HowTo: ESPEasy - execute commands and actions via HTTP, MQTT, UDP and directly

One thing that makes ESPEasy so practical and universal is the ability to read and control various sensors and actuators via commands. Especially in combination with appropriate rules, this results in a tremendous number of possibilities.

To test individual commands and / or to be able to execute them in general, there are several possibilities.

These are described in the following article.

Hints for our lovely english readers: Basically, many of the articles on Nerdiy.de are translations from the original german articles. Therefore, it may happen here and there that some illustrations are not available in english and that some translations are weird/strange/full of mistakes or generally totaly wrong. So if you find some obvious (or also not obvious) mistakes don't hesitate to leave us a hint about that in the comment section. 
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Safety instructions

I know the following hints are always a bit annoying and seem unnecessary. But unfortunately, many people who knew it "better" from carelessness lost their eyes, fingers or other things or hurt themselves. In comparison, a loss of data is almost not worth mentioning, but even these can be really annoying. Therefore, please take five minutes to read the safety instructions. Even the coolest project is worth no injury or other annoyance. https://www.nerdiy.de/en/sicherheitshinweise/

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Requirements

Helpful Articles:
Before you start with this article you should have programmed the ESPEasy firmware on the ESP8266 you are using. Information can be found in the following article.
ESPEasy - Flash firmware and configure WLAN access data

Required tools:
-none-

Required material:

In the following list you will find all the tools you need to implement this article.

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Available commands

To control your ESPEasy device you can use commands from different "sources". On one hand, there are system commands that come from the ESPEasy "operating system" itself. With these you can control general functions such as setting the WLAN login data. A list of these possible system commands can be found at the following link: https://www.letscontrolit.com/wiki/index.php/ESPEasy_Command_Reference

In addition, each plugin can bring additional commands. There is no central overview for these commands. But they should be provided by the developer of the plugin.

With plugins of Nerdiy.de you find this information always on the respective Plugin side on Nerdiy.de. All available ESPEasy plugins can be found at https://www.nerdiy.de/tag/ESPEasy-Plugin/

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Execute commands via the serial interface

If you are still connected locally - ie via USB - to your ESPEasy-device, you can use the serial interface to execute commands quickly and easily. Open the serial monitor of your Arduino-IDE or another terminal program. Tips can be found in the article Ardunio - Using the serial interface.

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Execute commands via the web menu

Another way to set commands you have over the web menu is your ESPEasy-devices. Go to the web menu and then Tools tab.

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Execute commands via a URL call

Commands can also be executed via an appended URL call. The command is simply called in combination with the IP address/domain name of the ESPEasy-device.

If your ESPEasy-device has the IP address 192.168.0.15 and you want to execute the command "testcommand, 1,2,3", this call would look like this:

http:// 192.168.0.15/tools?cmd=testcommand,1,2,3

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Execute commands via UDP

This function can (so far) only be used to send commands from one ESPEasy device to another. For this purpose it is sufficient to execute the following command on the sending ESPEasy device.

SendTo , 

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Execute commands via rules

Almost all commands can also be used within Rules. I will describe this and general information about Rules in a separate article.

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Execute commands via MQTT

Commands can also be posted via an existing MQTT connection and executed by the connected ESPEasy device.

For this you have to configure a MQTT controller on the ESPEasy device. This must also be on the first "slot" of the controllers. In addition, the OpenHAB MQTT controller should be used. Unfortunately, the command execution does not work with the others (as far as known).

It is also important that the following is entered under "Controller Subscribe":

/%sysname%/#

%sysname% stands for the name of your ESPEasy device. If your ESPEasy device has the name "pxlBlckLivingroom", for example, this combination causes the MQTT controller to subscribe to all topics starting from "/pxlBlckLivingroom/". So the controller also receives messages about "/pxlBlckWohnzimmer/cmd" which can be used to execute the desired commands.

To summarize: So if your ESPEasy device is called "pxlBlckLivingroom" it is enough to send the desired command to the topic "/pxlBlckLivingroom/cmd".

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Additional information

https://www.letscontrolit.com/wiki/index.php/ESPEasy_Command_Reference

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Have fun with the project

I hope everything worked as described. If not or you have any other questions or suggestions, please let me know in the comments. Also, ideas for new projects are always welcome. 🙂

P.S. Many of these projects - especially the hardware projects - cost a lot of time and money. Of course I do this because I enjoy it, but if you appreciate that I share this information with you, I would be happy about a small donation to the coffee box. 🙂