Can an App Developer project replace using Sinric

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Amtor
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Can an App Developer project replace using Sinric

Post by Amtor »

Hello
I have a house abroad and have been using esp32 relay boards with Arduino software to turn things on and off. They work fine but have to work via Sinric pro. You only get 3 free devices after that you have to pay to use more. Could an App developer project do the same thing?
Would a Rasp P be best or an esp32 board. I can setup up port forwarding if needed or do these brokers get around that problem.
If its possible a pointer in the right direction please. I've been reading up a bit but not too sure where to start.
Thanks for any help
Mark
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BenR
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Re: Can an App Developer project replace using Sinric

Post by BenR »

Hello,

The short answer is yes, but you may have to reprogram the ESP8266 devices with different firmware. What firmware are you using as that might give us an insight on how to talk to them.

chipfryer27
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Re: Can an App Developer project replace using Sinric

Post by chipfryer27 »

Hi

Further to Ben's reply above, what features do you need? Sinric allows control from phones, PCs, Amazon Echo and such like. Whilst all of this is possible to create you might be better off interfacing with existing 3rd party services.

For example you could have your modules connect to an MQTT broker (your own or hosted), or you could create a simple webserver that can turn things On/Off (I believe there is an example of this in wiki). ThingSpeak can interface with Alexa too, so it really does depend on what you want to do.

As Ben says, you will most likely have to create new code for your 8266's, fortunately FC makes it easy :)

Regards

Amtor
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Re: Can an App Developer project replace using Sinric

Post by Amtor »

Thanks for the info.
The firmware was just a standard sketch from the Arduino IDE I think. It worked fine and Alexa finds the boards ok so you can set timers
and give voice commands. But I was thinking of changing the control boards to maybe a LolinD32 and using flowcode.
I don't need anything fancy the webserver sounds good, I'll study the wiki pages.
But how does it get passed the routers fire wall if the modules are on a different network, is that were the broker comes into play.
Is sinric classed as a broker? Its only $30 a year I think for 10 items.
But I'd love to use flowcode and maybe I could monitor a few temperatures around the house as well.

Thanks

Mark

chipfryer27
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Re: Can an App Developer project replace using Sinric

Post by chipfryer27 »

Hi

You might want to have a look at IFTTT / ThingSpeak / ThingsBoard and other similar services. Some can be hosted locally (e.g. on a Pi or PC etc). They can make interfacing quite easy as many can be easily interfaced with Echo etc. It isn't difficult at all to get 8266's (or ESP32s) to talk to these services either by using API keys or MQTT.

If API then you shouldn't need to open any router ports as it will run over HTTP/ HTTPS. If MQTT then you may need to open port 1883.

Sorry to be brief, a bit busy just now.

Regards

Amtor
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Re: Can an App Developer project replace using Sinric

Post by Amtor »

That's great info thanks.
Just wanted pointing in the right direction.
It's half the fun figuring out how to get it working.
Mark

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