I much prefer ESPHome, it really makes it easy to compile firmware and add on device automation, but Tasmota seems to also be a pretty good choice.

It seems like more native hardware is slowly coming out for this stuff, just not as fast as one might like, and none of it has much support for device-to-device interactions.

There's nothing except a full computer or Pi class device that can really discover and control this stuff, a handheld remote with months of battery life can't build a nice UI automatically quite yet, even though the hardware is there now(Cardputer, T-deck, etc)

Just for fun. What is the shortest micropython server for ON/OFF-type socket? Have not tested this yet:

    import network,socket,time

    sta_if = network.WLAN(network.STA_IF)
    if not sta_if.isconnected():
        sta_if.active(True)
        sta_if.connect('wifi', 'password')
        while not sta_if.isconnected():  pass

    from machine import Pin
    
    relayON =Pin(5, Pin.OUT)  
           
    s = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
    s.bind(('', 80))
    s.listen(5)
    
    while True:
        s.settimeout(0.5)
        try:
            conn, addr = s.accept()
            request = conn.recv(1024)
            request = str(request)
            if request.find('/ON') == 6:
                relayON.value(1)
            if request.find('/OFF') == 6:
                relayON.value(0)
            conn.close()
        except: pass

Is there a Tasmota version now that includes a MicroPython interpreter?

The point is that you don't much need these readymade Tasmotas and whatevers. :-)

I tried micropython, liked it, and developed and operated a few home automation devices with it. But changing anything after a few months was a pain - what flashing tool did I use, how did that detail work, etc. Now I run around 15 Tasmota devices in my household and would never look back. The initial flash, depending on the device at hand, can be trivial (e.g. using https://github.com/tasmota/tasmotizer on a device with builtin USB connectivity or with a USB-serial cable) or a bit less so (like the somewhat involved OTA reflashing process https://github.com/yaourdt/mgos-to- for the very handy and inexpensive Shelly devices). In any case, after that it all becomes easy, with web-based configuration, OTA updates, "fleet managament" software like https://github.com/danmed/TasmoBackup, and plug&play integratiom with Home Assistant. If somebody integrated micropython into Tasmota for cases where the countless configuration options and libraries integrated into Tasmota don't suffice, it would be perfect. But meanwhile there is a similar scripting language available within Tasmota for ESP32 devices so I can live with that.

A few years ago you could flash cheap tuya devices with this tasmota firmware, so you could add it to your homeassistant with wifi. Nk cloud. Later tuya devices had upgraded hardware which made it hard to convert. Anybody knows if things have changed?

If you're comfortable with some soldering/de-soldering, you can replace the entire chip in some cases. I did so with some downlights a while ago. They've been working great with Tasmota for some months now: https://imgur.com/a/A9donLJ. This is the post that gave me the confidence to do it: https://blakadder.com/replace-tuya-cb2l-wb2l-bw2l/

I've found many of the devices can now be flashed with https://github.com/openshwprojects/OpenBK7231T_App

There's a fork of ESPHome called LibreTiny that runs on some of the more recent Tuya devices, but it requires flashing it using a serial adapter and soldering to various pads unless you have a jig to do it.

I just decided to go all in on Zigbee devices instead (except for the Shelly Plus 1's I have).

It's built-in to ESPHome now, actually!

Yeah, but not many ESP boards ship with ZigBee support.

It’s not actually that hard, all I needed to flash my device was a TTL USB with 3.3v and soldering two cables.

There might be similar devices that even come with Tasmota pre-installed these days.

Yeah, I've resorted to buying Pre-Flashed tasmota devices. There's this german webshop mediarath.de, which sells home-automation devices that come pre-flashed with a customizable tasmota build for not much more then 'default'

tuya-cloudcutter has entered the chat.

https://github.com/tuya-cloudcutter/tuya-cloudcutter

does this still work? i read that it’s no good with the more recent hardware