ESPHome fails to connect to hidden SSIDs

Ralms commented 1 year ago

The problem

Hi there,

I've recently acquired a couple NSPanels, to use with HomeAssistant, that need to be flashes with ESPHome.

Everything was working fine with flashing, it would recognize the device, it would flash, give the congratulations message every time (using the Web portal to flash).

But than it wouldn't connect to the Wifi.

I've tried:

Using 2 different TTL to USB adapters, one of them the DSD Tech which has a genuine FTDI chip.
Removing special characters from the Wifi Password.
Writing the password directly on the YAML instead of using Secrets.
Having a just letters SSID and no dashes or anything. E.g.: IOTWifi

Then, in a desperation, I decided to have it connect to my Guest Wifi and connected straight away.

My Guest Wifi is visible, however I use an smart devices dedicated Wifi called "IOTWifi", which is hidden as its only intended for smart devices.

As such, its clear that ESPHome is not connecting or attempting to connect if the SSID is not visible.

Which version of ESPHome has the issue?

2023.6.5

What type of installation are you using?

Docker

Which version of Home Assistant has the issue?

No response

What platform are you using?

ESP32

Board

Sonoff NSPanel EU

Component causing the issue

No response

Example YAML snippet

substitutions:

###### CHANGE ME START ######

  device_name: "YOUR NSPANEL_NAME" 
  wifi_ssid: "YOUR WIFI SSID"
  wifi_password: "YOUR WIFI PASSWORD"

  nextion_update_url: "http://HOME-ASSISTANT-IP:8123/local/nspanel_us.tft" # URL to local tft File
#  nextion_update_url: "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Blackymas/NSPanel_HA_Blueprint/main/nspanel_us.tft" # URL to Github

##### CHANGE ME END #####

##### DO NOT CHANGE ANYTHING! #####

packages:
  ##### download esphome code from Github
  remote_package:
    url: https://github.com/Blackymas/NSPanel_HA_Blueprint
    ref: main
    files: [nspanel_esphome.yaml]
    refresh: 300s

##### DO NOT CHANGE ANYTHING! #####

Anything in the logs that might be useful for us?

No response

Additional information

Project in question where the Yaml was retrieved: https://github.com/Blackymas/NSPanel_HA_Blueprint/wiki/(EN)-First-Steps---Installation-and-Setup

Ralms commented 1 year ago

Update: It turns out that ESPHome does support connecting to Hidden SSIDs, but for some reason you need to enable the "fast_connect" property under Wifi to "true". https://esphome.io/components/wifi.html

Wouldn't it make more sense for this to be the default behavior and if it fails to connect to do the Wifi Scan?

ssieb commented 1 year ago

The docs clearly explain that you need that option for hidden SSIDs and also the drawbacks of using it.

esphome / issues