Hack a Breville Espresso Machine for Home Assistant Control

A quick guide on how to add a Shelly 1 WiFi relay inside a Breville BES870 espresso machine to mimic the on/off switch.

IntermediateFull instructions provided2 hours23,423

Hack a Breville Espresso Machine for Home Assistant Control

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Shelly1 WiFi Relay

Software apps and online services

Home Assistant

Story

I've wanted my coffee machine to come on in the morning automatically for so long so the Shelly competition was the kick I needed to get it completed. Here are the steps I used to add a Shelly 1 WiFi switch inside my Breville BES870 (XL) Espresso Machine to allow it to be control by Home Assistant.

Parts List:

1 x Shelly 1 WiFi switch (must be the Shelly 1 as it's the only one with an isolated relay!).
30cm mains cable.
2 x mains connectors
10cm twin JST cable assy.
1 x 3M sticky pad

I haven't done detailed a disassembly procedure for the actual Espresso machine as this differs for every model but there are tons of 'disassembly' videos on YouTube.

After you've remove the top and part of the back panel, remove the two screws holding the front electronics panel on as shown below.

Two screws holding the front panel down

Route the wiring away from the catches and pull the front panel up and roll it over.

Remove the three screws that hold the power button module on

We're going to connect the Shelly relay across the power button

Remove the power button PCB and solder your 2-pin JST connector (or similar) to the two locations shown.

Be careful to not knock the LED's

Finished wiring

Route the JST connector out of the plastic housing and screw into back into the front panel. Align the LED's if these have been bumped.

Once all back together, attach the JST cable assy to the relay output and your 30cm mains cable to the mains input. No switch input is required.

Using your 3M sticky, attach the Shelly 1 to the inside of your machine away from the grinder.

The finished low voltage side

Route the mains wiring along the same path as the blue/orange grinder sensor wiring and down the right-hand-side of the white power module.

Remove the mains twisters and connect the Live and Neutral wires from the Shelly to the corresponding wires on the incoming mains leads.

Here's a quick video of the project and then a follow-up video of the mod in action! Woohoo.

Shelly 1 mod overview

Shelly mod in action

And lastly, here is the code I used in a Home Assistant package to get it working. The only problem at the moment is that Home Assistant does not know whether the coffee machine is on or off so I'll be adding another Shelly; this time a Shelly 1PM to monitor the power being used by the machine. This will allow me to use the current drawn for my template switch instead of the input_boolean. Enjoy!

Home Assistant Coffee Machine Package

Home Assistant Coffee Machine Package

YAML

The three elements required for the code to work. A MQTT switch (Shelly), some kind of powering monitoring switch and a template switch. With the addition of the power monitoring switch, Home Assistant now has feedback to determine whether the machine is on or off based on power draw. This info is fed directly into the template switch.

For this coffee machine (and others I suspect, the switch state in HA but bounce around a bit when the machine is turned off as there is a 'cool-down' period and the unit keeps drawing power for quite a few seconds after the power is turned off.

switch:
  - platform: template
    switches:
      coffee_machine:
        friendly_name: Espresso Machine
        # A value template can only report true or false #
        value_template: "{{ states('sensor.xiaomi_coffee_machine_power') | float > 3 }}"
        ## > sign in float indicated on if above. If you use <, that means off if above ##
        turn_on: &toggle_coffee
          - service: switch.turn_on
            entity_id: switch.coffee_machine_shelly_relay
          - delay:
              milliseconds: 400
          - service: switch.turn_off
            entity_id: switch.coffee_machine_shelly_relay
        turn_off: *toggle_coffee

  - platform: mqtt
    name: "Coffee Machine Shelly Relay"
    state_topic: "shellies/shelly1-<deviceID>/relay/0"
    command_topic: "shellies/shelly1-<deviceID>/relay/0/command"
    availability_topic: shellies/shelly1-<deviceID>/online
    payload_available: "true"
    payload_not_available: "false"
    qos: 2
    payload_on: "on"
    payload_off: "off"
    retain: false
    optimistic: false