Does anyone know the original reasoning behind the choice of the MG24 chip?
I know that now it makes sense given that the manufacturers, designers, and developers are all familiar with the chip. However, using a chip like the ESP32-C6 would provide WiFi, Zigbee, and Bluetooth options all while being more inline with the “openness” of Inovelli.
Whether or not Inovelli chose to open-source their firmware, creating a device that easily supported projects like ESPHome for DIYers would be an incredible benefit for the community!
I’d pay upwards of $20 more per switch just to have an ESP32-C6 under the hood!
What am I missing in the reasoning? Is it simply that this is how it has been done and changing is expensive? Or am I just blinded by my love for ESPHome?
I would bet the proverbial farm on the chip selection being a requirement of the big B2B customer behind the scenes that’s been contributing to Inovelli’s manufacturing costs, so their B2B products stand out against the plethora of cheap Tuya/ESP32 switches that flood the retail market…
For Z-wave, Silicon Labs is pretty much your only option (or run SiLabs for the comms, and another for the main CPU).
When Innovelli moved to Zigbee, the easiest way to be consistent between products was a SiLabs chip that was Zigbee capable, ending up with the MG21 (Which is Zigbee or Thread/Matter capable, but not both, and not easily switchable due to size constraints, if I understand right).
The move to Thread/Matter took them to the MG24 (And I think current blue series are using the MG24 as well), mostly as a direct copy of the Blue series Zigbee firmware, but with the Matter options enabled.
Probably no requirement to use it, but a big overhead to start developing a new firmware for ESP, Nordic, TI, or anyone else.
This seems like the most reasonable explanation. If it weren’t for the firmware and B2B finances, is there anything else that you could see preventing future products from using the ESP32-C6?
I can’t express enough how amazing a switch of this quality would be if we could also put open protocols (Zigbee, BTHome, MQTT, HASS API, etc.) and open firmware on it.
I’d expect some resistance from Inovelli on anyone doing custom firmware, that could potentially invalidate UL certification, and maybe even create unsafe conditions (thinking there are probably ways you could burn out the relay pretty quickly, or overheat / overdrive the FETs, etc).
I don’t think there’s anything technically stopping you from doing it right now with the MG21/MG24 chips, other than not knowing the pinout, schematic, etc. needed to setup the firmware.
As with any product, custom firmware invalidates any warranty and removes culpability from Inovelli. It would be considered “hacking” the device and not an Inovelli feature.
The proposal of the ESP32-C6 chip is because it is widely used by the maker community. Virtually all smart devices have chips that can technically be written to. I am specifically mentioning the chip that is supported by ESPHome, Tasmotta, ESPEasy, etc.