How to Update ESP config | Home Assistant | Page 1

dim arrow Apr 9, 2025, 1:20 AM

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I found out that my AtHom ESP devices are upding every 10 seconds on the network. I was told that this can cause some issues with them all talking all the time. I should tune this back a bit. To do this I need to take the YAML file from the manufacturer and edit the refresh. Question I have is that I have installed the ESPHome AddOn but I am not sure where to go from here:

I am fine with breaking my device away from manufacturer updates. but not sure why its asking for my Wifi and such..

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Here is the YAML for the device

https://github.com/athom-tech/esp32-configs/blob/main/athom-smart-plug.yaml

naive drum Apr 9, 2025, 1:28 AM

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dim arrow I found out that my AtHom ESP devices are upding every 10 seconds on the network...

it needs to know the wifi credientials so it can re connect to the network once you have taken control and and switched to custom firmware

dim arrow Apr 9, 2025, 1:28 AM

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is it easy to just upload this new config

naive drum Apr 9, 2025, 1:29 AM

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enter your wifi creds and take control and go through the firmware install. it will take a few minutes to fetch and compile stuff

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then you will be able to view and modify the yaml config.

dim arrow Apr 9, 2025, 1:30 AM

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okay thanks..

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I have 4 of these devices do I do this for each one?

naive drum Apr 9, 2025, 1:32 AM

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you will have to do it for each one yeeah, i suggest you just do 1 and getting it sorted to what you want and then move on to the next one

dim arrow Apr 9, 2025, 1:33 AM

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yeah i jsut want to update the refresh from 10s to 60

naive drum Apr 9, 2025, 1:35 AM

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it looks pretty easy to modify that

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once its gone through the process and adopted it will probably be pulling the github code as a package which is fine. you just need to add a substitution

dim arrow Apr 9, 2025, 1:36 AM

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So now I can edit the yaml and all I see is a simple one now

substitutions:
  name: athom-smart-plug-v3-4fdac0
  friendly_name: Athom Plug V3 4fdac0
packages:
  Athom_Technology.Smart_Plug_V3: github://athom-tech/esp32-configs/athom-smart-plug.yaml
esphome:
  name: ${name}
  name_add_mac_suffix: false
  friendly_name: ${friendly_name}

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do i jsut keep the relavent parts and replace it with the original YAML?

naive drum Apr 9, 2025, 1:36 AM

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hold up

dim arrow Apr 9, 2025, 1:36 AM

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holding...

naive drum Apr 9, 2025, 1:37 AM

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  name: athom-smart-plug-v3-4fdac0
  friendly_name: Athom Plug V3 4fdac0
  sensor_update_interval: 60s
packages:
  Athom_Technology.Smart_Plug_V3: github://athom-tech/esp32-configs/athom-smart-plug.yaml
esphome:
  name: ${name}
  name_add_mac_suffix: false
  friendly_name: ${friendly_name}```

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just add that line there in substitutions

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the package section is pulling the yaml from github and using it. however by specifiying the substitution in the yaml you have there when it pulls the package it will use that instead of the value in the package

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once you have that then hit save, then install, wirerlessly

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give it a moment to compile and flash

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and your done

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you could pull the code and integrate with your base code but theres no point unless you want to mess with other stuff

dim arrow Apr 9, 2025, 1:39 AM

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substitutions:
  name: athom-smart-plug-v3-4fdac0
  friendly_name: Athom Plug V3 4fdac0
  sensor_update_interval: 60s  
packages:
  Athom_Technology.Smart_Plug_V3: github://athom-tech/esp32-configs/athom-smart-plug.yaml
esphome:
  name: ${name}
  name_add_mac_suffix: false
  friendly_name: ${friendly_name}
api:
  encryption:
    key: {Removed}


wifi:
  ssid: !secret wifi_ssid
  password: !secret wifi_password

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so thats it just install that?

naive drum Apr 9, 2025, 1:40 AM

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yup

dim arrow Apr 9, 2025, 1:40 AM

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And that makes sense.. just take their code and replace what needs to be replaced

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what about the name and friendly name.. will that rename the device in my network can i give it the proper name?

naive drum Apr 9, 2025, 1:41 AM

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yeah you can rename it if you want

dim arrow Apr 9, 2025, 1:42 AM

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its it just the name in the hardware but Home Assistant will keep its name for it?

naive drum Apr 9, 2025, 1:42 AM

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these will show up in home assistant

dim arrow Apr 9, 2025, 1:43 AM

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ok

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if i had setup this device before will this show up as a new device?

naive drum Apr 9, 2025, 1:43 AM

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in theory it should automagically work

dim arrow Apr 9, 2025, 1:43 AM

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ok lol ill play with it

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thank you for your help!!!

naive drum Apr 9, 2025, 1:43 AM

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sometimes you have to re add

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no worries. its super easy cos they wrote that as a variable that could easily be overwritten without pulling all the code

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the advantage of keeping the package is that if theres any updates to the github it will pull the latest version

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not nessasarily super quickly as it caches for a while but it gets there 🙂

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now just gotta test it and make sure your happy then repeat a bunch more times

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esphome config is dead easy once you have messed with it a bit

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anyways, good luck with your stuff 🙂

dim arrow Apr 9, 2025, 1:49 AM

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says instelled and rebooting

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watching the logs

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yeah 10s seems like its really noisy

naive drum Apr 9, 2025, 1:51 AM

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yeah, depends on your use case i guess

dim arrow Apr 9, 2025, 1:52 AM

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I really want them to only update every 300 seconds or if changes by more than 5%

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need to research how to do the update on 5% change on Watt Amps, KwH

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if its even possible

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that way they only talk when somthing happens or after a set amount of time

naive drum Apr 9, 2025, 1:53 AM

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unless you have super busy wifi i wouldnt worry about it that much

dim arrow Apr 9, 2025, 1:55 AM

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i was told it can really mess with my wifi by having so many talking all the time it uses up channels they said?

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made no sense to me as the amount of data normally that goes across my wifi vs this...

naive drum Apr 9, 2025, 1:56 AM

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in thoery its sort of true but even sending some data every 10s is not huge

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sure if you got 100 of these things

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i think by spec APs are supposed to handle 240 clients. realisitcally thats only true of high quality AP's

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but even low end ones will be fine handling a few smartplugs

dim arrow Apr 9, 2025, 1:57 AM

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i have a Bell Giga Modem wifi 6

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1.5 Gb up and down over fibre

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still an ISP router shit i know

naive drum Apr 9, 2025, 1:58 AM

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having a dedicated AP will always be better but i am sure what you have will be fine

dim arrow Apr 9, 2025, 1:59 AM

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Stupid new firware set to always off.. LOL device rebooted and turned off..

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thanks man

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aprechate walk through

naive drum Apr 9, 2025, 1:59 AM

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i have a U6-Pro and have loads of iot devices and it doesnt bump

dim arrow Apr 9, 2025, 1:59 AM

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yeah i got like 10 devices

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not a lot\

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but man i am loving ESPHome

naive drum Apr 9, 2025, 2:00 AM

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yeah ESPHome is great

dim arrow Apr 9, 2025, 2:00 AM

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just need to find a good light switch maker that uses them

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and energy monitoring

naive drum Apr 9, 2025, 2:00 AM

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its like magic being able to slap together firmware dead quick

naive drum Apr 9, 2025, 2:01 AM

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dim arrow just need to find a good light switch maker that uses them

do you have neutrals behind the switch?

dim arrow Apr 9, 2025, 2:01 AM

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yep

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alreayd have all switch zwave

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but might upgrade some day if price is right

naive drum Apr 9, 2025, 2:02 AM

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could use shelly relays behind the switches. the stock firmware is fine (and what i use) but they are esphome compatable if you want to flash them 🙂

dim arrow Apr 9, 2025, 2:02 AM

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love the Shellys

naive drum Apr 9, 2025, 2:03 AM

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not quite as easy as "take control" but its not super complicated

dim arrow Apr 9, 2025, 2:03 AM

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i have their thermostats in each room

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use them in the winter to controll little oil heater

naive drum Apr 9, 2025, 2:03 AM

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i have a bunch of shelly stuff

dim arrow Apr 9, 2025, 2:03 AM

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that way rooms stay decent tem upstairs

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always sold out though 🙂

naive drum Apr 9, 2025, 2:03 AM

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shelly is always my go to recomeendation for most stuff

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you pay a little more (but not alot more to be honest) and you get serious quality

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i have a bunch of other esphome stuff from various places too

dim arrow Apr 9, 2025, 2:05 AM

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they are nice for sure. Love what they are doing

naive drum Apr 9, 2025, 2:05 AM

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the new gen4 devices support zigbee too which is nice

dim arrow Apr 9, 2025, 2:05 AM

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looks like i can use the delta feature to do thresholds

delta: 50

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no zigbee for me yet

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i was on hubitat and had one plug but when i switched to HA i cleaned it up and kept only my zwave

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one zigbee plug

naive drum Apr 9, 2025, 2:10 AM

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if you end up messing with the firmware more extensivly you can also check out the esphome discord as whilst we mess with the code a bit over here. people over there know alot more

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https://discord.gg/BPEDwtQf

dim arrow Apr 9, 2025, 2:11 AM

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oh awesome thanks.. yes that will be useful!!

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THanks again!!

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god this stuff is so awesome.. 100% control and fully local

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have you seen the Apollo temp probe? use it to monitor my freezer

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so tiny and compact..

naive drum Apr 9, 2025, 2:14 AM

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yeah i have seen some of their stuff but havent used any (yet) although they announced yesterday that they have a deal to sell through a UK supplier now so it will be easier for me to get

dim arrow Apr 9, 2025, 2:14 AM

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yes!!

naive drum Apr 9, 2025, 2:14 AM

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the oven probe is something i am keen to mess with

dim arrow Apr 9, 2025, 2:14 AM

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good guys!

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yeah just need the metal braided cable

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so cool

naive drum Apr 9, 2025, 2:15 AM

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i love that esp32/esphome has enabled these small companies to appear

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because the esp32 has the wifi antenna and stuff all built in and is approved it means the overal device doesnt have to go through some of the wireless approval processes

dim arrow Apr 9, 2025, 2:16 AM

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as well if they dont use all the GPIO pins you can add to it a door sensor if you wanted..

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depending on the model you could add to it

naive drum Apr 9, 2025, 2:17 AM

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i added a doorbell button to a pressence sensor with spare gpio. the old disused chime on the wall works again now

dim arrow Apr 9, 2025, 2:18 AM

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haha Nice

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its jsut so powerfull

naive drum Apr 9, 2025, 2:18 AM

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https://github.com/MichaelMKKelly/MK-Stairs-Sensors

GitHub

GitHub - MichaelMKKelly/MK-Stairs-Sensors

Contribute to MichaelMKKelly/MK-Stairs-Sensors development by creating an account on GitHub.

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was part of my stairs monitoring

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2 sensors at top and bottom of stairs so if anyone is on them in the dark the lights come up

dim arrow Apr 9, 2025, 2:19 AM

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thats awesome

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Love the detailed photos

naive drum Apr 9, 2025, 2:21 AM

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i like writing up projects sometimes. specially when it might help someone else

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its not so much the result but the methodology and mindset

dim arrow Apr 9, 2025, 2:21 AM

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yeah for sure

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really helps out that open source feeling the world is getting to

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i try to do the same

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caspan.com

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try to just put stuff out there!!

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place to let my brain run...

naive drum Apr 9, 2025, 2:23 AM

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i have thought about doing a proper blog type page but i hate web dev so i just stick stuff on github in markdown and call it a day

dim arrow Apr 9, 2025, 2:23 AM

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i hate it also

naive drum Apr 9, 2025, 2:24 AM

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got some google app script stuff

dim arrow Apr 9, 2025, 2:24 AM

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i know PHP becuase I have to

naive drum Apr 9, 2025, 2:24 AM

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i used to sue that for some projects

dim arrow Apr 9, 2025, 2:24 AM

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yeah i did a bunch of Google Apps Scripting for my job (IT)

naive drum Apr 9, 2025, 2:24 AM

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dim arrow i know PHP becuase I have to

yeah we all end up there

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i used to run large Darts tournaments

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so i made a system to run tournaments using google sheets and apps scripts

dim arrow Apr 9, 2025, 2:25 AM

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yeah its liek ESP 100% controlable..

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you can do anything in the JS for any of the doc apps

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wrote my partner a bunch of class attendance things that the entire school board uses now

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fun stuff.. ESPHome give me that warm can do anythign with it feeling like programming gives me

naive drum Apr 9, 2025, 2:26 AM

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dim arrow Apr 9, 2025, 2:27 AM

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oh that is one thing i love about google doc is document IDs

naive drum Apr 9, 2025, 2:27 AM

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put in player names and your tournament type and it generates fixtures results entry etc...

dim arrow Apr 9, 2025, 2:27 AM

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100% unique no matter where it lives!!!

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yeah thats Cool!

naive drum Apr 9, 2025, 2:28 AM

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also means once the inital script is run, i could run the event on a phone or anything else that can open sheets

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and can make public etc...

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at the time there was not alot of stuff that was better for darts. there is some stuff now cos darts has gone more mainstream

dim arrow Apr 9, 2025, 2:29 AM

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yeah no one wants to program in Android or Apple

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by that I mean what ever it is that crazy language their IDEs use

naive drum Apr 9, 2025, 2:30 AM

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plus my ability to make nice ui's is non existant really (part of the reason i hate web stuff) so sheets gives me something to build on

dim arrow Apr 9, 2025, 2:30 AM

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haha

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yes

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oh I didnt know this was just looking at the code:

filters:
- throttle_average: ${sensor_update_interval}

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that takes the average over 10s and reports it

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I just thought it reported the curent value at that moment it updates

naive drum Apr 9, 2025, 2:33 AM

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smooths the curve a little

dim arrow Apr 9, 2025, 2:35 AM

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yep.. lots to learn..

naive drum Apr 9, 2025, 2:35 AM

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this was my learning project - https://github.com/MichaelMKKelly/MK-SmartBed

dim arrow Apr 9, 2025, 2:35 AM

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ohh bed sensor

naive drum Apr 9, 2025, 2:36 AM

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that got my confident enough to start messing with other random stuff

dim arrow Apr 9, 2025, 2:36 AM

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yeah.. I did a year of electro tech in collage and I love how these ESP devices plugin in to a bread board..

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allows for testing and playing

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like lego

naive drum Apr 9, 2025, 2:37 AM

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just don't ever try and run audio stuff through breadboard

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that is a mistake you make once

dim arrow Apr 9, 2025, 2:39 AM

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haha

naive drum Apr 9, 2025, 2:39 AM

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shit doesnt work or make really annoying noises

dim arrow Apr 9, 2025, 2:40 AM

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would never suspect that

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figure its just analog

naive drum Apr 9, 2025, 2:41 AM

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even the i2s digital stuff degrades quickly

dim arrow Apr 9, 2025, 2:41 AM

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Wife told me to stop chatting and go to bed lol have to run but thanks for the geek out session and help!!

#How to Update ESP config