RF devices with HA

I am a big fan of using RF devices with Home Assistant. They are very low power and run on batteries. I have devices that are two plus years old on the same battery, and they are cheap. I have almost 20 plus devices in my home setup.

I use a Sonoff RF bridge:

You can get it on Amazon usually around the $20-30 range. If you want to wait you can find them on Bangood or Aliexpress. I have seen them for like $9 but that's not including shipping.

In the beginning I wasn't aware of the power of this little device. When I got mine I flashed it with Tasmota.

Dr Zzzs video on flashing Tasmota to RF bridge

DigiBlur's video on RF and Tasmota

I was able to flash it and get it working with Tasmota. I bought a bunch of sensors and devices. I have been told only some devices can receive codes with the RF bridge flashed this way. I have not found any devices that I have bought that didn't work. But I have only bought 433 Mhz devices.

These are the devices that I have and I know they work because they give me a code:

• Kerui- motion detectors and leak detectors                                                                      Sonoff- RF devices all work I have tried them all                                                                Govee- leak detectors

The code that I am referring to is the RF code that the device gives when it activates or deactivates. Some devices will give you those two separate codes. Some devices only give you one. If you want to see that code open up the Tasmota console for your RF bridge.

That is the code for the device that you need for Home Assistant. Now Assuming that you have your Bridge discovered in HA, you can create your sensors.

They are binary sensors in HA. here is examples of the yaml I have for my RF devices:

  - platform: mqtt

    state_topic: "tele/RF_Bridge/RESULT"

    name: 'Kitchen Motion'

    value_template: '{{value_json.RfReceived.Data}}'

    payload_on: 'D3A31E'

    payload_off: 'D3A31Eoff'

    device_class: motion

    off_delay: 20

    qos: 1

You need to change the name, the payload on and off, and the device class. There is motion, moisture (leak detectors), door, and smoke. I don't know if there are others, but those are the ones I use. The payload on and off for this device only has one code so you add off to the same code to turn it off. The off delay is what you set to make sure they don't reset right away. For instance in the above code you don't want the motion detector to deactivate immediately so I have found 20 seconds is a good time for me. Save your Yaml and restart HA. You will now have binary sensors for the device you added.

Now unlike Zigbee or Zwave there will not be a battery state for them. But I have had my first RF device for almost three years and it still works.

Now here is my opinion on the smoke detectors, and this is the opinion of a fire captain of over 15 years. Smoke detectors are a must in any house. I can't tell you how many house fires that had injuries/fatalities due to a lack of, or defective smoke detectors. If you have smoke detectors prewired in your house use them as they are part of a system. But the RF smoke detectors can be added in addition to, or as the primary ones. Just put damn smoke detectors in your house. Change the batteries annually PERIOD. There is my lecture.

If you don't want to go down the flashing route there is a way to use the RF bridge without flashing it:

Or Doc just did a stream and made a video on flashing another firmware on the bridge that will open up more devices you can use. Which is way more advanced than I will use but it is something I might do down the road. Here is that video:

 

I love RF devices. I see posts all the time about people trying to use them in HA. It took me awhile and a lot of questions before I was able to get it to work.
 

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