What is it?

The USP is a USB smart plug designed to be hack able and easily modified. Powered by an ESP8266 and a tiny yet powerful IRLML2502 single N-Channel mosfet. It can measure its supply voltage via the ESP’s ADC and comes in a rugged matte black nylon & glaß compound case manufactured on a Laser-Sintering machine.

Why did you make it?

One day i just got annoyed by my decorative lights, their RGB does look gorgeous, but not when i want to sleep, the first few nights i just plugged it out but i can't really do that every night, so i just threw together some components in my PCB designer of choice ordered five of them and soldered the components on. The USP was born, fast-forward a few months and a good friend of mine saw one of the then 4 USP v1.0s running and said i should sell them. We sat together to improve the design and ordered 30 at JLCPCB. We had the bottom side SMT assembled, the top is hand soldered by me. A bunch of case iterations later we also had a nice 3D printable case (dont worry, the STLs will be up soon) but since the quality of the 3D prints didnt feel nice enough to sell them, we had the manufactured on a Formica P110 industrial Laser-sintering machine.

What makes it special?

There are a LOT of IoT devices being sold in online marketplaces. Especially if you look around on sites like Ali express, Bang good, taobao etc. The problem I encountered in recent times, is that more and more devices use esp clones or just flash able chips at all, instead they now integrate certain TyWe chips or similar which have become unflappable as well. So in order to not have to "Frankenstein" ESPs or similar into bought devices after painstakingly having reverse engineered them. I started building my own devices. From simple ESPs with relays, over lights to the USP. The first one i feel like other people would wanna use and where i feel confident the hardware won't make issues (Like i said, of both the original boards and the new iteration there are some running in my HomeAssistant, without any problems whatsoever). Everything about this device is on the:"https://kuhn-smart.de/usp/" website including a setup guide and a fully commented ESPHome code. And if you have any other questions you can reach us under the info@kuhn-smart.de email. The USP is a device made to be used with your own software and will not try to keep you from modifying it. You dont need to make an enclosure for it, because it comes in one, you won't require force or tricks to open it if you want to, because the case is held together by a robust slide in place lock, secured by a philips-head screw.

The thing that makes the USP special is its rather specific purpose of turning USB device on and of, while being functional out of the box and documented transparently for you to do, what you desire to do with it.

For more information and the documentation visit: kuhn-smart.de/usp