Hello all, I am baffled, my new Ihost is insisting that none of my Sonoff SA-003-UK-WIFI smart sockets are supported yet. I’ve installed eWeLink Smart Home, in docker and gave it my Ewelink account details. Ihost Docker correctly lists my Smarthome devices but none of them are controllable from the Ihost pages. The only devices that show up are 3 thermostats and 1 wall light switch. All other installed devices are showing as Not Supported Yet?
What am I missing ?
Many Thanks in advance. James
The problems with iHost are many. Look in the forum. I hope they will solve the problems as soon as possible!
Lots of the problem people complain about can be solved with the Node Red docker. Usually a pain in the arse though.
Take for instance all the talk of NS Panel Pro. I don’t have one but I’m pretty sure they can have Node Red. Talking using MQTT between Node Red on the iHost to Node Red on the NS Panel Pro is quite simple, just tedious and the iHost can instal the mosquito MQTT broker. Similarly the iHost dashboard lacks battery status but you can access it using Node Red and then see it or send notifications. Ditto wanting to trigger based on the radiator temperature, although I’m skeptical it updates often enough to be a trigger. More likely a condition. The major annoyance I have is that you can’t remotely trigger Zigbee pairing without a laptop and the inability to manually see TRV in the dashboard.
What I find extremely disappointing is that the iHost web pages and marketing information make many wild claims that this device will work with anything, In fact it will NOT.
It does not even work with any of the common Sonoff power sockets.
I purchased this iHost with the expectation that it will be an improvement on the Android Ewelink Smart Home app, but it is not. This should work Out of the box for their own products and not require the new owner to trawl the web looking for clues and not by having to learn about docker/node red/or anything else…
It will not work with their own devices without giving the owner much grief. I have managed to get Docker to recognise the sonoff smart sockets but the Ewelink Smart Home plugin does not, So for me, this iHost is an expensive failure. Worse than the standard Android app.
I also see that the NSPanel Pro is not recognised by iHost, so far I am wasting way to much cash on this equipment with nothing but grief in return.
The Marketing team are making so many promises but the iHost cannot deliver on them.
Sonoff/Itead/Ewelink: Make the iHost work with your own products - Out Of The Box.
Pretty Please.
I haven’t even started to experience how the iHost is supposed to make needing the cloud, obsolete by hosting the eco-system on the iHost, I’ve yet to encounter any mention of this, during my initial use of this box.
NS Panel Pro has Node Red so it’s quite easy to communicate with an iHost using MQTT. I have a home assistant and communicate all the time. Pretty sure there is already and MQTT broker installed because if you install your own you can’t use the standard port of 1883.
The devices of mine it doesn’t support are the older ones, which is annoying but kinda understandable. I plan to just put tasmota on them. Not supporting newer devices is just weird. Of these I would not say the TRV I have is supported as without dashboard access I can’t do anything without going to the gym turning on my PC, logging on to windows 11, loading Firefox and then then the iHost and the TRV aren’t very useful in Node Red, otherwise you could just create a NodeRED dashboard and access it there.
Overall comparing it to home assistant I can see it is trying to be a simpler version with less complexity, but currently failing because there are lots of hoops to jump through. Not as many as Home Assistant though. Only yesterday my Tuya devices disappeared and I had to extend my developers account HA project. Also connecting google was a PITA. Point is there is a niche for a device that is simpler than Home Assistant and fulfills many of the same functions but at present the iHost is too complicated so at present if just recommend getting a Pi4, power supply, case and Zigbee dongle and putting Home Assistant on it.