WiFi USB Switch

Sinilink WiFi USB switch

I saw a Youtube video showing Sinilink WiFi USB switches being flashed with Tasmota. I bought a few on Alibaba.

I aim to use them to power some USB devices instead of the current Sonoff S26 smart switches they use currently.

I found some other blogs (1) (2) also documenting this process but I still wanted to detail my process, particularly the wiring in more detail.

Flashing to Tasmota with Tasmotizer

The default software on the sticks has been said to be buggy so going with the open source Tasmota is a better idea. To do this using Tasmotizer makes it easy.

To flash them I did not have a USB FTDI so instead aimed to use a Raspberry Pi 3 B+.

Setting up the Raspberry Pi

My first attempts to installs failed as my Raspberry Pi had a very old image so I downloaded and installed a new OS using the Raspberry Pi Imager.

As the serial port is needed I opened the Raspberry Pi Configuration and under Interfaces set Serial to Enabled. I left Serial Console as Disabled.

The docs state that only one command would be needed to install:

sudo python -m pip install tasmotizer

This installed okay but running the app would fail with an error: No module named 'PyQt5.QtSerialPort'

To resolve this I ran:

sudo python -m pip install PyQt5.QtSerialPort

Wiring

I used the information from blakadder.com. I worked with the Sinilink button side up with the USB-male pointing to my left the same as the links images.

I used 5 pieces of wire extracted from a short length of Ethernet cable. The 3.3V wire should be the last one connected.

Flashing

Launch Tasmotizer using:

python /usr/local/bin/tasmotizer.py 

1. Choose port. For me ttyS0
2. Choose Release. For me 12.3.1, I used tasmota-lite.bin
3. Click Tasmotize!

Configuring

1. Disconnect the USB switch from the Pi
2. Plug the USB switch in to a powered USB port
3. On your laptop/phone and search for and connect to the WiFi SSID with a name like tasmota-* followed by some random numbers
4. You device should auto redirect to 192.168.4.1
5. Populate WiFi Network and WiFi Password and hit Save
6. Your device should drop off the tasmota-* SSID and reconnect to your WiFi Network and be redirected to the new IP address of the USB Switch
7. In Configure » Configure Other populate:
   • Template with:

       {"NAME":"XY-WFUSB","GPIO":[1,1,0,1,32,224,0,0,0,0,320,0,544,0],"FLAG":0,"BASE":18}
     

     • Check Activate
     • This template is taken from blakadder.com
   • Device Name and Friendly Name 1 to whatever you like
8. Click Save and the USB switch will restart
9. In Configuration » MQTT populate Host and others if needed
10. Click Save and the USB switch will restart

Integrating with Home Assistant

If your flashing/configuration has been done correctly and you already have MQTT set up then the Tasmota integration with automatically discover your new devices.