I love boats, the sea and travelling

Welcome to the forum Stephan.  Your English is fine... better than many of my locals here in the US.  I'm a big proponent of ESP8266 devices, but I have to admit, I don't know that much about turn-key type solutions that would have published documentation using ESP8266's.  The solution you mentioned (ESP-Now) is a definite possibility.  Only you can decide which is more important - DIY hobby enjoyment, lower cost or resale and the commonly available, more expensive solution.

Just to add to your options to consider:

1. If you want to run some or many of your devices off small batteries say a little LiPo (< 500 mAh) for months or even years on a charge, you might want to consider using ESP8266's Deep Sleep mode.  I've been experiementing with this lately.  
2. You could also use MQTT which is a more public/published standard than ESP-Now.  In conjunction with sleep mode, it wakes up sends data, gets commands from your RasPi server/gateway and then goes back to sleep. 
3. For the RasPi, you can also opt for a lower grade RasPi.  I'm using a mere Rasberry Pi Zero-W (first generation) as a home server.  It has the advantage of only needing a small phone charger and sips power.  I run it headless without the Desktop UI and it hosts an MQTT broker, web server and database for historic data.  I use a headless RasPi4 for development purposes (for speed).  Once developed, I transfer it to the Zero as the actual house-server.  I access sensor data and control it through a web interface where any phone, tablet, computer in the house can see nice graphical user interface dashboards.  

Good luck either way you decide.  

VBR,

Inq

@stepuino Welcome to the Forum Stephan. First of all your English is every bit as good as most and better than many.

I have a 42ft RV which is a boat on wheels. It has 6 x 100AH 12V batteries, and 6 x 180 W solar panels. The main part of the house including residential fridge (modern style) is powered by a 3,000w/2,400VA inverter and 120A charger.

I did a few modifications to the RV, led lighting in the pantry, under sink cabinets and under the kitchen island with automatic control via a radar unit. I also added an electric valve to the water inlet.

I am not sure what tasmota is, but my guess is that is software installed on an esp8266 family of boards that is designed to work with the home automation software called 'Home Assistant'. I am selling my RV so had to renove the water modification as I had no documentation for it so you are correct, better to use standard off the shelf stuff like 'Home Assistant'.

I agree with Dennis (@inq), just use a Pi 2W for your HA server, and access it via VNC or similar to operate it. Use a RaspberryPi 4B for development as Dennis does, 4GB should be plenty, but if you can get 8GB then go for it. Do NOT used SD cards, get small SSD's that connect via USB 3. For the HA server, one SSD probably, but for the development box a small one for the OS so it is easily re-installed, and your home dir and everything else on a bigger second SSD.

Don't forget to backup to a second removable device.

Again I agree with Dennis, NO to esp-now, use MQTT.

If the esp8266 or similar is short of available pins, then use one of the many esp32's.

Posted by: @zander

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Again I agree with Dennis, NO to esp-now, use MQTT.

If the esp8266 or similar is short of available pins, then use one of the many esp32's.

I thought you were enamored with ESP-Now.  I started looking into it at your suggestions and its quite interesting.  I'll use it somewhere, for some project... just not Home automation.

@inq Yes, I like both, but in this case MQTT is a FAR better choice since it is highly integrated into HA.

See https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/mqtt/ even Birth and Last Will are there.

There are a few other protocols, but I would not consider anything other than MQTT.

Posted by: @zander

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@inq Yes, I like both, but in this case MQTT is a FAR better choice since it is highly integrated into HA.

See https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/mqtt/ even Birth and Last Will are there.

There are a few other protocols, but I would not consider anything other than MQTT.

Cool - Good to know.

Except - LoRa, LoRaWan???  Haven't looked yet.

@inq Nope, MQTT. LoRa no way, LoRaWan maybe. Other than MQTT, the choices are ZIGBEE, ecobee, apple, google, even node-red but who needs the complexity. Those are all full featured protocols, esp-now and LoRa are lower level and I am unsure of LoRaWan.

AFAIK, MQTT includes with no coding, guaranteed delivery, buffering, dropped message feedback and more so why bother coding all that yourself when it comes for free with HA and MQTT, just check the box in the config and done.

Yes I know nothing is for free, but this isn't NASA, and it's really slow data rates so the overhead is more than acceptable.

@inq @stepuino This is step one, the following steps are well documented and fairly easy to understand.

Thanks a lot, you encourage me.

I use already a little the tasmota and want to integrate it to iobroker. I think both, tasmota and iobroker are less known in the US, tasmota is from a German guy who wanted to provide a software to be independent of cloud and China. It supports ua MQTT, It's a shame, that I can not upload pictures.

Anyway, with the tasmotizer (1.2) one can flash the ESPX with binary files (tasmota-sensors.bin) all described in tasmota-github... I think this is a really cool thing.

The iobroker is a home-assistent software (open source) which is I think also more known in Europe. A friend of mine recommended it to me. There you can implement the tasmotized chips, but I don't know yet, how to do this.

However, one ESP8266 I tasmotized already, I can get it by IP address (handy or computer) and steer the heating with it, also measure the temperature of the room. To switch on the heating dependent on the time and temperature will be the next step.

If I find out how to load up pictures, I will show you some tasmota.

Okay then, see you...

Step

Hi @stepuino,

 Re: If I find out how to load up pictures, I will show you some tasmota.

As a safety provision, new contributors to the forum have limitations regarding posting attachments and pictures. These limitations automatically disappear after the contributor reaches a certain (small) number of posts.

So please, be patient, send a few more 'simple' posts and reach that magic threshold. Perhaps some further descriptions of how and why tasmota and iobroker might be of interest to others, including examples of the type of project that might benefit from them?  Or, of course, any other topics that you think may be of interest.

Best wishes and welcome to the forum, Dave

@stepuino Tasmota is very well known here. IOBroker is new to me and is a replacement for HA. Obviously it is cloud based, it has to be in order for remote control to work.

Good luck with your endeavours.

Good, then I don't have to explain Tasmota.

What concerns Iobroker and the cloud, as far as I understood, it depends on the adapter you use. Some adapters need the coud, others don't. So if you build up your system with only the second type of adapters, you come along without cloud. (Am I right?)

Step

@stepuino I looked at tasmota troubleshooting, and I would not touch it with a 10ft pole.

If you plan on using WiFi from more than a few tens of feet away, you need the internet otherwise known as the cloud. 

There is so much misinformation about the cloud.

@stepuino, do you not already have one of the following: Apple Home, Amazon Alexa, or Google Home? I use Alexa, and all my 'smart' devices have connected almost automatically. I have a bunch of 'smart plugs' by Kasa (TpLink), and Alexa picked them up automatically. Also, the Kasa app can see and control all their pertinent devices, but I use Alexa. All I did was create an account for Kasa, and it's all been automatic since then. My 1970s-era 240VAC baseboard heaters even turn on or off based on my geo location. All done with only the original 240VAC wiring and some very clever folks from Quebec. I looked at dozens of 'smart' thermostats, but they all needed multiple wires and/or a 24V transformer but all I had was two wires from my fuse box. I have a good idea how they do it now, but it sounded like pure magic when I first encountered it.

Nice dog on the picture. Looks like a character. Our poodle died last year. We miss her very much.