Smartthings RGBW Controller

Technology is progressing at a rapid rate. Home automation appeared out of nowhere but has created its own foothold in the industry. Smartthings by Samsung is a modular home automation system which produces its own products but also allows third party products to be used within its ecosystem.

RGBW lighting is big at the moment, and most RGBW controllers are fairly expensive and a little hit and miss with Smartthings.

In comes the cheap H801 wifi RGBW controller.

This little device doesn't work straight out of the box it needs re-flashing with custom firmware using a FTDI usb to TTL serial board.

This post will explain how to get this to work within Smartthings.

What you need.

1. H801 controller
2. FTDI USB to TTL Serial board
3. Mini USB to USB 2.0 cable
4. Jumper Wires (4x Female to Male and 1x Male to Male)
5. ESPeasy Flashing Software
6. Custom Firmware
7. Smartthings custom device handles and smart app.

Some images taken from Smartthings Forums, also help and support available here - https://community.smartthings.com/t/release-smartlife-h801-rgbw-led-strip-wifi-controller-bulb/51182/360

Here is the hardware needed.

Flashing the Controller

1. Unscrew the 4 screws on the H801 Controller and remove the board from the casing.
2. When flashing the board it's recommended to use the FTDI to power the H801, for this we need to change the jumper on the FTDI board from 5v to 3.3v
3. Using the 4x female to make jumpers connect the FTDI to the H801

H801 Rx to FTDI pin2 Rx H801 Tx to FTDI pin3 Tx H801 3.3v to FTDI pin4 VCC **Have FTDI power H801 to minimize communication issues! H801 Grd to FTDI pin6 Grd

Also use the male to male jumper to enable flash mode on the H801 (blue cable in picture below)

1. Connect the USB cable from the FTDI to a laptop/PC. The board lights might flash temporarily and go off, this is normal.
2. Download and extract ESPeasy_R120. I extracted it to C:\ESPeasy_R120
3. Download the custom firmware and place in the ESPeasy_R120 folder.
4. Find the COM port that the FTDI is using, in my case COM5. TO find COM port, right click my computer > Device Manager > USB Devices. Its normally called USB to Serial adapter/interface.
5. Open a command prompt. Click Start > Run > CMD
6. Change directory to where you extracted ESPeasy_R120 to. In my case CD C:\ESPeasy_R120
7. Enter to the following command changing the COM5 to your COM port.

esptool.exe -vv -cd nodemcu -cb 115200 -cp COM5 -ca 0x00000 -cf SmartLifeRGBWController.ino.generic.bin

If successful the command prompt window should populate with a load of text and then some loading starts ****. once finished your device should be flashed with the custom firmware.

Configuring H801.

The H801 should now be flashed with custom firmware, however still needs to be configured.

1. The H801 should now be broadcasting its own Wifi. connect to it with the password 'configme'.
2. You should now get a menu where you can configure the H801 to connect to your own Wifi. If this doesnt show automatically, open up a web browser and go to 192.168.4.1.
3. Once it is connected to your Wifi we need to head over to Smartthings to add the custom device handler and smart app.

Adding the H801 to Smartthings

1. Head to the Smartthings IDE - https://graph-eu01-euwest1.api.smartthings.com/
2. Click on 'My Device Handlers' then Setttings and add a Repo.

Owner = erocm123 Git Repo = SmartthingsPublic Branch = Master

Look for the below in the right hand section

erocm123/SmartThingsPublic/blob/master/devicetypes/erocm123/smartlife-rgbw-controller.src/smartlife-rgbw-controller.groovy

erocm123/SmartThingsPublic/blob/master/devicetypes/erocm123/smartlife-rgbw-virtual-switch.src/smartlife-rgbw-virtual-switch.groovy

Tick them and then tick Publish before clicking Save

1. Now Click on 'My Smart Apps'. This time click on 'Update from Repo'.  In the drop down box, chose SmartthingsPublic (master).

Again on the right hand side look for

erocm123/SmartThingsPublic/blob/master/smartapps/erocm123/smartlife-rgbw-light-connect.src/smartlife-rgbw-light-connect.groovy

Tick the box and tick the publish box before saving.

SmartThings Mobile App

Now we need to head over to the Smartthings mobile app.

1. Open the app and head to Automation tab then SmartApps
2. Scroll to the bottom and + Add a SmartApp
3. Scroll to the bottom and click 'My Apps'
4. Chose SmartLife RGBW Light (Connect)

2 places below can help with installing and any support required.

help video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=268&v=3Kg_-bmBErM

help forum - https://community.smartthings.com/t/release-smartlife-h801-rgbw-led-strip-wifi-controller-bulb/51182/360