⛔️ Broken Home Assistant component and working alternative.

[dbuezas]

As stated in the readme, this library is not compatible with HA since 2022.7.0. You can use this custom component instead.

(I hope to eventually get this into HA's core, but until then it is a custom one).

Posting this issue as suggested by this repo's owner here.

[moscito1010]

test this, works fine https://github.com/softypit/esp32_mqtt_eq3

[JsBergbau]

As stated in the readme, this library is not compatible with HA since 2022.7.0. You can use this custom component instead.

(I hope to eventually get this into HA's core, but until then it is a custom one).

Posting this issue as suggested by this repo's owner here.

Since it works fine, what is the reason it is not yet in official Homeassistant?

[dbuezas]

what is the reason it is not yet in official Homeassistant?

I haven't made the time to clean it up to HA's standard and make the PR. I should get to it this winter hopefully.

[moscito1010]

I think the BT proxies are not working correctly. this no longer works correctly. https://github.com/softypit/esp32_mqtt_eq3 I have both EQ-3 thermostats with old and new firmware and it just hasn't worked properly for a few months.

There is an alternative way using a patched Tasmota version as a BT Proxy. https://github.com/Eroli/Tasmota/tree/master Here you can directly enter the MAC addresses of the respective EQ-3 units. My recommendation is not to use more than 4 units per ESP32. The best thing would be to just read here: https://github.com/dbuezas/eq3btsmart/issues/4#issuecomment-1848948210

You don't need a BT pairing. Advanced Heating Control works great with the generated entities.

[JsBergbau]

I've tested and it works great. What problems do you encounter?

If pairing is necessary is from my experience dependant of the firmware and the bluetooth device. For my test it needed pairing and worked great after that.

Using an ESP32 is no ideal solution also because of the enviromental effects. From the bluetooth side even a Raspberry PI Zero W can handle 6 thermostats without any problem. Currently I'm using them with node red. Raspberry PI Zeros have a great bluetooth (antenna) and thus a very long range compared to other devices and they need only little power.

[moscito1010]

It may be that it works well with the RPi W variants, but that hasn't been an issue so far. Personally, I don't see any advantage in using small RPi's.

The problem is not the number of TRVs a device can process or the Bluetooth. With the ESP you can have more than 4 because there are no active connections and the ESP Wroom versions with external antennas do a good job. If there are 3 or 4 TRVs in a household, an RPI may be a solution.

We now have 18 EQ-3 TRVs in use at home and until almost a year ago we were still using the small ESPs as BLE proxies. There are 6 ESP's distributed throughout the house and not just for the TRV's but in the rooms in which they are installed also partly for temperature/humidity, presence, infrared, LED, control panel. If only it had been about the TRVś...

Re-creating a working ESP IoT infrastructure with different hardware for something that already worked was simply not a solution for me. Tasmota for the ESPś is ideal in my case. I can activate all sensors with one click of the mouse and receive all relevant data via mqtt. The entities are created from the mqtt data using configuration.yaml and BLE pairing is also not an issue. The TRVś don't actually require any pairing. Nevertheless, I would prefer an ESPhome solution but let's wait and see.

[JsBergbau]

Maybe we have misunterstanding. I meant using only one central controller. It can be a full Raspberry PI, like PI3, PI4 or 5 or an small Raspberry PI Zero 2W. It has about the same performance as a PI3 but needs less energy. Using only one controller needs less hardware.

I agree with you that it makes no sense using small Raspberry Pi as Bluetooth Proxy. Therefore the ESP32 is indeed better.