MQTT Power Cycler for Home Assistant

This firmware turns a Sonoff Basic into an MQTT Button for Home Assistant which lets you power cycle a device. When the button is triggered in Home Assistant, the Sonoff will cut power for a configurable amount of time (default: 10 seconds). It can also be configured to do the opposite, turn on power for a certain amount of time.

platformio.sample.ini shows how to configure the project. All options and their defaults can be found in config.h. No configuration on the Home Assistant side is necessary besides setting up the MQTT integration; all device-specific settings are shared via MQTT discovery.

Add upload_protocol = espota to platformio.ini after flashing the firmware once to enable over-the-air updates. To update OTA a device running the release environment with an IP address of 192.168.1.3, you would run

pio run -e release -t upload --upload-port 192.168.1.3

You can also add upload_port = 192.168.1.3 to platformio.ini instead of using the --upload-port flag.

Button press confirmation

You may want to require confirmation when pressing the button on your Home Assistant dashboard to avoid accidental power cycles. This can be accomplished by customizing the button's Tap Action in YAML:

type: button
name: Power Cycler
tap_action:
  action: call-service
  service: button.press
  service_data: {}
  target:
    entity_id: button.power_cycler
  confirmation:
    text: Are you sure you want to power cycle this device?

Remote reboot

You can reboot the devices via MQTT by sending a message (default: restart) manually to the device's command topic (default: <base topic>/cmd). Home Assistant provides a way to publish arbitrary messages in Settings > Devices & Services > (MQTT Integration) Configure.

Other firmware

MQTT Light
MQTT Garage Door