Although routines and rules cover 90% of my automation needs, to go a bit further, but with no desire to reinvent what was already running I wanted a smart looking alternative to a Raspberry Pi, as an always-on computer server device.
I chose the Sonoff iHost, which as a bonus brings in all my older WiFi LAN devices (that’s NOT all WiFi devices) locally.
With doubts, as having already read about it’s development issues, and the corresponding consumer backlash, but I now think its great.
I’m pleased with mine, local operation, runs Node-red perfectly, has my MQTT broker and integrates everything with my Smartthings system through the Matter bridge.
It has it’s cons though, and I’m starting a thread on the eWelink community site, initiated by a Sonoff staff member, to find “what’s still missing but important for you in this [Smartthings] integration”
Has anyone had experience, good or bad, or is starting to try this device?
(Note: this is only about the iHost and no other Sonoff device.)
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Hi. What specific problems do you have?
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Thanks for pointing me to this thread. When I mentioned it in the other thread, I was strictly thinking of using it to add my mishmash of zigbee devices and then control them in other platforms using Matter. So I guess my first question would be do you use it this way and, if so, how is your experience?
I also noticed you mentioned a SmartThings integration. So that would be on the ewelink side? What does that entail? Incorporating ST devices into the sonoff dashboards and such?
No, integration is in the reverse sense, ie bringing in my Sonoff LAN (note, most but not all) devices, which had been the basis of my smart home before I got into ST, through the Matter bridge.
I personally find ST routines/rules to be adequate for most cases and easy to set up. EWelink scenes are not up to that level but bringing in all my WiFi devices through Matter bridge means they now run local in ST - I have even desinstalled the eWelink app. As far as Zigbee devices I have the majority on ST while those paired to iHost again come in through the Matter bridge. Still not decided if any advantage one way or the other there.
Regarding the iHost itself it deserves to an extent the bad publicity when it was launched onto the market a year before it was ready, although Sonoff are not the only guilty ones on that count.
I took part back around 2021 in the questionnaire on a future local server. Always understood it to be a smart looking, less nerdy Raspberry Pi which can be set up with less hassle to run locally a more sophisticated system than ST can handle.
I took the decision to learn Node-red and MQTT for making more complex automations, more as a hobby than a real necessity as I still rely on ST for 90% of my needs. Really pleased with the result.
A nice thing on the eWelink node in Node-red is it can create virtual switches that integrate in ST.
Cons - as it runs everything in Docker there are some incompatibilities eg the MQTT port cannot be the standard 1883 that @TAustin’s MQTT driver uses. Possibly there may be some more cons with HA, but I don’t know anything about that, although maybe some of the negative feedback comes from there. Having said that I must say that, sadly, the eWelink forum is nowhere near the level of the ST community and there’s a lot of negativity there, while too many people have bought what they incorrectly thought was a ‘hub’,and not a local server.
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