Sonoff smart home

hello guys , can i use sonoff devices separately with its own app ( ewelink ) to make a complete smart home system ? or it is better to bind it with openhab ? and why ?

ewelink is a cloud app, so if you don’t have access to the internet, you can’t control the sonoff other than using the push button (there are different reasons why you - or the sonoffs - can loose the internet connection).
A smart home system is not “I can control those two lamps with my smart phone” :wink:
Instead the smart home should do most things without any manual interaction. I doubt that ewelink is able to do so.

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i just joined the field few months ago , my little knowledge is that any system needs a connection to the internet .

the problem with me is that , i just joined the field few months ago . i was following this guide : https://www.mksmarthouse.com/guides
that is based on 4 main parts :
1- setting up a home network
2- setting up a home automation server using a rasbperry pi and openhab
3- setting up the remote access
4- then you can start adding your devices ( smart switches , plugs , fire systems , …etc )
my pivotal confusion is that i found that sonoff and shelly , for example , provides much simpler systems that doesn’t need rasbperry pi or openhab , you just attach the device ( switch , plug . …etc ) with electricity and bind it with thier own app , that simple . the question is why i would be forced to use a complex system while there is more simpler systems provided ?

Amongst other reasons:

  • openHAB allows to control those different devices ( sonoff and shelly for example) from a single user interface. In order to do that openHAB has do its magic and has to be setup. The last has to be done by the one adminstrating the whole system (you?) but not by the ordinary user.

  • using devices like sonoff and/or shelly “the easy way”, i.e. via the company provided cloud you are going to depend on that company. They could just stop the support for your device-type or even stopp providing the cloud.

…

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No, that’s not true (at least sort of).

Of course you will need an internet connection to get all components, in case of openHAB to get Java and openHAB2 packets, but once openHAB is setup, no internet connection is used if not explicitly wanted (i.e. when getting data from internet like weather forecast from openweathermap, or e.g. pollen forecast, or to control some systems which are only usable through the cloud - :man_shrugging:)
But in case of Sonoff, if using an alternative firmware like Tasmota or espEasy, you don’t need the cloud crap from manufacturer, but only mosquitto to enable communication with openHAB through mqtt protocol. This is easily hosted on a raspberry (along with openHAB2 and maybe additional software to get access to other hardware)
On the other hand, if you want to get access to your home from internet, you will need a connection, but this is possible through a ssh tunnel, vpn or the openHAB cloud (you can host this piece of software or use the free myopenhab.org), it’s even possible to avoid internet completely by using dial-up access (that’s not part of openHAB).

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Hi all,
I’ll jump into the discussion, as I’m interested in this too.
I just got delivered my Sonoff S26 and I happily managed to connect it to its native Ewelink app app.
Now, here is where I think would be great to have a simple to follow procedure to be able to add this device to Openhab, without all the spaghetti discussions.
So I’ll do some research but it would be great if that could be clarified and centralized somewhere.

You might want to take a look here: Ewelink / Sonoff Binding - New binding without flashing

Your mileage may vary; for some reason i can’t get this to work with Openhab3, so i will flash my devices with Tasmota as soon as my serial-to-USB converter has arrived.