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

I don’t even know where to start with all that you need to slow down a bit lol.
So can you connect to the config page of the device in your browser?
Turn it on and off through there to check it’s connecting first if all.
Is it possible you’ve wired the rgb cables wrong into the H801?
The program buttons won’t do anything until you’ve entered the code and set them up.

This is the exact board I have. Very curious on this.

Without knowing for sure as I’ve not got one, could you take two infocus pictures of the board (1 each side) without the power cables covering the pcb ideally. That way I can see what is going on and the easiest way to get it flashed.

Here is both sides. Let me know if you need other images.

Thanks for the quick response! Interesting PCB! Cant work out why they have done some things (e.g. step voltage from 12 to 5 and then from 5 to 3.3) and how they flash the ESP (there are no breakout pins for serial from what I can tell…) That said it is impossible to see what they have done underneath the ESP 12E board without a multimeter.

If you want to have a go then there are four pins on the 12E board that you will need to maintain a good connection with and the flash should work fine (can try soldering and would be better, but suggest only if you are a decent solderer). Obviously the RX pin below needs to go to TX on the FTDI (and vice versa), plus you need to use 3V3 on your FTDI (maybe check it is 3V3) since it is totally unprotected power for the ESP. You could also plug 5V into the through-hole pin nearest the ground wire, but I would suggest powering the ESP with 12V and checking with a multimeter that it should be 5V before powering it through the FTDI.

Alternatively if you have a multimeter you can try and find some pins that have continuity with the RX/TX pads, though I dont think it will help much as there arent many through-hole pins which are nice to solder. From what I can tell the three additional through hole pins above the power wires are also power pins (5V, GND and unknown - possibly reset)

image

RIght I need a new FTDI board. I can’t find mine.

Any UK recommendations? Or any board with 3 & 5v on them??

If you’re uk based if you post the Arilux to me I’ll check it out, can
flash it and even post back to you with a spare ftdi I have if you want (if
you pay for the ftdi of a couple of quid). Drop me a PM and we can sort
something I’m sure. I’m London based.

Otherwise I’d suggest Amazon but check the seller feedback to ensure it’s
good and that the picture also shows a voltage jumper pin.

delete this

I would like to do it myself but thank you for the offer.

So this is what I need with the jumper as shown???

Yup, that one looks good, assume you are going for Prime delivery if so then thats a good choice! Otherwise it is about £2 from other options.

yes the controller is wired right to the strip

“can you connect to the config page of the device in your browser?”

no clue , how would i go about doing that?, this is the 1st time i have ever have used ST.
i just got it and imported my HUE lights and installed the alexa skill and that is about it for my ST experience other than this project
so do i go into that IDE page and go under “my devices” and then click on it in there?
i did that and i see nothing that says configuration or configue anyplace in the IDE website,there is no configure/configuration that i can find except in the smartthings smart app for the controller in the android app
but when i click on it nothing happens and there is a red dot , see here

, is this normal?
looks like it means something is wrong

like i said i flashed it successfully finally and then i entered my network credentials and got it signed on to my network, then i went to this site
https://graph-na02-useast1.api.smartthings.com/login/auth

and entered/ installed the 2 device handlers and the smart app and saved it and published it "to me"
then i noticed that “my smart apps” was not showing up in the android smartthings app
so after some research i figured out i had to use another URL for the IDE because my devices and hub were not showing on that URL , so i used this one instead
https://graph-na04-useast2.api.smartthings.com

i entered the 2 device handlers and the smartapp again from that URL ,save, published “to me”

but i never went back and deleted the ones i entered on the 1st URL, not sure if that is a problem or not

then tried to open the smartapp from both the marketplace and automation tabs
and discover devices but it will never discover the controller
so i tried to add it manually , i got the IP address of the controller from my router and i entered it
and it said it was added and it looked like this

but it was not showing up on my things list,then after about 20 tries
it finally showed up on my things list but it does not work right at all
pretty much the only thing that works right is on and off and even that does not work right because the state is being misreported all over the place

i go into the smartapp and i still see this even though it is showing up in my things list

TL;DR
smartapp will not detect the controller automatically and adding it manually will not let me “fully configure” it ,the controller only showed up under things after hours of adding it manually and deleting it about 50 times and re adding it ,but now it still does not work right at all
says it is not “fully configured” in the smartapp
red dot next to configure button when i open the controller from the things list

When I say config page I’m meaning where you said you entered your network credentials , I believe the starting ip is 192.168.4.1.
It seems you’ve correctly set it up there find out what if its been assigned a new IP address but looking in your device list on the IDE.
I don’t think it’s a problem putting things in the wrong graph url as I did that at the beginning with no problems.
I’m no expert just another user like you but it just seems like it’s not saved the config correctly so log back into there and check it.
Try deleting the device from the list of things and the smartapp and then resetting the device , apparently unplugging and re plugging within 5 secs 5 times will reset the WiFi so then do the connection again.

ok so just to check i am not going to have to reflash it again am i ? i mean resetting it or deleting it will not make the controller forget my wifi will it?

No it seems the flash went ok as you wouldn’t be able to connect at all.
The resetting just resets the WiFi credentials and you do the whole repairing again.

YES prime all the way.

ok but it is showing up on the client list already in my routers dashboard page
i can see it but the smart app just won’t detect it
and now it is showing as unavailable under things but i can’t figure out how to delete it from the things section of the app, it is already stopped showing up in the smart app

EDIT: ok now it has disappeared from the things section on it’s own
and sometimes it stops showing up in my routers client list but the connected time never resets when it disappears and reappears
i disconnected the strip and moved the controller closer to the router so it is showing full signal strength in my router client list

so i have this question

does it matter at all if i launch the smart app from the marketplace tab or from the automation tab?
can i launch the smart app and try and discover it from either one or does it have to be done from one or the other or it does not matter?

You seem to be the only person out of hundreds and hundreds, if not multiple thousands who have had a major problem with this… Maybe you should take a step back and try and understand some basic tasks before moving on to this. There is tons of troubleshooting above which would be worth reading.

2 Likes

yeah i read it
and the length of this thread suggests otherwise, i am certainly not the only person having a problem here
what are you suggesting to make this work then?

i manged to flash it successfully and to get it to connect to my wifi network and to install the device handlers and the smart app but now it just will not get detected no matter what i do
when i add it manually it says it is not “fully configured” whatever that means
the one time after manually adding it 50 times that it did finally show up in my things list
it didn’t work right and the configure button had a red dot on it and the button was not responsive at all

so tell what i am supposed to try next here

have a look at the screen shots i posted if you believe as you are implying that i am just making up problems

when i hit discover devices it hangs for about a minute, i am look at my client list and i notice after about a minute or 2 the ESPxxxx drops off the client list
it never discovers it and it keeps disappearing from the client list even though it is now right next to the router and ST hub

i keep seeing this same error popping up in the log
750909fb-e3b6-4861-a753-03aa6dc232ca 12:07:19 PM: error java.lang.NullPointerException: Cannot invoke method startsWith() on null object @ line 646
750909fb-e3b6-4861-a753-03aa6dc232ca 12:07:19 PM: trace description.xml response (application/xml)
750909fb-e3b6-4861-a753-03aa6dc232ca 12:07:12 PM: trace description.xml response (application/xml)
750909fb-e3b6-4861-a753-03aa6dc232ca 12:07:11 PM: debug verifyDevices()
750909fb-e3b6-4861-a753-03aa6dc232ca 12:07:09 PM: error java.lang.NullPointerException: Cannot invoke method startsWith() on null object @ line 646
750909fb-e3b6-4861-a753-03aa6dc232ca 12:07:09 PM: trace description.xml response (application/xml)
750909fb-e3b6-4861-a753-03aa6dc232ca 12:07:02 PM: trace description.xml response (application/xml)
750909fb-e3b6-4861-a753-03aa6dc232ca 12:07:02 PM: debug verifyDevices()
750909fb-e3b6-4861-a753-03aa6dc232ca 12:06:59 PM: error java.lang.NullPointerException: Cannot invoke method startsWith() on null object @ line 646

i searched this thread for it and nobody has been able to explain what it is

ok are you sure that entering it in 2 different URLS would not create problems?
because i just deleted the ST app from my phone ans reinstalled it and when i went into automation >smart apps the smartlife RGBW (connect) app was showing up twice on the list
then one f them just disappeared by itself

Im not suggesting there are no problems, and that it isnt complicated, but that the problems detected are very likely to be have been experienced before. Given everybody here is helping out of goodwill, it would be better to try and distill it down to a single problem. At the moment it is effectively a stream of consciousness involving 20 things of which some you have solved yourself. This takes a long time for potential helpers to digest and respond to.

SmartThings takes some getting used to, and I remember that caused as much confusion as anything else when starting up.

EDIT: Using the wrong web IDE will cause chaos. You need to use the one your ST Hub has been assigned to. There is a link in the forums which will auto-redirect you to the correct site, rather than manually picking. Having just searched for you, you should use this site: https://graph.api.smartthings.com/