Sonoff Touch – Arduino, ESP8266, ESP32 & Raspberry Pi stuff

Although it is not really a big thing to solder an angled header in a SonOff Touch in order to reprogram it, one also has to solder a wire to the GPIO-0 pin of the ESP8285 chip as the SonOff Touch has no button that can be used to get it into flash mode.
I therefore wondered if it wouldn’t be possible to flash the Sonoff Touch without any soldering. Spoiler: yes it is possible, but you need some dexterity.
First open the Sonoff Touch. This is easiest done with cautiously prying a screwdriver on between the casing and the frontplate at the side.
once that is done you can see a small board that you can just pull-out.
On that board there are 4 in line holes that we need to connect an FTDI programmer to. On the bottom side of the board is also a 2×2 male header. That is the one that we just pulled out of its header in the housing. We are going to need that header a bit later as well.

indicated the function of the 1×4 header in the image. You are going to need an FTDI to USB module THAT YOU CAN SET TO 3.3 VOLT. You also will need a 1×4 straight pinheader and 4 female to female DuPont wires.
Now make the following connection between the 1×4 male header and the FTDI to USB connector:

header	FTDI module
Ground	Ground
Tx	Rx
Rx	Tx
Vcc	Vcc

To make clear, if it already wasn’t, this is a connection to a loose, 4 pin male header.
The next thing you need is a female to male DuPont cable. Connect the female end to the ground connection on the 2×2 header.

Also, you need to identify GPIO0 on the ESP8285 chip:

For the final flashing you need a bit of dexterity but this is what you do:

Have your Arduino IDE available with the required program loaded.
Under tools-boards choose the generic 8285 module
Flash size 1 Mbyte 16k SPIFFS
Make sure the FTDI module is not connected to the USB port of your computer.
Now press the 4 pin male header that is connected to your FTDI module in the proper holes. Make sure it is the right way around, so Ground connects to ground, Vcc to Vcc, Rx to Tx and Tx to Rx. If there is a bit of slack between the header and the holes. push against the pins with the mouse of yr thumb or with your little finger, so it makes poper connection.
Now take the male pin of the DuPont cable that you connected to the ground on the 2×2 pin header and push it against GPIO 0.
Keep it in place with your thumb.
You still should have one hand free. Use that to push the FTDI module in the USB connection of your computer.
Once that is done, you can let go of the male pin pressed against GPIO0
In the IDE chose the right port and press ‘upload’.

That’s it.

So, what program should you upload to make the Sonof Touch work?
Of course there is Tasmota and many people are very happy with it. Truthfully, I found it cumbersome and couldn’t even compile it. Considering all we need to do is switch 1 pin, it shouldn’t be so hard to write something simple.
Given the fact that the Sonoff Touch will most likely disappear in the wall and you don’t want to have to take it out and flash it again, two things come in very handy in the program: