Note that the quality of the Sonoff devices is what you pay for…
2 out of 4 devices I ordered, S20 and smart switch, are not working anymore within a year (and their warrant period is only 90 days).
One defect worries me a lot because it almost started a fire (the power switched by the device was well below the maximum). So I am looking for a better quality alternative
This is indeed worrisome. I am only using them for low-consuming devices and did not have any issues yet. (Round about 40 devices in three homes)
There are many alternatives out there. However if you look for “better quality” you need to look at vendors located in better regulated countries. Established products do not work over WiFi. You’ll probably look at expensive components on Z-Wave or other specialized technologies… If someone knows of other devices that work via Wifi and are not enslaved by some dubious cloud, let me know!
Out of interest, what sort were the other two (the ones that are still working?)
The S20 and Smart switch don’t have any electrical safety certification. The ones that do have CE, the TH16, TH10, POW and DUAL look to have a PCB that is better designed for safety with better barriers etc.
The other Sonoffs are fine for ‘playing’ but really shouldn’t be used ‘full-time’ in your house because of risk of fire or electrocution.
Yeah that’s not ideal… I got 3 of the 4CH models to put into my switch panel to control lights centrally. The boards look to be of a decent quality.
Might have to put a temp sensor on each to possibly warn me of anything bad…
It looks like you’re ok.
The 4CH and 4CH Pro are certified too with their own compliance certificates.
Here’s the link to the page (the certificate links are at the bottom of the page).
i have two S20 and two smart switches (basic). One of each broke down.
it is not clear to me that they cannot be used for day to day usage:
The basic has a CE certificate (including safety): https://www.itead.cc/wiki/File:CE_Certificate-Sonoff_Basic.jpg
The Sonoff Basic certification is fairly new (June 2017) which is why I hadn’t seen it before and these devices have been available for more than a year.
It looks like the Smart sockets also has certification now too.
Anyway, it’s great that Itead are taking this all seriously and getting their products approved even if they’re still catching fire!
Hello!
Anyone have an experience with Sonoff Touch? Are they melting/catching fire too? I have 3 of them installed, but they are controlling single light bulbs (75 W max).
Best regards,
Davor
Hi,
i am currently playing around with a SONOFF switch. But I am not too much into flashing hardware if it is capeable of doing things already. So I got some code together which allows me to control the device via a webserver. Means, I start a HTTPS request an the device turns on / off. Also I am able to see, which devices are online and which state they have. Instead of using the ITEAD Cloud, I am using a local implementation, which makes the switch very fast.
Thing is: I would like to make this work as a regular openhab binding, but it has been decades since I have coded Java. Also I am new to openhab development. To avoid frustration on my side => has anybody knowlage if there is already somewhere a sonoff binding, that creates a local cloud for openhab? Otherwise I will create a Node-RED setup, which should be good enough for my case 
Best regards
Michael
I did a bit of reading into this.
It looks like the overheating PCB problem is due to lack of manufacturing control over the tinning of the PCB carrying the load current (at mains voltage).
The copper tracks themselves aren’t thick enough so they add extra solder by hand to increase the thickness and lower the impedance.
The problem here is that ‘adding’ some more tin by hand’ is a procedure that is difficult to control and measure.
If your board doesn’t have enough and the load is large enough then it could overheat.
(There was a recall for this problem).
CE certification (once the initial sample testing has been conducted), is basically self-certification by the manufacturer.
Putting it another way, the devices could have a ream of safety certificates and still overheat.
UL certification on the other hand, and to exactly the same standards, also requires yearly factory inspections and monitoring of assembly procedures. The lack of control over the hand-tinning of the tracks would almost definitely have been picked up.
As an example of a more controlled and repeatable process, a PCB with thicker and wider copper tracks would do it, possibly with a larger PCB and hence device footprint and greater cost.
In summary, I’d probably suggest that people periodically check the PCBs of their sonoff devices (with the power disconnected) and check for any burning. especially if they are using them for higher loads such as heaters.
Just a shout out to say how much I love the Sonota method of replacing the sonoff firmware with tasmota without doing any soldering or evening opening the case!
Genius stuff!
Just recently did 4 basics, 1 pow and 1 4CH.
@Opsym
What kind of load you had on that switch? As I see from my Sonoff Touch, the PCB has quite big creepage distances, so they shouldn’t cause any problem. In your case I see that connector pin melt out, so it looks like overloading was the cause.
Hi,
i´m trying to implement the maintenance rule:
rule "Wartung: Sonoff" when Item Sonoff_Action received command then logInfo(filename, "Wartung - on all Sonoff devices: " + receivedCommand) for (String device_id : sonoff_device_ids) { switch (receivedCommand) { case "restart" :{ publish("mosquitto", "cmnd/" + device_id + "/restart", "1") } case "queryFW" :{ publish("mosquitto", "cmnd/" + device_id + "/status", "2") } case "upgrade" : { publish("mosquitto", "cmnd/" + device_id + "/otaurl", "http://sonoff.maddox.co.uk/tasmota/sonoff.ino.bin") publish("mosquitto", "cmnd/" + device_id + "/upgrade", "1") } } } Sonoff_Action.postUpdate(NULL) end
When i try to run the rule i get this message:
[INFO ] [.smarthome.model.script.system.rules] - Wartung - on all Sonoff devices: restart 2017-10-29 14:55:40.875 [ERROR] [.script.engine.ScriptExecutionThread] - Rule 'Wartung: Sonoff': An error occurred during the script execution: The name 'publish(<XStringLiteralImpl>,<XBinaryOperationImplCustom>,<XStringLiteralImpl>)' cannot be resolved to an item or type.
The devices are working in other rules or directly from the sitemap.
Any ideas?
@Artyom_Syomushkin The device that was connected to the sonoff has a maximum power of 1800 Watt (so about 7.8 A). Maybe the tinning is an issue causing overloading below the specifications.
I just saw another user complain about the safety of the Sonoff devices:
http://support.iteadstudio.com/support/discussions/topics/11000012976
For switching a simple light it is probably ok. For higher loads (> 3A) I do not feel safe with Sonoff anymore.
That article reckons the fuse holder is at fault. It’s difficult to tell whether the overheating is from the tracks as I described before or from the actual fuse holder overheating.
I’m surprised, in the EN60669-1 test report that the fuse holders are not mentioned in the critical component list of the report. I don’t have a copy of EN60669-1 but from previous experience, fuse holders are always included in the report and should be a named part (manufacturer and part number).
This is not the case here which to me, makes the whole report a little bit suspect.
You need to install the openHAB add-on “MQTT action”.
…sometimes its that easy :)…THX Thomas 
It doesn’t seem as anybody here is really interested in using sonoff without flashing them. Anyway: here is code that emulates the sonoff cloud, and can easily being interested with the http binding into openhab.
Thanks for the hint, it’s great to hear, that there is a way.
For me and I believe most others the reasoning for flashing is probably the following: The Sonoff Tasmota firmware is free, open source, feature rich and cloud-decoupled. The module will henceforth communicate via MQTT and offer many functions and options not available with the original firmware. In retrospective I’d go as far and say that the Sonoff modules become especially interesting for home automation because of the Tasmota firmware.
Is this also applicable to the sonoff led lights?
