Is Seeed Studio SenseCAP Indicator too powerful for DIY?

I've been using this device since July 2023 with DEMO firmware. We'll look at why I liked demo so much to keep it for a long time. Also let's look why this perfect device may just be too much for average DIY smart home enthusisast.
Seeed Studio SenseCAP Indicator:
www.seeedstudio.com/SenseCAP-...
Alternative code for Home Assistant integration:
github.com/YooSHome/SenseCapC...
00:00 - Intro
00:27 - Specification and device options
03:51 - But what's wrong with it?
04:24 - Code, demos and alternative firmware
06:12 - SenseCAP Indicator use cases for pro users
07:15 - Documentation and help you get
08:27 - Final thoughts
Don't forget to give this video thumb up if you liked it, subscribe if you still haven't and I'll see you next time!
Have fun!
Bearded Tinker
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#seeedstudio #lora

[@PileofKyle]

That’s a good review of the product. I got excited when I saw seeed studios home assistant demo and then bought a few of them. I thought I could potentially drag and drop and edit their demo firmware but didn’t realize how much is involved.

[@BeardedTinker]

It really is neat device, but not a 5 minute project - more of a 5 hour job...

[@bertdebondt]

The SensaCAP display is also supported in the nightly build of OpenHASP 0.7. It is a open source HMI firmware for Linking through MQTT to for ex. Home Assistant. The HMI UI is setup through a JSON file and linked to HA through yaml code with a HACS integration. I thought of buying one for OpenHASP, but decided to go for a cheaper GS- T3E for only 50 euro instead of 68 euro and 16MB flash instead of 8MB on this SensaCAP.

[@AndyFrei]

Yeah agree. And support of the device sucks, seems like it's either from a third party or a very useless department of Seeed...

[@PileofKyle]

Oh nice! Thanks, I will definitely check that out@@bertdebondt

[@ronm6585]

Thanks B.T.

[@BeardedTinker]

Any time Ron! Thanks for watching!!!

[@constantinpadure6672]

Now they working to add Meshtastic on this device

[@RiceEater483]

A LoRA gateway for Home Assistant? Would be a waste of time. I definitely don't own 20 Yolink devices that I would love to work locally with Home Assistant. Definitely not me. I pity the person who bought so many of their devices before they even knew that local control was possible :(

[@spiraltamer]

I am very new to HA and ordered one of these with my Green without understanding how complicated some integrations might get.... I am not afraid of yaml or python (or even C, c++ etc)... but i haven't done any compiles of firmware before... If I understand your desription of this device - there is no existing project to use this device as an ESP-home despite the fact it is an Esp32 in it - and no way to for example hook this up to HA to use as a bluetooth proxy. (sounds like this will sit on the shelf as i work on other integrations and come back to this once i have my sea-legs). Advice ?

[@BeardedTinker]

Not at this time. It's in my "check again in future" box for now. The idea of the device is really good, but I don't think code is ready for it. It would be awesome it ESPHome would support it but display is not an easy thing to control via just code.

[@chrisrosenkreuz23]

Great video thank you for your work!
I never understood the selling proposition of these screen devices for home control. I mean you can just use an old PoS phone gathering dust in a drawer with just the app, without going through all these hoops.

[@BeardedTinker]

Thanks for the comment!!! Have to agree!

[@petermolnar6017]

Just as you describe, I had an old smartphone for monitoring task, and it turned out to be too smart a device requiring regular user interactions. This device is run on a microcontroller (as opposed to a microprocessor of the smartphone), that can run for years without any care. The fact that you have no use case for this little device does not mean nobody has one...

[@chrisrosenkreuz23]

@@petermolnar6017 thanks for the perspective. That is most true.