Files

Edward Firmo 4416605d85 That is not that important

2024-01-05 01:49:42 +01:00

18 KiB

Raw Blame History

Getting Started with NSPanel HA Blueprint

Welcome to this setup guide, a community-driven approach to integrating NSPanel into your smart home. Designed for users at all levels, it combines Home Assistant's user-friendly interface with ESPHome's customization options.

Whether you're a first-time smart device user or an enthusiast looking to personalize your setup, this guide provides the necessary tools and instructions. Let's embark on creating a smart home that's uniquely yours.

Note

Some images or instructions on this guide might be slighly different due to different configurations depending on your ESPHome and Home Assistant implementation or versions.
If you find something that is not understandable or needs to be updated, please let us know. You can create an issue reporting this, or fix it yourself and submit a Pull Request to this repository.

Summary

Preparation
ESPHome firmware
Upload TFT
Blueprint
How to handle multiple panels
Advanced configuration for ESPHome and Home Assistant experts
Additional Tips and Resources

Preparation

Start by ensuring you have all the necessary tools and files. This includes your NSPanel device, a stable internet connection, and access to your Home Assistant instance.

If flashing it for the first time, please look for additional preparation and tools on the Flashing the device for the first time section later in this guide.

ESPHome firmware

Preparing the ESPHome environment

In order to flash your NSPanel, you need a firmware generated by ESPHome. You can use ESPHome as an add-on in your Home Assistant, installed locally in your computer or any other type of installation. This guide will be based on the ESPHome dashboard which is available in all implementations.

For more information on how to install ESPHome as an add-on to your Home Assistant, please refer to this external guide: Getting Started with ESPHome and Home Assistant
For more information on how to install ESPHome manually in your computer, please refer to this external guide: Installing ESPHome Manually

Setup a device on ESPHome Dashboard

Once you have the ESPHome Dashboard available, please follow the steps bellow:

Click the button + New device
Add the unique name of your new device in ESPHome:
Select ESP32 as device type:
Click Skip button, as we don't want to start the installation yet:
Find the entry related to your newly created device in the ESPHome Dashboard and click the button Edit.
In the yaml dialog, you might want to copy the api: area to another temporary file, just in case. That is not really necessary, but can be used to improve the security in your system (more details later).
Take note also of the device name in the beginning of the file. Under esphome, it is the value for name (in this examble, the device name is my-new-nspanel, with dashes between the words):

Clear all the content and paste the following:

substitutions:
  ###### Settings - You can edit these values ######
  device_name: "YOUR_NSPANEL_NAME" 
  wifi_ssid: !secret wifi_ssid
  wifi_password: !secret wifi_password

  nextion_update_url: "http://homeassistant.local:8123/local/nspanel_eu.tft"

  ##### addon-configuration #####
  # heater_relay: "1" # possible values: 1/2 - Used by add-on climate

  ###### Settings - End #####

##### My customization - Start #####
##### My customization - End #####

###### Do not change area - Start ######
packages:
  remote_package:
    url: https://github.com/Blackymas/NSPanel_HA_Blueprint
    ref: main
    files:
      - nspanel_esphome.yaml # Core package
      # - advanced/esphome/nspanel_esphome_advanced.yaml # activate advanced (legacy) elements - can be useful for troubleshooting
      # - nspanel_esphome_addon_climate_cool.yaml # activate for local climate (cooling) control
      # - nspanel_esphome_addon_climate_heat.yaml # activate for local climate (heater) control
      # - nspanel_esphome_addon_climate_dual.yaml # activate for local climate (dual) control
    refresh: 300s

esp32:
  framework:
    type: esp-idf
###### Do not change area - End ######

Edit the Settings area. As your device name, ideally use the same device name you recorder on the step 7:
For wifi_ssid and wifi_password you can either replace the existing text by your Wi-Fi credentials or, if you want to keep that information a bit safer (and make easier to share your setting later to help someone or to ask for help), you can leave as it is and edit this later by clicking on the button Secrets in the top right area of the ESPHome Dashboard.
This is a quite objective video about secrets if you want to see how it works: YouTube - 3ATIVE VFX Studio - Home Assistant guide: How I use Secrets in ESPHome
You can also edit nextion_update_url to point to a local copy of the TFT file.
We will come back to this on the Upload TFT section, but it is important to know that you have this option which could be useful if your panel don't have access to the Internet or if you have trouble when uploading the TFT file directly from the GitHub repository.
(optional) You can optionally enable API encryption by adding the key copied on step 6 and adding it to the My customization area. This will encrypt the communication between your panel and Home Assistant, which may be important if you will use your panel to transfer sensitive information, like a pin code when disabling an alarm.
This can be set later, if you want to skip it for now.
When all settings are correct, click the button Save in the top and close this yaml window.

Done! Your NSPanel is all set into your ESPHome Dashbord.

Flashing the device for the first time

Drive safe

Caution

Make sure your panel's controller module is disconnected from main power during all the work.
If your device is open and plugged directly into the wall, you’ll be a single touch away from being electrocuted.

Warning

You are solely responsible for your own safety.
If you feel something is wrong or are uncomfortable with continuing, stop immediately.

Don't use any eletronic component above 3.3VDC. Make sure you TTL adapter is set to 3.3VDC. Any value above this treshold can permanently damage your panel.
Use a clean area when disassembling your device and make sure you don't scratch your device's screen.
Keep all the parts (screws, cables, etc.) safe.

Required Tools:

If you are going to flash your NSPanel with ESPHome for the first time you also may need:

USB-to-Serial TTL adapter
jumper wires
breakable headers (optional)
An appropriated screw driver for unassembling your panel's controller module (touch plate)

Connecting your device via USB-to-Serial TTL interface

Before start unassembling your panel, please take a look at the following material:

<<add pictures of the board & wiring>> <> <>

Integrating your panel to Home Assistant

Making changes Over The Air (OTA)

<< add instructions how to flash wirelessly>>

Updating

<< add instructions how to flash wirelessly>> << considerations - update all to the same version >>

Migrating from other custom firmware

The installation in a NSPanel with Sonoff's original firmware should be straighforward, however, if you have installed some other custom firmware before, you may have additional steps to execute.

NSPanel Lovelace UI

If you have already installed on your NSPanel the "nspanel-lovelace-ui" firmware from @joBr99 or from Tasmota, an intermediate step is necessary. Please execute that first before returning here.

Other

Please try the standard process and if you find any issue, please create a new issue and inform which custom firmware you have installed before migrating to NSPanel HA Blueprint.

Upload TFT

Select the right file

Uploading to Nextion

Troubleshooting TFT transfer issues

We have an useful guide for troubleshooting TFT transfer issues. Please take a look there.

Blueprint

In this area we will provide guidance on how to import the blueprint from our GitHub repository to your Home Assistant, use that to create a new automation to setup your panel and how to update the blueprint when a new version is available.

All these processes are quite easy with the latest versions of Home Assistant, but please come back to us if you have any question or if something isn't very clear.

Importing the blueprint

Home Assistant makes this step very easy for you. Just click the button bellow and follow it's steps:

Creating an automation

Now that Home Assistant is equiped with our Blueprint, you have to create a new automation using that newly imported Blueprint. Please follow these steps:

On Home Assistant, go to Settings, then Automations & Scenes and then click on the tab Blueprints. Or just follow the link from the button bellow.
Find the Blueprint named NSPanel Configuration and click on it.
On the Blueprint settings, select your panel on the NSPanel device input (the very first input).
Fill the other relevant entries on the Blueprint settings and then hit the Save button.
Give a name for your automation. Anything that would help you to identify it later. Then click Rename.

That's it.

Tip

For a more compreehensive list of what you can do on your panel's settings, please refeer to the Blueprint guide.

Editing the settings in your automation

You can always edit the settings in your automation to add some new configuration, edit some existing configuration or remove things.

In order to edit it, in Home Assistant, go to Settings and then Automations & Scenes or click on the button bellow:

On the Automations page, fnd your automation in the list and click on it.

After changing the settings, please remember to click on Save to send the new settings to your panel. It shouldn't take more than a few seconds for your panel to receive the new settings, however some changes won't be visible until the page is reloaded.

Tip

For a more compreehensive list of what you can do on your panel's settings, please refeer to the Blueprint guide.

How to handle multiple panels

If you have multiple panels, just repeat the steps above for each panel. You should have one entry per panel on the ESPHome Dashboard, on entry (device) per panel under Home Assistant integrations (Settings > Devices & Services > ESPHome) and one automation per panel under Home Assistant automations.

Important

Make sure you don't have the same panel assigned to more than one automation. Unfortunatly Home Assistant don't offers a mechanism to prevent this situation which could drive to your panel not showing what is expected and an unnecessary load over Home Assistant and your Wi-Fi network.

Advanced configuration for ESPHome and Home Assistant experts

Warning

Customizations and advanced mode are not supported by this project's team. Use this with caution and only when you know what you are doing.

Before you start customizing your system, we would like to invite you to share anything nice you achieve. You can always create a new Pull Request to dev branch and this will give a chance for other users with similar challenges to take advantage of your discoveries.

ESPHome

The simpler way to go "advanced" with ESPHome is to use "Customizations". We have a page specifically for that where, again, your contribution is very welcome: Customization

If you want for some reason use a local copy of nspanel_esphome.yaml, you can copy the file from GitHub to you local file system and reference in your ESPHome settings like this:

substitutions:
  ###### Settings - You can edit these values ######
  device_name: "YOUR_NSPANEL_NAME" 
  wifi_ssid: !secret wifi_ssid
  wifi_password: !secret wifi_password

  nextion_update_url: "http://homeassistant.local:8123/local/nspanel_eu.tft"

  ##### addon-configuration #####
  # heater_relay: "1" # possible values: 1/2 - Used by add-on climate

  ###### Settings - End #####

##### My customization - Start #####
##### My customization - End #####

###### Do not change area - Start ######
packages:
  local_package: !include packages/nspanel_esphome.yaml

esp32:
  framework:
    type: esp-idf
###### Do not change area - End ######

Note

Note that a sub-folder was used in the example above in order to avoid that file to be added as an additional device in your ESPHome dashboard.
You can also have the file in the same folder, but with it's name starting with ., so ESPHome dashboard understands that file should be ignored when listing devices.

Blueprint

The Blueprint file nspanel_blueprint.yaml can also be installed manually or you can edit locally your copy of the Blueprint, however be aware that your changes will be lost if you reload the Blueprint from the repository.

TFT file

On the GitHub repository you will find all the .HMI files used in this project. You can use the Nextion Editor to modify those files and generate your own .tft files to be loaded to your device.

For a better understanding on how to use Nextion, please use the following documentation:

Additional Tips and Resources

Tip

We have an useful guide for troubleshooting TFT transfer issues. Please take a look there first.

After troubleshooting, if issues persist, consult the Issues and feel free to create a new one asking for more personalized assistance.

Please share as much info as possible, like:

Describing (or a picture of) what is in your screen
Are updating from a previous version of this same project, or coming from another NSPanel customization (which one?) or customizing for the first time a panel with original Sonoff settings?
Please share the ESPHome logs from when your panel starts to the moment the upload fails.
Describe what you have already tried.

Important note

Remember, these steps are a guideline and might vary slightly based on your specific setup and previously installed system.

18 KiB Raw Blame History Unescape Escape

Getting Started with NSPanel HA Blueprint

Summary

Preparation

ESPHome firmware

Preparing the ESPHome environment

Setup a device on ESPHome Dashboard

Flashing the device for the first time

Drive safe

Required Tools:

Connecting your device via USB-to-Serial TTL interface

Integrating your panel to Home Assistant

Making changes Over The Air (OTA)

Updating

Migrating from other custom firmware

NSPanel Lovelace UI

Other

Upload TFT

Select the right file

Uploading to Nextion

Troubleshooting TFT transfer issues

Blueprint

Importing the blueprint

Creating an automation

Editing the settings in your automation

How to handle multiple panels

Advanced configuration for ESPHome and Home Assistant experts

ESPHome

Blueprint

TFT file

Additional Tips and Resources

Important note

18 KiB

Raw Blame History