1 Technophile

 These last years OMG has grown leveraging different types of libraries for device decoding: RCSwitch at the beginning for RF/433mhz IRRemote and IRRemote ESP8266 for Infrared ESPilight and  RTL_433_ESP  for RF And many others for sensors, actuators, processing, mqtt... I thank all the maintainers and contributors of these libraries, without them, OMG would not exist. As you know OMG support also Bluetooth device decoding and control , we are not relying on a library for this, but rather on the OMG code. This is mainly due to the history, with the first reading of a Mi Flora by an HM10 integrated in November 2017 and the ESP32 reading of this same sensor in January 2018.  After BLE devices were added from time to time to reach a list of more than 25 devices compatible. A lot of other open-source software are using the BLE data broadcasted to propose a similar approach, sometimes dedicated to one or a range of devices, for a particular platform, or for a particular c...

You can now upload your board directly from the web browser!  So let's imagine you want to read data from a sensor like a Mi Flora, an LYWSD03MMC, a weight scale, or any other BLE sensor from this list  Plug an ESP32 dev board to your computer USB port Go to this website: https://docs.openmqttgateway.com/upload/web-install.html Select esp32dev-ble Click the install button Depending on your board you may have to press the BOOT button Choose the port that the ESP is connected to. Wait until the process is complete. Release the BOOT button That's it, OMG is now loaded into your ESP32 board without Arduino IDE, platformIO or a binary flasher. Here are the steps in images: Now comes the Home Assistant part: Add the MQTT integration and activate auto discovery Create a user and a password (Configuration->Users) without administrator right for the gateway Well, this is enough for Home Assistant. So let's now connect both: Check the Wifi Access points available with your smartph...

For a few years now we are able to read BLE sensors with an ESP32 . These sensors are advertizing their data with a one to many communication principle. This type of BLE communication has the big advantage of being low power for the sensor, these BLE devices can last several months/years on a battery. This is especially interesting with home automation or use cases that don't require a long-range communication. My test regarding BLE range gives outside  around 60m/200ft  with an LYWSD03MMC  (a popular temperature and humidity sensor). That's enough to cover a house with one or a few gateways. Where it could be difficult is when you want to have BLE sensors outside, so as to monitor your vegetable garden moisture, have some temperature sensors into your greenhouse or check that your garage/storage room door is closed. It may be difficult for the sensor to reach the BLE gateway inside and you may not have power outside. Also you may not want to invest into a communication ...