[OBSOLETE] SmartLife (H801) RGBW LED Strip Wifi Controller & Bulb

I just used multiple devices and group them in CoRE. Too lazy to get in the walls and redo drywall/paint. Really that’s the only way to do it cleanly I think. OR if you have some trim pieces at the ceiling maybe run wire behind that?

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I am with @michaelahess on this one. That is exactly what I had but five of those IR controllers with one z-wave switch interrupting the power for on-off. I have cabinets that are “separated” with open spaces so I had to use individual IR controls per so it was very cumbersome to adjust the colors without affecting zones you didn’t intend.

I replaced all 5 IR controls with three H801’s. One H801 per section between openings and I use a sync smartapp to that groups all three H801 into one group for simple simultaneous control. Each H801 is setup to control RGBW LED strips on the upper cabinets and the H801 W2 channel I use to control the lower cabinet dual LED’s. So now I have complete control via SmartThings for color and on-off. I am now working out the upper cabinets to be used as an alarm indication in the morning as a reminder that the system is still armed. Here are some of the pictures in a different thread.

I don’t know how many feet of LED you are powering up but one H801 can only handle so much. I know for me on my largest cabinet section I have 16 feet of RGBW that needed 5amps alone for the upper strip and then I ran dual LED’s on the lower as well so. If I remember right from earlier in the thread the H801 can handle 4amps per channel

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So I went and bought a 30a power supply to play with these lights. At 12v, a full 5 meters, the most juice I can Get them to pull with all RGBW at 100% is just under 35 watts. That is about 1/2 the juice the manufacturer says, listed at 60w. So it makes me wonder if something in the device handler could almost be doubled, to get it up to the rated 60w and thereby a brighter light.

I have over volted them, and they were much brighter, but got very hot quickly.

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If you are running long lengths then have a look at 24v strip instead. Can only cut every 6 LEDs but it will double the length you get for the same current, just need a 24v power supply instead.

Are there any folks from the UK using these? I’m looking for lighting strip recommendations. I can’t find a source of Ledenet or Supernight strips.

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You can find some RGBW and RGBWW strips here from AliExpress. This is also the same source I got my H801’s, Sonoff, dual row LED’s. https://www.aliexpress.com/premium/rgb-led.html?ltype=wholesale&d=y&origin=y&isViewCP=y&catId=200002296&initiative_id=AS_20170108131120&SearchText=rgb+led&blanktest=0

Many thanks to everyone that has contributed to this thread’s development - in particular erocm1231, @michaelahess, and @dalec.

I’m preparing to install under and above cabinet lighting, and after reading all of the posts, using jumper J3 in order to add a physical switch is still unclear to me. My kitchen has a pre-wired circuit with three sections for under-cabinet lighting that is controlled by one decora style switch. What connections must be made to J3 on the H801? Is the normally open (NO) momentary switch simply meant to bridge the two pins at J3 when needed while power is constantly supplied by a separate source? If this is the case, then I fear that I can not use the existing wiring.

J3 is NO, disable reset in the firmware so you don’t accidentally trigger firmware mode or reset with a switch attached. The switch can be basically anything, both legs of the switch go to the two pins on J3. NO POWER should go to/through it!

Tear apart a decora switch, make it a toggle, and you’re set.

Like @michaelahess is saying, J3 is looking for dry contacts (no AC power). So if you use the existing wall switch location you must locate the incoming power to your switch/outlets which could be up at one of the outlets at the cabinets or at the switch to disconnect which would allow you to re do the wiring for contact control. Certainly possible but it will take some time and effort to trace all this out and convert the existing wiring from 120 use case to simply being dry contact use back to an H801. All that to say I think you might want to reconsider an alternate way to solve your problem.

I have a similar layout with three cabinet lighting outlets above three separate cabinet locations all controlled by one switch. My cabinets locations are all separated so it was easiest for me to install three separate H801’s at each of the outlet locations above the cabinets. Instead of converting my existing power outlets wiring I just replaced the dumb wall switch with a smart switch. I monitor the smart switch with Smart Lighting smartapp to trigger all three H801 on/off. If you use a smart dimmer switch you could potentially even set the levels of light levels of the H801 using the smart dimmer switch via smartapp like @ady624 CoRE. Or use a smartapp like @Kriskit Trend Setter to sync all three together from a manual setting and a smart switch.

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Thanks for the responses, gents. (@dalec + @michaelahess) Not exactly the answers I was hoping to hear, but basically what I was expecting.

I will most likely bypass the physical switch so the existing wiring is always live. This way it can easily be converted back to a circuit with a switch for ‘dumb’ lighting if/when needed. Since I actually installed the junction box for the cabinet section closest to the switch, I know that it’s a relatively simple route to add one more wire back to the existing decora switch. I’m leaning towards converting the decora to a momentary, using it to jump one H801 via the to-be-added wire, and then using a smartapp to sync all of the H801’s in the kitchen. Seems like a lot of work to save myself the cost of a smart switch, but I’ll just convince myself that it makes sense since I haven’t brought the romex and fishing wire back out to the garage, haha.

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I assume that all this is specific to the H801 Controller only. Would the Smart App work with other Wifi controllers like this one:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01J5A5YYM/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_ep_dp_eNQDybR2522CF

If Im struggling to get ESPTool to talk to the H801, do you have any good ideas of where to start? I see the COM5 appear in device manager on Windows 7, using CMD in Admin mode, Im also good with computers, but I cant get it to see the H801. All I get is the below:

C:\Users\Chris Charles\Desktop\ESPEasy_R120>esptool.exe -vv -cd nodemcu -cb 1152
00 -cp COM5 -ca 0x00000 -cf flash.bin
esptool v0.4.6 - © 2014 Ch. Klippel ck@atelier-klippel.de
setting board to nodemcu
setting baudrate from 115200 to 115200
setting port from COM1 to COM5
setting address from 0x00000000 to 0x00000000
espcomm_upload_file
stat flash.bin success
setting serial port timeouts to 1000 ms
opening bootloader
resetting board
trying to connect
flush start
setting serial port timeouts to 1 ms
setting serial port timeouts to 1000 ms
flush complete
espcomm_send_command: sending command header
espcomm_send_command: sending command payload
read 0, requested 1
warning: espcomm_sync failed
error: espcomm_open failed

I have a feeling it may be to do with not enough power from the USB FTDI converter I am using. Even though I get red and green lights on the H801 without the J3 jumpered (looks like normal operation), I dont get any lights at all when J3 is jumpered… (Is that right? - It does flash green for ~100ms when power is applied)

EDIT, tried with a different 3V3 source but get the same problem. RX to TX and TX to RX so that is also correct… Stuck… Dodgy FTDI adapter? Could try an Arduino 328 programmed as ISP, would that be the same?

Swap TX/RX, no lights is normal, red will flash real quick when data is transmitted though.

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Thank you! Got it working but now I feel like a fool! I always thought RX would have to go to TX and vice versa… I am going to have to Google how that works and which device takes control of the TX/RX process!

Now having a play and it is working well, though quite laggy (5-10s between issuing a command and it changing colour through the webpage). Will do a bit of playing and see how I get on - perhaps it will be faster through Smartthings, though I imagine it still has to follow the same process…

Thanks again!

Not a fool, this device is labeled wrong I believe…Both my FTDI adapters had to be swapped on all 12 I’ve flashed, as I recall…

The web page is instant with me, ST is sometimes slow. WiFi issues would be what I’d look at with what you describe.

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Thanks again so much, added to ST and was working well, and when I switched back to the web page it was also working much better, so perhaps it just took a while for it to tune/setup/…

However, while I was playing I think the SmartApp had an error and has disconnected, and when I open it I have to rediscover (but then it fails when adding the device). Should I remove the app and device and try again? Something must have got corrupted along the way. Interestingly, even without the app connected I can still control colours and stuff, its just that the programs dont seem to work (I tried to make one for flashing random colours but that never appeared).

EDIT again: Its weird, its like the device keeps momentarily vanishing. E.g. While selecting the device in the Connect wizard it deselects itself again if you dont try to press next immediately. But if you do that then you just reach a white screen. I assume all firmware versions linked from ecrom’s page are the same? (i.e. there isn’t a version with a bug in it?)

Do a continuous ping, make sure it’s not dropping off the network or something.

The is based off the mac address I believe, so it will re-find previously setup devices and you shouldn’t need to remove, reset anything. Not sure I’ve seen that deselect thing ever before though…

One of my first H801 is going wonky… it will work for maybe one command and then freeze up. I swapped it out with a spare good one so the system is back up and running after some quick smartapp reconfiguring.

I was going to attempt to reflash it to see if I can bring it back to a fully functioning device but before I do that is there any other things I should try?

UPDATE: I found in post#194 the way to reset the controller and that fixed me back up.

Also I noticed that on one of my other H801 devices that I configured to use the J3 as a switch input that the W2 channel will not respond, only W1. For example when choosing the Light Strip Color as Soft White I would assume that W1 would come ON and it does. When I select Daylight-Energize which one would think would turn on W2 it doesn’t but instead W1 comes back on again. No matter what selection I pick W2 channel never comes on using the J3 switch but all the other channels respond perfectly R, G, B.

FYI, each W1 and W2 channel comes on perfectly when controlling them directly so I don’t think any of the wiring is wrong. Is it possible I need to reflash that one as well?

I am working on getting this video put together this month because I think @erocm1231 work is just too good a solution for people to pass up because it looks intimidating when reading the steps.

Potentially VERY dumb question alert but I have read through all threads and can’t find my error.

I have published the SmartApp to me - it shows in my developer dashboard BUT it does NOT show up in the mobile app! Have I missed a step?

Help!

*** Hang on - I have found that I appear to have more than one ‘dash’ ! ***

Now Sorted !

Are the program steps for the presets like Fire and Lightning written anywhere?