on it but it's not just new firmware on the controller which is of course the esp8266 that we we've all come to know and love but also the radio because the radio firmware by default really only works with the devices that sonoff makes and we can change the radio to listen for our near everything so in order to do that we've got to follow the guide now it turns out there's a couple of different versions of this puck from sonoff i've got the the v2 version and for my initial modification it wasn't necessary to modify the pcb because i'm actually running it off the programmer so they do actually break out headers here internally you can take it apart and run through it and remove some foam and carefully bend the uh the light thing up out of the way there's a switch here that you can slide over to put it in programming mode and then there are three sets of pin headers that they're useful for interfacing both the wireless microcontroller as well as the radio which is used for the you know the radio part of the microcontroller and flashing those are two separate operations now flashing the initial tasmota on this you're gonna need a programmer i'm using a simple ftdi programmer and i'm programming it from linux no big deal i've covered that in other videos if you really need help with that check out the sonoff video for reflashing the outlet controller instead of this one the process is largely the same and in fact the firmware image is the same as well once you get the firmware set up you actually pick this thing in a drop down menu so yeah yeah tazmoda is so universal that you just flash the same thing and then in the web gui the tasmota provides you you say oh no this is a wireless bridge this is a 433 megahertz wireless bridge now there are general purpose i o pins here that you can repurpose for other things that's an advanced that's a 200 level thing let's not worry about that for right now if you do plan to flash the radio in this thing uh from a from like normal operation mode then i would suggest that you cut a couple of traces on the motherboard that's also outlined in the guide in how to that's a how-to that level one didn't have to write thank goodness so there's a link to it here uh and what that does is it disconnects the general purpose i o pins from the usb pins i'm not sure why exactly but they connected the usb pins to the general purpose i o pins which means that if it's powered by usb data that will interfere with flashing the radio firmware and so with tasmota on this thing we can use tasmota to actually flash the radio firmware that's key the documentation doesn't really super explain that that's what's going on but the radio firmware and the radio controller is a separate controller from the controller that has moda is running on they talk to each other over a link but it turns out tasmota can be used to actually flash the other microcontroller that's in the little sona 433 megahertz puck and then you're off to the races you're good to go now there's actually several different radio firmwares that will run on this thing but only a couple of them are getting active developer attention so i would definitely flash the one that is recommended by the guide double check the guide at the time that you're doing this to make sure that you know what i'm showing you on screen is actually still relevant because that might change but that's basically the other sort of part two of this now i also machined out my own slot in this and i went ahead and cut the traces to make it a little easier to reflash this thing in the future so basically i just used some some circuit grabbers you get one of these with the logic analyzer or bus protocol analyzer they're like tweezers that can actually just grab on to uh the holes or traces or pins that you have sticking up pretty much anything that makes it super easy to re-flash these devices that make it super easy to do debugging and that kind of thing there are a few bucks on ebay if you want to pick up one of those you know sets of probes not really a big deal makes your life easier and then of course the ftdi flasher here smells like five bucks it's a pretty easy uh thing to do it's a pretty easy process i set up mine to provide 3.3 volts you won't want to give it 5 volts you'll murder it so if you've already set it to 5 volts and you're i'm just not getting to that i'm sorry it was 3.3 you've uh uh your your prize is that you now have a a dead whatever uh you'll have to order another one i'm sorry but there you go this thing now with the updated radio firmware can hear pretty much anything of 433 megahertz you can actually log into the web gui and it gives you a console to type commands in so if you have a a an alarm motion sensor you can go wave your arms and then come back and say hey did you see that event and if you did you can subscribe to events from that and actually forward those on to home assistant now this only supports remembering i think about eight devices that will vary a little bit with hardware and some other parameters you may be able to squeeze some more out of it depending on how uh willing to get your hands dirty that you are but eight wireless devices per puck that it can listen for and then forward the events to home assistant i'm fine with that that's that's basically okay i'm good with that this has been a quick look at flashing the tesmota 433 megahertz wireless bridge if you already have an alarm in your home that you're not using and you want to use it for non-alarm things you totally can now me personally as i explained in the video a couple of videos ago i actually just augmented my home alarm panel so my alarm panel passes through to home assistant so i don't need to do something like this a lot of my sensors aren't wireless anyway some of them are most of them aren't and instead of having my sensors go to this thing directly they go through the alarm panel and secondarily into home assistant that's another way to do it and that is a more reliable way because there are less wireless components in it but with the appropriate firmware i was surprised how reliable this was i'm one of those level one i'm signing out and you can find me in the level one forums especially if you have any questions you\n"