I am surprised to see how overwhelmingly popular Tuya devices are for Home Assistant users. It appears that devices using the official integration are very combersome to setup, they are cloud dependent, and they will often need to be re-setup due to a re-acceptance of the ToS.
Are people actively buying these devices? Are a lot of homes setup with legacy Tuya devices?
I personally have no Tuya devices in my home and after reading the integration page, I would actively avoid them. https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/tuya
The integration page shows that Tuya is used by 29.2% of active installations and the number of devices from the graph show a huge gap between Tuya and all other devices. This leads me to think that these devices would be prioritized by the developers. Am I missing something? Are these devices so cheap that they are just worth it for many to deal with the consequences of the cloud and apparent hassle of setup?
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Does this Tuya include Zigbee devices? I don’t have any wifi based Tuya devices but it’s surprising how many generic cheap Zigbee sensors are Tuya.
Roughly 1/3 of my Zigbee devices are Tuya branded, if you buy from AliExpress it’s a strong possibility.
The thing about Tuya devices is they are a white label provider which allows manufacturers to brand the Tuya Device as their own. This is causing a massive saturation in markets such as Amazon where the lower price is king. I had some Costco 'Feit" branded bulbs which turned out to set up on Tuya so it’s not just Amazon or Costco, other companies do it as well. I have a WiFi dehumidifier I bought before I got into the home automation scene which is Tuya based. They often masquerade behind apps such as SmartLife, Uhome or Feit and others with their GUI using nothing more than API Calls to the Tuya servers in China.
You can still obtain the local product keys on Tuya Developer portal which allows you to locally control your devices without the cloud, but they are making that harder to find. i was able to track some down about a month ago on a device I was evaluating. You can use other plugins too which decouple it from the cloud with your local key such as Xtended-Tuya, Tuya-Local and the like in Home Assistant so you can technically ignore the comms to China and I’ve found that some of those in tandem with each other have unlocked some extra features that the Tuya app never reveals for the device.
Ultimately, they are a very cost effective device to install in your home and often times you don’t know it’s Tuya Based until you poke around. I’m not defending them in any way, rather I am stating my observations and thoughts as to why it’s so pervasive. I wouldn’t be surprised if some Ovens or refrigerators were linked in some way to them as well.
Tuya makes zigbee devices that are cheap. It is the only tuya stuff I tend to use.
I highly dislike wifi dependant devices unless they are larger more complex devices that get stable updates.
I’ll add that often random appliances and the like are using Tuya firmware so people might not be going out of their way to buy explicitly Tuya devices but still want to use them with HA. Some of them can be flashed with ESPHome but it’s more likely to require soldering these days.
I tend to avoid them but sometimes the price point is worth the extra trouble.
A Tuya dev account will allow for easily obtaining local keys, at which point they are cut off from the internet and given to Local Tuya for control.
Most recent successes are a pair of Calex mood lights from a local supermarket that were marked down enough to impulse buy.
I would not use the official integration for anything.
So a tuya dev account can make them local, this is the piece I was missing. Now I want to get one just to try it out.
Yes, with the caveat that you need to be 100% sure they are cut off from outside when you get the keys. Whatever device is handling your connection needs to have the features to be able to do that, but often ISP provided kit will not.
The most recommended way is to isolate them on their own VLAN. I have few enough not to bother, and just give them static DHCP reservations from a block of addresses that are disallowed outside access. This has worked fine for me for over a year.
If they get any opportunity to phone home though, the local key may change abruptly and you’ll have to go through the process again.
Flashing alternative firmware is always the best solution, but it’s the most technical and sometimes not possible without physically ruining the device. Or it just might not have a supported chip.
Local Tuya fills that gap nicely. Just need the keys. A dev account is free and renewable at no cost. You can also use older versions of the Tuya/Smartlife app that expose the info. Some have had success that way with an Android VM like Bluestacks.
Yes, with the caveat that you need to be 100% sure they are cut off from outside when you get the keys. Whatever device is handling your connection needs to have the features to be able to do that, but often ISP provided kit will not.
The most recommended way is to isolate them on their own VLAN. I have few enough not to bother, and just give them static DHCP reservations from a block of addresses that are disallowed outside access. This has worked fine for me for over a year.
If they get any opportunity to phone home though, the local key may change abruptly and you’ll have to go through the process again.
Flashing alternative firmware is always the best solution, but it’s the most technical and sometimes not possible without physically ruining the device. Or it just might not have a supported chip.
Local Tuya fills that gap nicely. Just need the keys. A dev account is free and renewable at no cost. You can also use older versions of the Tuya/Smartlife app that expose the info. Some have had success that way with an Android VM like Bluestacks.
Try “Tuya Local” instead. I found it WAY easier to use. No copying keys, it gets them for you
Every bulb I have is Tuya. They are sold under Feit, Merkury, and other names too. I got a lot of these for $2.5 on sale at walmart.
After setting up with Tuya Local (not local tuya) they all work instantly and never disconnect.
Sure they aren’t as vividly saturated as Phillips hue, but they are 1/24th the cost… My entire home filled with bulbs cost the same as a SINGLE bulb from Phillips
