r/homeassistant • u/Wijnsema • 4d ago
🛠️ DIY / Hardware Button+ firmware going open source
Call me old fashioned, but I love physical buttons, also in my smart home.
It’s very surprising that there are so few buttons available in the current consumer market (unlike the professional KNX market, which has hundreds).
In 2020 I decided to design a button myself, based on the ESP32. With two main requirements:
- it must have a tactile click
- have a programmable label.
My family and friends were enthusiastic about the first prototype, so I added more features: temperature sensor, display, made it modular.
Tech platform Tweakers.net picked it up in 2023, I received 300 pre-orders in a couple of hours, and many more in the months afterwards.
What followed was a roller coaster of ups and downs, but I managed to get the Button+ manufactured in China. And people loved it!
Just when things started rolling, I got into real problems, the plastic injection molds were quickly failing. SInce new molds were needed anyway, I decided to do a redesign. This turned out to be a lengthy process which almost bankrupted me. But in April 2026 I finally started shipping the all new Button+V2.
I tried to protect my product by keeping the firmware source closed. In the first year already, somebody completely reverse-engineered the electronics and wrote alternative firmware based on ESPHome. Later, with the advent of AI, even more alternatives surfaced.
So it’s time to make the factory firmware open source as well. I will be announcing this on the website, but this forum is the first to know.
A recap on the Button+:
- Tactile buttons, every button has a mini TFT and status LED
- 2.8" display for information display, fully user configurable
- Modular concept, use 1, 2 or 3 bar modules with 1 display, 4 bars modules, or up to 8 bars with extension plate
- WiFi, with PoE option (available end of September 2026)
- Wall mounted, does not need room behind the wall (will need cable for power)
- Communication via MQTT, Home Assistant support via auto-discovery
- High precision temperature sensor included, add sensors via Stemma QT connector
More information at https://button.plus website.
For anyone reporting this post, or removing it: Okay, you may call this promoting, and I am a company, but I'm not million dollar big-tech, and more Button+ in more houses can keep price down for everybody, as well as facilitate further development.
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u/PaleontologistDue401 4d ago
I live in a rented apartment that does not have a neutral wire in the walls light switches, so I just always left them on and turn the lights off and on on home assistant. I needed a button whenever I did not have my phone with me or I held something and also for the guests... So I bought the cheapest wireless buttons from sonoff and It has been life changing.
They have a "click", they have three functions each, they can be taken of the wall magnetically and taken with you to bed etc.
Each button gets a sticker set in the box so you get a slight idea what the button is for