New Adventures in WiFi

After failing to install Tasmota on some Australian certified smart plugs using tuya-convert  I embarked on dismantling some Sonoff S20 and S26 smart plugs and flashing Tasmota  on them using a CH340G USB to serial adaptor. I purchased the CH340G USB to serial adaptor from eBay, and you can see it below. So, starting with the S20 , there are some good instructions on flashing this device in the Tasmota documentation . I firstly disassembled my device, and had a look at the board.  You can see there are various sets of header holes, but it is those near the button that can be to be used to flash the device. Unfortunately mine weren't labelled, but the instructions I referred to previously had an image of another PCB which had the headers labelled. So, I connected the headers to the CH340G using duPont cables. It's worth noting that the RX and TX cables need to be crossed so that RX connects to TX, and vice versa. The CH340G was set to supply 3....

With a lot of smart home products coming on the market, and being discussed in my various news feeds, I was keen to start experimenting with some devices. There appeared to be a lack of products intended for the Australian market, and so after a bit of reading I learnt about Sonoff products manufactured by a company named  ITEAD  and purchased the following items. Sonoff S20 Smart Plug Sonoff RF Bridge Sonoff PIR2 Infrared Motion Detector My thinking was that I would use the S20 Smart Plug to experiment with some home automations, and use the RF Bridge and IR Motion Detector as the beginnings of a home security system. Configuration required installation of the eWeLink app by Sonoff. Unfortunately, when I sat down to start configuring the RF Bridge, I realised that potentially I was giving away more information through the app than I was willing to provide. My first pause point was the need to provide the password to my WiFi network. I also consi...