DONOFF WiFi Enabled PWM Dimmer

Years ago I started building RF devices to measure temperatures and switching lights on and off. I even wrote a small book (in Dutch) about my findings and experiments. But I always wanted to overcome the main disadvantage of RF devices: no feedback about the status of the lights. I thought that could be done better and with the introduction of the small ESP8266 WiFi enabled processors it could! But SONOFF beat me with there WiFi enabled switches. One disadvantage of the SONOFF devices is the poor software. To make the switches usable you have to upload third party firmware and install a Home-Automation solution to control the switches. Another disadvantage of the SONOFF switches is .. well they are switches (Switch On Off). So there is room for improvement!

Albeit: I introduce to you: DONOFF (Dimmer On Off)!

The goals of this project is to make an ecosystem that is self sustained. So: you don’t need a Home-Automation system to control the DONOFF devices! Also, there is no substitute for a physical switch (ask your spouse)! You can attach an external toggle– or push-switch to the DONOFF hardware with which you can either switch the light On or Off (toggle-switch) or, with a push-switch, you can switch the light On or Off and dim-up and dim-down by long-pressing the (push) switch. Every DONOFF has a web-server on board that you can use directly from any (Javascript enabled) browser. Accessing the web-server on a browser gives you the control page for this device:

I have, in four parts, explained how you can build and use this DONOFF eco-system.

• Part 1 – Introduction to the DONOFF ecosystem
• Part 2 – The Electronics
• Part 3 – The Firmware
• Part 4 – Building a DONOFF device

Every DONOFF installation has one DONOFF designated as a Master whilst all the others are designated as Slaves. From the Master’s webpage all the other (Slave) devices can be controlled. Slave’s automatically register to the Master with their IP-address and Device Name. If you power-up a new DONOFF device it will automatically be added to the Master’s page. If you unplug a DONOFF device it will (after a while) disappear from the Master’s page.