I found they come apart easily as there's no glue or clips to pry apart, just 3 T8 safety screws. Inside there's an ESP8285 on a separate module (essentially an ESP8266 but with the flash memory included). I traced the pads to the various pins on the ESP chip and luckily the RX/TX pins are exposed the edge connector.
By temporarily soldering some jumper wires to the RX/TX/3.3v/GND pins it's not necessary to remove the module to flash new firmware. I use a FT232 USB to TTL adapter for this as it also supplies 3.3v to the ESP chip (higher voltages can kill it). I use Tasmotizer as the flashing tool as it has a Windows GUI interface.
Once the new firmware has been flashed and the plug reassembled, setup is just like any other Tasmota device.
{"NAME":"MIHO109","GPIO":[32,1,1,1,1,1,288,224,1,1,1,1,1,1],"FLAG":0,"BASE":18}
⚠ Safety warning
These plugs operate at mains voltage and there are exposed terminals inside. If are are unsure of the necessary safety precautions then do not attempt this. Never attempt to flash the ESP chip when it's connected to the mains.




Many thanks for the walk through and template, I've just successfully flashed 3 of these smart plugs to Tasmota.
ReplyDeleteThere's just one step missing from your walk through.
To put the ESP8266 into UART download boot mode for flashing the Tasmota firmware, you need to short the GPIO0 pin the GND for a few seconds whilst plugging in your USB to TTL serial adapter or applying power to the ESP8266.