Use of the term “events” in your posts is actually quite confusing from a Blynk point of view, as an Event has a specific meaning in Blynk. From what I understand of your requirements, “commands” would be a better term to use, and I’ll assume that’s what you mean by “events” in my comments below…
It is possible to send commands to Blynk devices via Node-Red, just not in the way you were trying to do it. As I said, adding the Auth token of an existing device into Node-Red isn’t the way to do it.
You can control Blynk devices from Node-Red without even having the Blynk IoT contrib installed - simply by using an API call. The details of how to do this are in this post…
(Note that this example is actually about logging an Event in Blynk, but the process can be used to upload values to a virtual datastream, or change widget properties, where those actions are supported via the HTTP(S) API).
The disadvantage to this is that you don’t get the BLYNK_WRITE(vPin) notificatiins in Node-Red when a virtual datastream value changes, so you have to poll the Blynk server looking for virtual datastream changes, which gets messy and isn’t as responsive as the alternative method.
Using my preferred method (one Blynk device in Node-Red along with the Blynk IoT contrib) still allows global access to all of your devices that talk to Node-Red via MQTT.
Using Blynk.Air for MQTT updates is the one thing you can’t do with my system, because Blynk isn’t aware of the devices that are being controlled by Blynk via Node-Red and MQTT. I use Arduino OTA still, but that requires access to a PC running on the same network as the devices.
However, in practice this isn’t really as big of an issue as you might think. I have two home automation setups using Blynk, Node-Red and MQTT, one in Spain and the other in the U.K. I have a method of doing OTA updates remotely using a mini computer that I can fire-up remotely (via Blynk of course) but I very rarely have to do this.
The reason is that the code running on my remote devices is quite simple - it simply connects to WiFi and MQTT and processes theMQTT commands it receives and sends the data that is required. After the initial development and testing, no maintenance is required unless additional functionality is required. All of the changes to how the system operated are made via the Node-Red flows, and that’s simple to do remotely (I use ZeroTier for that, but there are other alternatives available).
So, for me, the reason to use Blynk is the mobile and web user interfaces as a way to control and monitor devices. The 20+ devices in each of my home automation setups do things like control lights, air conditioning, heating, ventilation, blinds, door access etc, as well as monitoring outside weather, indoor temperature and humidity, solar power production and intruder alerts.
This is done via a single device as far as Blynk is concerned, which allows me to create a single UI with multiple tabs, and data/controls for multiple devices on a single screen.
That’s something you can’t achieve when using multiple Blynk devices,NAS there’s no method for combining data or controls for multiple devices on the same UI screen.
Personally, I have my doubts about commercial use of a Blynk/Node-Red/MQTT setup, simply because of the additional hardware/software required to achieve this. It certainly isn’t an end-user turnkey solution, but it does create a far more powerful solution, especially when you start integrating thing like Alexa and Zigbee/Matter devices into the equation via Node-Red.
Pete.