My Sonoff and Home Assistant experience

Ideas & Suggestion Free discussion
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I have been using Sonoff products and Ewelink for over 10 years now. I had around 30 devices in my house before we moved.

I bought a Sonoff Cube, the iHost. It has been fun to play with. And cast. It seems some devices are dependent on one or the other. I can see my zigbee sensors in the iHost but not in Ewelink on my phone. I can set inching in Ewelink but not in iHost. Lol I have figured it out and it is manageable. A little awkward but still manageable.

So I set up all my scenes in the iHost and none in ewelink. That’s nice because they all run locally but the down side to that is if I notice something is not quite right and I need to tweak a scene I have to do it locally from within my home network. I can’t see the scenes in ewelink when I’m out and about. A minor inconvenience.

The plus side is that once I have everything tweaked then I can set it and forget it. I won’t need to tweak anything remotely.

Now in my new house I am setting things up again. I have about a dozen devices so far. Porch lights, garage door, garage lights, exhaust fan, motion sensors, door sensors, etc. Sonoff Basic2’s, TH10’s, and miniR4’s.

My new house already had sensors on all the doors and windows. They are z wave sensors. They had some kind of alarm system here. I think these sensors are kind of expensive, like 30 to 40 dollars each, so I wanted to utilize them.

I have been noticing all the hype around home assistant. I tried to install it into a docker container in my iHost but I was never successful doing that.

Then I found other instructions where I had to flash an sd card and basically swap operating systems in the iHost. That was farther than I wanted to go for an experiment. I like my iHost and I didn’t want to destroy it or brick it.

Then I discovered Home Assistant Green on Amazon. I thought about it for a while. Then they ran out of stock. When it re-stocked I took the plunge and ordered one.

Right now in my new home I have 12 devices in ewelink. I also have a MyQ garage door opener, some Kasa motion sensors and app, Hubspace and FanLamp fans and apps, and a Honeywell T6 wifi thermostat with it’s own app. I also have a 16 channel NVR but that is on a different network than my IOT network. I have 3 networks running. My main pc network. My IOT (Sonoff) network. And my security camera network.

The HAG did not find any of them. I thought it was supposed to be automatic. Yes, it was on the right network. It was on my IOT network. I tried installing devices manually and they go by manufacturer and Sonoff and Itead are not even in their list. I don’t get it. It should have found them.

I installed a z wave usb antenna into the HAG and the HAG did not find any of the z wave sensors either.

I expected everything to be found like magic. This is what I was led to believe on line. All the switches and sensors just appear in Home Assistant. Well, that has not been my experience. It was kind of disappointing.

I thought it would have been nice to incorporate all the different devices into one app. But no. I don’t have the time or patience for this. My ewelink works just fine and I guess I’ll just continue using all the different apps. I tried to streamline it but I failed miserably.

Since I bought the HAG on Amazon I was able to return it the next day no problem. Good old Amazon.

I still don’t know what to do with all my z wave door sensors. I plugged the z wave antenna into the ihost and nada. It won’t do anything. The ihost does not even see the z wave antenna. Nice.

Did you get that? The Sonoff iHost does not see the Sonoff z wave antenna. Why would they do that? What’s the point? Sonoff doesn’t have someone to step back and look at the big picture? The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing? I find that hard to believe. Is this an oversight? It can’t be by design. What am I missing here? I don’t understand.

The Home Assistant Green did not work for me at all. Of all people lol. I used to get emails every day about new Home Assistant customizations and utilizations and dashboards. I unsubscribed and I’ll try to tune out all the screaming in my face lol.

So now I am back on Ewelink and iHost and I am not looking for the greener grass anymore. I had to look around but in the end I will stick with simplicity and what works. I’m glad I did it but what a waste of time. Now I know.

But, you know, it’s still good to do this every year or two anyway just to be sure I am still current. Just to see if I am missing anything. Or if anything newer and better has been developed yet.

I like having my wifi switches and sensors working reliably and predictably. I don’t want to be constantly tweaking and troubleshooting, I have better things to do. And to not have the wife raise an eyebrow at me. Hmmmmmmmm lol

The latest… I am giving up on z wave. The sensors and the antenna. I will peel off the sensors and magnets and shove them into a box with that stinking usb z wave antenna.

I have some zigbee door sensors. I will use those instead. The iHost can see zigbee devices. I ordered some more.

There are some limitations that I am discovering work arounds for. I can’t see any zigbee devices in the ewelink app on my phone. But I can have a zigbee device trigger a device that I can see in ewelink.

I kind of like the security feature in Cast but it would be nice if I could enable the different states remotely, like from ewelink. And it would be nice if I could tie an output to the alarm. For example: have the alarm trigger an external siren. And strobe. And why 3 states? I only need 2 states. Alarm away and alarm at home. The Sleep state is redundant.

I am hoping they will revise the security screens. And I want to be able to arm it and disarm it remotely from my phone. Not using Cast in a browser on my phone, in the ewelink app. Or better yet have it geo sense me and have it arm and dis-arm automatically when I am home or not. And I want it to be able to trigger devices and to sense devices. Like inputs and outputs. Like any normal alarm panel. Then it might be useful.

I don’t really have a question – I am just relaying my Home Assistant bad experience and my renewed loyalty to Ewelink and Sonoff. And maybe just a little complaining and confusion thrown in for your amusement.

Ewelink works for me and I still can’t figure out why the rest of the home automation world always seems to shun Sonoff and Ewelink. I guess I’ll just stay isolated in my own little universe here. It kind of reminds me of the old X10 days 20-30 years ago. 40 lol yeesh

So if I mis stated something or if it is obvious to you that I don’t understand something please speak up. Tell me what I am missing. PLEASE. This is definitely a work in progress but I don’t want to have to re-invent the wheel to get a little automation going. I’m old and fat and lazy. I want to set it and forget it. I want it to work for me, not the other way around.

TIA for reading the ramblings of an old man.

Any help and guidance will be greatly appreciated.

Never stop learning!

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I’ll be honest - getting through your post felt like navigating a maze built out of half‑connected smart devices, loose cables, and three different apps all shouting for attention. The threads jump around so much I had to check twice whether I wasn’t reading three different stories at once.

Most of the frustration you’re describing doesn’t come from the hardware. Obviously, it comes from treating completely different systems as if they all worked the same way.

  1. You’re comparing a “TV dinner” to a full kitchen.
    eWeLink + iHost is the microwave meal: unwrap, press a button, done.
    Home Assistant is the full kitchen: you can cook anything, but you need to know where the knives are and that ingredients don’t chop themselves.

Both approaches are brilliant in their own way, just built for totally different purposes.
Expecting HA to behave like eWeLink is the root of half your confusion.

  1. HA is not a magic box that auto‑discovers everything you own.
    It’s not iHost.
    It’s not eWeLink.
    It’s not “plug it in and watch the fireworks.”

Sonoff devices don’t auto‑appear in HA. They require integrations. Thinking otherwise is a very common beginner mistake.

  1. Plugging a Z‑Wave dongle into iHost doesn’t give iHost Z‑Wave superpowers.
    iHost doesn’t have a Z‑Wave stack.
    The dongle can’t magically install one.

It’s like sticking a USB stick into a toaster and expecting it to download firmware updates.

  1. Zigbee devices on iHost will never show up in eWeLink.
    Not a bug.
    Not an oversight.
    Not eWeLink “forgetting something.”

iHost is local.
eWeLink is cloud.
There is no sync between the two.

  1. Cast is not an alarm system.
    It’s a cute little widget.

Expecting siren outputs, geofencing, multi‑state logic and remote arming is like expecting your kitchen timer to run a fire station.

  1. HA Green is not for people who want to click once and be done.
    It’s for people who enjoy tinkering, reading docs, and understanding protocols.

If you want “set it and forget it,” HA will only annoy you - and that’s perfectly fine.

  1. You’re mixing protocols like ingredients in a random salad.
    Zigbee ≠ Z‑Wave ≠ WiFi.
    They don’t behave the same, don’t integrate the same, and don’t magically unify themselves.

Expecting them to act identically is why everything feels “broken” to you.

Bottom line:
Nothing is actually malfunctioning. Your expectations just don’t match how these systems/platforms are designed, and again, both are great, just aimed at totally different kinds of users.

If you want simplicity, stick with eWeLink + iHost. They’re built exactly for that.
If you want flexibility, HA is fantastic but it requires learning, not wishful thinking. And don’t worry! Everyone in home automation has, at some point, tried to turn iHost into HA, HA into eWeLink, and a USB dongle into a miracle. It’s practically a rite of passage.

Happy automating :slight_smile:

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Thank you for your extensive reply. You put some thought into your answers. I appreciate that.

Yes I want simplicity and reliability and repeatability. So I am sticking with ewelink and iHost.

I don’t know if I am all that frustrated, maybe a little with the HAG not seeing everything like magic. I was totally expecting to plug it in and see fireworks! And the iHost not seeing the z wave antenna and the cute cast alarm functions. Other than that it’s all a learning experience. It’s all good.

That’s funny but I really did expect things just to magically appear in the HAG. That’s what I read on line. It was easy and automatic. Well thats what I thought anyway.

And I don’t think anything is malfunctioning. On the contrary, everything works well. I was just trying to make improvements, streamline, combine apps. Seeing if I was missing out on anything new. But no, forget about it. I will take simplicity with a handful of apps over endless tweaking any day.

What I found most incredible was plugging the Sonoff z wave antenna into the Sonoff iHost did absolutely nothing. That’s when I thought Sonoff forgot something, or had no oversight.

Not the zigbee devices. I figured them out. I can’t see zigbee devices in ewelink. And that’s ok, I have a workaround for that.

Nothing feels “broken” to me, just maybe a little unorganized. That’s all.

Sorry for jumping around but I had a rough childhood

I played in rock bands in the 80’s. So I’m a little twisted now lol

Thanks again for all your thoughts and answers.

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I see. That explains a lot :wink: