Feature Request: Serial Port Control

[mariusstrom]

Feature request: For scenarios where connecting and controlling upsy desky via wifi (e.g., restrictive and isolated corporate wifi networks :)), it would be great to be able to control upsy-desky direct from a serial port connected to the computer. I envision something like the http APIs replicated to use UART-driven commands to the ESP.

[tjhorner]

How much of an issue is this for your use case? Have you been able to find a workaround?

This should definitely be possible but will require a bit of work to wedge this into ESPHome with a custom component; it doesn't seem to support this kind of thing out of the box.

[mariusstrom]

@tjhorner one of mine at home works great, and I'd like to have the other working at the office. Unfortunately our work BYOD wifi network doesn't allow inbound network connections at all so controlling the device at work via HTTP is a non-starter.

I totally get it though, it's probably an edge case scenario so I won't be bothered if the answer is "yeah, no..." :) If the answer is "yeah", I'm also totally happy to contribute beverages of your choice or donations to non-profits of your choice.

[tjhorner]

Unfortunately our work BYOD wifi network doesn't allow inbound network connections at all so controlling the device at work via HTTP is a non-starter.

Gotcha. Well, one possible workaround for now is to configure ESPHome to connect to an MQTT broker and use that to control your desk. It's not an ideal solution, but works around this limitation since it would only require an outbound connection to be established.

I would definitely like to implement this in some form, though! It may be useful to others with an Upsy Desky and to the ESPHome community at large, so I'll see what I can do.