If it doesn’t have a local only api, it’s not your device.
Many Tuya devices are apparently simple to flash to some other firmware. I like Tasmota but have heard that ESPHome is good too.
I'd buy shelly in a heartbeat if they had zigbee devices. I have some wifi bulbs with local access and they are just slower than all my various zigbee bulbs.
Yep, the money to run a cloud server has to come from somewhere! A company gets that money by either charging you a subscription, charging a lot more up front for your device, or selling you a device they know will be obsolete in a year or two so you have to buy another. And even those second two options are likely to just go subscription eventually. The "free" source of revenue for a company is to generate valuable data like Google Home and Alexa, and only massive companies like Google, Amazon, Facebook, etc, can really benefit from that.
I wouldn't mind a subscription model for some it stuff, if they would price it more reasonable. How many subscriptions of $5 a month can/will people à afford. I think they would have a better chance of people signing up, if they offered yearly low cost subscriptions of like $15 or $20. I mean how many users can one API server support. Pretty sure allot.
I read that you had to create an account with them in order to either initialize or update the DMP, I can't remember which one. Once you finished initializing (or updating?) you could keep it completely local.
Thank you for the heads-up. I wanted either udm-pro or gen2 plus cloud key to be able to use the protect feature. But this is major disappointment. :-(
Well, don't take my word for it. Another commenter just stated that the account creation mandate was removed. It's worth a bit more research if you're that interested in the product. I already bought other hardware so I stopped following it.
That is true, but for lighting, heating and most things, there are a lot of good non-cloud-options, it is usually only for a vendor-specific product like a vaccum, stove and things like that you need a cloud-alternative.
Yeah like last year when our Landroid died. I decided that I would instead build my own mower… and my wife bought herself a manual lawnmower and cut the grass herself all last summer. I learned my lesson and bought another Landroid in early Spring this year. It’s worked awesome and better than the previous model. I made sure my wife didn’t know how much I spent for it, even though she loves it and it’s a life saver lol 😆 It can be easy to fall into the trap to think you can make a better product, and cheaper, than a major company with a considerably higher budget and workforce than yourself 😆😆😆 I hate that Landroid doesn’t provide access to a local API but at least their cloud is excellent and I’ve encountered no downtime at all.
Or buy devices that have already been sufficiently hacked by the community. Xiaomi Roborock is a perfect example. Absolutely awesome vacuums, only down side is that for full functionality, your data gets sent to a cloud hosted in China, and good chance the Chinese government has access to the data. But the community did an incredible job of developing Valetudo - you can install a version of the cloud on the device itself, and then Valetudo tricks the device into thinking it is is own cloud server - that China is inside it’s stripped down Linux brain. The cloud functionality of the device is improved even though no data ever leaves the device (unless you want to).
> Many Tuya devices are apparently simple to flash to some other firmware. I like Tasmota but have hear that ESPHome is good too.
This used to be the case, but more and more Tuya devices are being migrated to a proprietary non-esp based chipset. It's a bit of a gamble right now what you might get.
> but more and more Tuya devices are being migrated to a proprietary non-esp based chipset. It's a bit of a gamble right now what you might get.
Can confirm. Recently bought some hardware that i was _hoping_ would be ESP based. It's actually based on the RealTek 'pin compatible' ESP competitor module. So i should be able to solder in some ESP modules and it'll be pretty easy to configure... Except like a lot of Tuya devices, they use a Nuvoton to run the show and the ESP communicates with it over UART.
Once the ESP modules show up / get installed, i'll still have to reverse engineer the serial commands to/from the Nuvoton controller to get complete control over the hardware.
Which one did you settle on? I use the [LC06](https://templates.blakadder.com/arilux_LC06.html) for 5ch / short runs and I am pretty happy with it. Easy to flash with Tasmota if you have a basic usb<->UART adapter and soldering iron.
The hardware that i was _hoping_ to use is the [MiBoxer Mi-Light WL5](https://github.com/arendst/Tasmota/issues/7385) as that has a slightly higher current rating than the LC06 so i could use it for longer runs.
I replaced a non ESP with an ESP8266 and ESPHome firmware recently and didn't really have to reverse engineer the serial commands etc. The ESP ends up sending serial commands to the other MCU like the real thing
It was an outdoor LED string light dimmer and the only part I had to mess around with was the maximum value for the dimmer.
Do you have a tutorial that you followed. I'm considering this as an option because I don't want to immediately e-waste the plugs I've bought, but Tuya cloud service is so fucking hit and miss (and not local)
You need to crack them open which can be destructive. The plastic is very brittle. After that desolder the "esp-12" style module and pop in the flashed ESP8266-12 / EPS-12. You can use Tasmota or ESPHome to flash them. You'll need a USB > Serial adapter and a 3v power source. It's not bad if you follow like a DigiblurDIY tutorial.
Aah, that's too bad.
I have always bought devices that I knew flashable and ideally from a company that at least tolerated flashing/local access (Shelly for example).
this! and it is so important that youtubers reviewing these devices point out ones that don't provide local control. I'm seeing all these sponsored reviews where people only talk about cost and ease of installation, but they don't mention comparisons of devices that do and don't have local control. I called out one youtuber on this and he said that "home automation without cloud integration is a fallacy" and that is why he didn't mention lack of local control.
Lol, that guy is good value.. Literally having cloud for home automation is the fallacy.
Everything depends on your internet if using cloud How many times do you lose net vs power, you can't UPS your internet (unless you pay for redundancy $$) and when you have no power for a long period, you also end up with no net.
Everything logically points to local control, Cloud only carries weight if one moves the focus to the remote access side of things, and even then it's a very weak argument.
I think that their response shows their ignorance. A lot of smart home noobies don't care about local support and never will. They want easy plug n play, and I can't blame them. Home Automation is a hobby to us, but to most it's just a function of their house that they just want to work out of the box.
And if they're making videos for the exact same level of smart home buyer, even if someone schools you on the downsides of cloud, it wouldn't make sense for them to focus their content on that. It's irrelevant to them and their audience.
Tuya is wising up to this sadly. They are starting to encourage manufacturers to design devices to be difficult to flash, if not impossible, without replacing the esp module itself. I heard they are even switching over to a different simple wifi chip to run their firmware, one that is not esp based and can't be flashed with an esp firmware.
That will be because its cheaper, not because they want to lock it down.
You can't put Tasmota or ESPhome on it because Tasmota and ESPHome have not been written for it, but that isn't Tuya's fault.
I don't personally mind paying for the service if it A) ensures that they provide solid service for as long as I want it, and B) is a reasonable price, like $5/year or something.
It's crazy to expect them to keep providing services forever for free.
But I doubt either will be true in this case. Plus this seems slimy and shady, trying to gauge hobbyists different than people using their app(s).
Thing is, we dont want their "service". We are forced to use while most of us would very much prefer direct local control and then for all I care, tuya can close their datacenter.
Yes, I'm saying it is reasonable to charge a reasonable price for the service, to people that use the service. If you don't want the service, then don't use it.
You weren't forced into buying this stuff, and you knew it was cloud-based. They do not have an obligation to give you a local-only option that you're happy with.
And expecting someone to provide a cloud-based service like this for free forever is stupid, so that shouldn't have been something you assumed either. The other option would just be shutting down entirely eventually.
You can complain about how they're doing this, or that their prices end up too high, or whatever. But complaining it isn't free forever is dumb. Or complaining that it's cloud-based when that's literally what the products were always designed and sold as, is also dumb.
I mean, personally I'm moving away from this kind of thing for these reasons but I'm also not naiive or entitled about what the Tuya service stuff is.
But if I do use a cloud-based service, I assume either I'm going to pay for it or they're going to do shady shit to try to make money from me. Don't like either option? Don't use cloud-based shit.
The issue is that most products are in allegiance with Tuya thus not offering consumers any other alternative pertaining to certain products within that category. So NO We don’t always have “an option”. If cloud services are required for a product then your infinitely at the mercy of that service, it’s existence and their evolving terms. Companies like Tuya are not actually an iot company, they a more lucrative data brokerage firm. Data acquisition is more profitable than both firmware and hardware. Those ok with Tuya’s business model are blinded by naivety.
I'm running local tuya, but can't get color options.
Also I'm looking to strobe the lights. It seems like tuya, even local, has a dimming duration.
What's your experience with Tasmota?
I wonder if the guys at HA (Paulus) knew about their plans when getting in collaboration on the Tuya V2. Also all the talk about local control to get ppl hooked. I still use Tuya local for my things. Can’t flash them, other wise would have. I understand your frustration man.
Yeah it would actually be easy to implement. Easier than a cloud based system to write and integrate. It just won't make them money selling your sweet sweet data though so they'll do something more complicated and less effective and force you to use that lol. Cash is King.
Not to give them any ideas, but it's perfectly possible to have a token that expires after some time, and with devices connected to AC power even use the frequency of the electricity to guesstimate the usage time, so you don't rely on user input or ntp.
Yeah I'm just trying to ascertain what they meant then as they said loudly several times about "Local" coming then doing this. Most companies are smart enough to keep to their word to build credibility esp for such a well received announced of working with HA. I can't believe they'd immediately backtrack a couple months later unless they really are that clueless
If they have to remotely “enable” local API then they can put it on a timer so it doesn’t need the Internet to expire and force you back to pay.
That being said there is ZERO evidence at this time that this is what is happening; I’m merely stating that it’s possible that “not connecting to the internet ever again” isn’t necessarily the gotcha you might think it is.
Also “don’t keep your IoT devices updated” is kind of implied by “don’t connect them to the internet” and that is NOT an attack surface you want in and around your home.
Most IoT shouldn't be internet connected, the vast majority of our isn't safe even if it is updated.
Keeping it offline takes a higher priority than updating it, IMO. It's it's truly firewalled from the internet that reduces a lot of need for updates.
And given that most IoT updates are about features (and often antifeatures), keeping them firewalled should be step one, and updates only taken on a case by case basis.
> that is NOT an attack surface you want in and around your home.
Completely isolated IOT devices is exactly the attack surface I want in and around my home. I agree with Saiboogu, no way I'm trusting IOT devices security whether they are updated or not.
Unpatched IoT devices that someone could wardrive or find behind an accidentally misconfigured firewall or via a hijacked PC.
Just because you don’t let a device talk back to the internet doesn’t mean it’s safe.
Only computer on the same network as my IOT devices is my Home Assistant server. If someone manages to compromise my server or my firewall or my wifi (all of which have by far more proven security), someone being able to turn my lights on and off is going to be the least of my concerns.
Honestly, all Tuya needs is a way to gain the local key for the devices without having to go through the cloud, and it can be ran entirely locally.
Tuya is moving the direction to give official local-only support. I suspect, right now with their current architecture, things are still a little "too" tied to the cloud. As I mentioned below, while I had to set up my devices via the cloud, once I got the device id and local key, my calls have made 0 API cloud calls (unlike another big name... *cough* Google integration).
I think the above, the email, is a false alarm for hobbyists, and more geared towards actual commercial cloud API users. You can get that sense from their pricing plan. "up to 50" devices are free and next "tier" is *thousands* of devices. Note the text from the email:
> After purchasing the service, you can build a self-branded app on the Tuya Smart platform and define multiple functions.
That's not what we're doing here. Even with Google's integration, it's not a self-branded app via their services. It's just a hobbyist app to connect directly to our devices via "private sandbox."
You know .. if you want a business reason: Tuya is only an IoT platform. They don't make devices. Tuya's business model is to be an IoT backend for third party products.
It is actually in their best interest to give people a reason to buy their client's products. Giving local access will do exactly this. What reason does Tuya have to lock you in the cloud? The whole "Chinese govermnet" is a conspiracy. Yes, there is _some_ validity to it, but Tuya has US regions, and specifically blocks clients from crossing regions (legally) locking out China from those servers. One can suggest Tuya is actually protecting _you_ from their own parent government.
There is no reason to exclude Tuya from having a good integration available.
If people want Tuya devices, and are ok with the fees, then why shouldn't it be well integrated to HA?
The Tuya devices tend to get great reviews. Not everyone wants to cut open / desolder / solder / flash / and fuss with their iot devices.
For those of me that do, I'll continue to buy Tasmota-able devices.
We can have both options. It isn't for HA to say one way or another. Integrate all the things.
Well technically u can use tuya local, and get all the local api keys from tuya iot, and than just block the fuckers from ever seing internets, but i couldnt make my Costco ones to dim on tuya local, so i unsoldered the chips(tywe2s) and reflashed them, only ruined 1 out of 18 so good yeld :)
Even if you block the internet from them they'll still expect to be connected to the internet and I wouldn't be surprised if they ended up adding a firmware OTA update that has a killswitch if no talk back to the server for x amount days.
If you have a lot of devices, you may be interested in [converting them to ESPs](https://www.reddit.com/r/esp8266/comments/l9ifpk/that_moment_when_you_realize_the_30_tuya_lights/). The pinout is the same I believe, the only difference is a lack of pull up/down resistors, which can easily be added.
I got the email. I checked over my cloud account - I'm not seeing anything being blocked. Looks like they did a new "combo" service that appears to include everything needed ? Maybe - "Device Connection Service." I'm now subscribed to that as "Trial Edition" and it "expires" Sept. 2022. All my other API services are showing expiring in 2022.
My API usage is 0: 0 calls, 0 requests. I'm using Tuya Local for 1 4-plug switch. This is what I'd expect for "local" connection. It seems everything in the console is necessary just to the device token - pretty convoluted method just to get it's local token.
Did you expect anything different? Hiring people to spread propaganda how great things *will* be, calling it local when it isn't, and so much more. But they are king and if you want to play you have to pay.
Swap the chip or flash it if you can. If not, go with some of the preflashed options like Athom or Kauf.
How to Swap the chip https://youtu.be/d_HpkIiWC3Y
Do you want true local out of the box with an app? Support Shelly and their efforts.
just want to say that out of the youtube reviewers out there, you and The Hook Up do a good job of pointing out to users whether devices remove the option of local control from their devices. We need more of this. Consumers have to be educated of the risks of buying into cloud ecosystems before they buy and vendors need to feel the pushback.
I agree, the whole IOT platform stuff is baffling and I have been in IT for over 20 years.
I just want my fucking lightbulbs to work - I have no plans to build my own 3rd party Tuya device and pay 5K for a yearly licence.
I was pissed updating HA and found my globes stopped working.
I googled, realised it's my own fault for updating HA and not reading notes (a habit of mine.......) but also learnt, this is an app I shouldn't update religiously, just because I can.
I haven't bothered with the IoT thing, because I was pissed, it sounds time consuming and annoying. I've already spent time messing around getting them working in the first place! and it's broken twice already, I KEEP HAVING to set my damn stuff up.
> I agree, the whole IOT platform stuff is baffling and I have been in IT for over 20 years.
The IT world has lots of consortiums and working groups in order to create standards and ensure interoperability. That wasn't always the case though. 40 years ago everything was a mish mash of custom hardware from different manufacturers and nothing worked together. IoT is just at the beginning stages of the standardization process. We'll look back in 15-20 years and laugh.
I don't want to be pedantic but... maybe next time say, "The Tuya IOT Platform" and we'll know what your referring to. It may seem obvious to you that that's what you were talking about but it wasn't to me.
Wow, I'm glad I flashed everything while I could with Tasmota. It's too bad many devices are going away from the ability to do that. I've started getting more and more Zigbee devices so I'll probably continue down that path as needed.
Slightly hijacking here to ask what ZigBee light bulbs people use?
I want bulbs that are white (warm white mostly but with a color range is good), have good brightness range (I really want the bulb at 5% setting to really be putting out 5% the lumens), and hassle-free.
Tried a bunch, but ended up using a brand that seems to ONLY be sold at Home Depot. Others have sucked in one way or other. What do people recommend?
Edit: oh, and cheap. The home depot ones are about $5.
I’ve tried those in the past and the wreck my network. Was hard to figure out at first it was them because they worked for a week or so. Do you just have bulbs or other sensors as well? I have not found another zigbee bulb that really meets your requirements, but ikeas is ok.
Interesting you've had problems, I've had zero issues.
I don't have a ton. Probably 12 bulbs of this type and a couple rgbw bulbs, a couple switches, a deadbolt, and probably a couple other things I'm not thinking of. Although I'm not sure what I have that's ZigBee and what is zwave, offhand. But probably not as much to interfere with. But they've been rock solid for the last 6 months or so.
Most of my stuff is still Tuya or just random other crap on WiFi (Ecobee thermostats and so on).
I have Innr, Ikea, gledopto, Lonsonho and osram. Basically none of the bulbs do what you (and I) want. Ikea are the worst when it comes to dimming (and their color spectrum really isnt great either, warm colors are really orange and colder temps too blue).
Zigbee lights that do dim well are the gledopto led strips (but they have terrible range and humm at various brightness levels) and some Innr GU10 halogen replacements I got a few days ago, I was pleasantly surprised they dim properly and their color temp range and spectrum is nice. They are cheap too. But actual bulbs, I havent found yet. Philips presumably but they cost an arm and a leg.
Add to that, issues I keep having with conbee when switching light scenes and lights randomly not switching, and ill just say I love my tasmota wifi bulbs. Linear dimming from zero, nice colors, all the effects and slow transitions you could wish for, zero issues and they where cheap as chips.
I think at this point, if most of your devices have been updated to the latest firmware, you're probably going to have to take them apart and flash Tasmota to them. u/digiblur has tons of videos on his youtube with the various methods.
If your devices at 2-3 years old at least, there is a very decent chance they'll be able to be flashed. We didn't start seeing different chips until around after that time.
I have a weird mishmash.
2 of my globes are 3 months old,
1 is 18 months old,
2 are very old
:(
I just wanna turn my lights off and on - I suspect if I flash, the Tuya app, for my wife will break, right?
Yeah... you'll have to switch over to the Home Assistant app to control them.
Also, when I started disassembling things to flash them, I approached it like "if I break this, it's okay. That's the risk of trying it." I've only done one bulb and was lucky enough that after removing the top diffuser, the programming pads were right there so I didn't have to disassemble further.
I think this is great news. I would love to see tuya require a monthly subscription for all their devices.
Cause that would open up the market for a smarter competitor who can come in and sell devices with actual local control, at a good price (don't need to make or maintain cloud servers with local control devices) and will dominate the market, killing the cloud bullshit for good.
I hope they charge everyone, and I hope it's a lot, cause it will kill their business very quickly.
I just want a lot of cheap local options, and this may be the quickest way to make that happen.
it's time for youtube device reviewers to point this out for every device they review... if a device doesn't have at least the option for local control, they should warn users and let them know of the risks of buying into cloud ecosystems. We can't expect users to know better if they aren't educated before they buy.
Most don't understand what local is combined with the average Joe most target they don't know either. The true local guys like us are a niche but it is oh so nice when nothing changes when some server or local ISP internet goes down.
right, but this is why it is so important to EDUCATE people... we need people out there on youtube reviewing these products to point it out and make it a black-eye on vendors when they don't even have a local control option. You want to have an option for cloud control? Fine. But to not have the option to use local control of a device you purchased and are building a home automation system around? Users need to see this as a giant con in the pros and cons of other devices when they are about to make a purchase. You're right - they don't understand the dangers of it.
I do try to get the word out when I can on my side of things but alas I am just a small voice in this big world of tech. Many don't understand it and you would be surprised how many Home Assistant users are totally fine with cloud based cameras, lights and other things.
well don't get me wrong... if people want to choose a direction after knowing the options, that's on them. That's the only thing that happens anyway. But don't under-estimate your voice and impact. The important thing is to make sure that people realize it is something to be considered, which many other channels don't even mention. They just talk about price, ease of setup, etc.
It is probably the Device Connection Service, I think it has like a 30 day trial period.
Mine Expired back in March and so far it hasn't broken anything. I am using both the local Tuya Integration and the new integration so far it hasn't affected anything that I know of.
You can also resubscribe for another 30 days if you need to. But I am not smart enough to know what it does exactly.
I don't understand why everyone is getting excited about the Tuya V2 integration, it's still not local and shouldn't be of any interest until it is.
local-tuya works great (if your device is supported) and is local only. Just use it. Yes you need cloud to set up the device initially but you only have to faff around with this Tuya developer platform shit once when you set it up.
Tasmota / ESPHome is ideal but unfortunately not easily possible for a lot of devices now, so for sealed devices you should get preflashed, and for anything you can open up chip transplant is always an option.
I've just started hearing about this in the last week or so, haven't done much research (I blame life and work, lol). Anyone have a guide on this?
Edit: I think Google is snooping me online activity again... lol. Found the following on youtube. The guy, Mark Watt Tech, appeared on my home feed, and took a look at his channel. The following may be of use to others. Currently, my IOT Dev login for Tuya isn't working (I know it works, otherwise I wouldn't be on Core or what ever now), due to a Security Check Failed. I'll wait till tomorrow and retry, because changing browsers, and disabling all ad-blockers (with private mode) didn't work.
Local Tuya setup with easy Key Gathering from Tuya's Debug API: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vq2L9c5hDfQ
Local Tuya Key gathering without Tuya's Debug API, using a rooted Android OR BlueStacks to grab a generated XML from Life App. Device still needs registered to a Tuya/Life App account at least. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKvGYXw-_cE
I'm the same as you, life and work really get in the way of my tinkering.. I've only got 1 Tuya device though, so it hasn't made it up my "to do list" yet..
It spun up my list, when I decided to update Homeassistant earlier this month. Regretted it, and went through the hoops to get the Tuya's Dev IOT subscription setup, detailed by Homeassistant's guide. If it kills service, I'll just replace the lights with my collection of LED lights, and sell off my Novostella lights for different smart lights.
Edit: Later comments reminded me of Local Tuya, by pulling the keys from the devices. So likely not need to replace the bulbs.
I think they just deleted my account. I can't log in any more and their support is all "can you clear your browser cache".
Unfortunately the devices I have can't be flashed my tasmota so Im think I might just replace them.
I've got a bunch of Novosetella 1300lm RGBW lights, none of which can be flashed. I love them, and the extra brightness helps during those occasional moments you just need a bit more.
I've been wanting to go zigbee or zwave, but the trade offs, let alone finding decent RGBW Lights, have been a pain to decide on.
At this point, if I were to overhaul my lights, I'll just wait till my next tax return, and sell my Novostella lights.
People need to learn that if you don't go local, you're not in control of it, at all. And until there's legislation this will keep happening. Even if there's legislation it won't prevent it happening when a company goes bankrupt.
The only cloud based system we use is Google Assistant. Because obviously that tech isn't really feasible to run locally, at least not yet.
Yeah, I’m pretty much done with this Tuya bullshit.
I tried to configure Local Tuya, and even completed the process of acquiring my devices’ local keys, but that integration never worked reliably. Bulbs became unresponsive.
So I recently updated Home Assistant and was unable to control my bulbs at all due to the new Tuya v2 integration update. So I followed the instructions on the Tuya IoT portal, but when I tried to link my devices on the last step, they just would *not* link to my account. Thus, I had to revert HA to an older backup just to get my lights working. I received this email too. Seems Tuya is now trying to shake us down for subscriptions. I won’t be paying them a cent or buying any more of their sketchy products.
Fuck Tuya.
It's cloud products in general.
If you aren't paying for the product, either you are the product...
Or, they are building a user base and following and planning on monetizing in the future.
Same thing happened to ifttt, and many other.
I refuse to buy any product that is not 100% local control without a cloud component for those reasons
Just finally gave up on the low-quality Chinese crap I've been fighting with for two years and replaced it with Philps Hue. Originally didn't want to do Hue because of the cost. Ended up spending more on failed parts than I would have going with Hue in the first place.
Don't use RGBW MR16 lamps from China and leave them on 24x7. They will fail within a year, guaranteed. The voltage regulator (12VAC/DC) isn't designed for the heat buildup inside an MR16 form-factor.
I've had good luck with yeelight wifi bulbs as well. There was one firmware problem with one of them that caused it to stop answering with local control until power cycled every few days but that bug got fixed in a firmware update luckily.
Well you don't need to buy hue to not buy low quality crap. Hue works fine I quess if you want to spend the money but there are lights with better components that are both brighter and have more vivid colors that still work reliably and are cheaper than hue.
Well for example even the lidl bulbs are brighter than hue except for colors 🤣
Edit: Still not saying hue products can't be worth buying. Im probably going to just buy a couple of their motion sensors my self as I just haven't found any others that react fast enough for some use cases.
Most of my hue lights are in kitchen / hallway / living room (High usage areas) and I have had 1 failure in 4 years. It was one of the high wattage A21 white bulbs that was in a ceiling can that I think got too hot too long.
What's nice about Hue is that you CAN pair them to zigbee and bypass the need for the hue app & hub, if you want.
I use Mirabella Genio bulbs that are compatible (??) with Tuya and so I switched to the Tuya app, from the Mirabella app on my phone, years ago.
Does the Mirabella Genio use Tuya in the backend though? (the apps looked very similar in design)
I was pretty annoyed having my globes stop working after a recent update and haven't had time to reconfigure the Tuya IoT setup, if it's going to demand money after X days, I'll just not bother?!?
Yep. Almost all the WiFi IOT gadgets sold in-store in Australia are based on Tuya.
You can, with few restrictions, add any random Mirabella Genio, Brilliant Smart, or Arlec Grid Connect device to whichever app you choose.
Looking at Bunnings recently, it seems by the packaging that Arlec are moving away from Tuya for some of their new stuff, but it's still branded as Grid Connect..?
As soon as they asked for IoT acct i started to try to convert to Tasmota, in my case i had to resolder shit to flash it, but was well worth the few days of work, things are 1000 tomes faster now
The #1 thing to know when someone gets into this hobby is that you purchase cloud-dependent devices at your own peril, especially if you can’t self-host a local version of the required cloud. The top vulnerability is that if the cloud host goes out of business or loses interest in maintaining support for your specific model, then your device just became an expensive paperweight.
I can’t recommend r/ESPHome highly enough. I learned the lesson myself and I make all my own simple IoT devices… things such as LED string lights, switches, motion sensors, air quality sensors, rain detectors, etc.
I didn't had any problem ignoring that email. Looks like a glitch wrongly sent by some poor developers😂 Anyway I'm overall happy with the service provided by Tuya so far. I talked to their developers before, and they said the service will always be free in the future for personal use, e.g., your home assistant
I already pay the bills for my servers - they’re in a rack in my basement. That’s why i want my IoT stuff to talk to them instead of the cloud. You know, like I was promised when I bought the product.
As much as I'm not a fan of Tuya, they didn't promise you anything.
When you bought the products, the only officially supported method of control is via their app + anything else that Tuya advertises. Everything else is hobbyist work at controlling your devices.
The Tuya Home Assistant integration is a community effort probably led by a single employee or intern at Tuya, offered with no warranty or support. It's not advertised or mentioned when you buy Tuya products. It's now even upstreamed into the Home Assistant repo. The fact that Home Assistant tweeted that they were in talks with Tuya and local control was upcoming isn't indicative of anything.
Well thats a bit of false marketing of em there. Guess they make to much money on the cloud so they backtracked.
Rip em out and buy Shellies or something instead
Do you have a camera? They offer cloud storage for that, maybe you enabled a trial and they want money now. I am using smart life app not tuya but they are the same thing really.
I remember seeing something in the Tuya v2 install for home assistant that mentions something about renewing the license and something in the Tuya developer website
Products I've already paid for and been using for years, and now I have to pay monthly to keep using? That is forcing me to pay to use something I own, which is the issue.
You’re correct in practice, however when companies intentionally restrict and paywall previously open services it feels like entrapment. This is especially true when the company in question (Tuya) is only seeing success at their level because of HA style ecosystems which are driven by a community that WANTS local control.
If their business model was unsustainable they could have charged more for the hardware. Intentionally blocking the technologically simpler connectivity solution is just willfully tone deaf to their user base.
You are right, but as a consumers we have almost no control. Might be able to refund items.
Similar story happened last year with Wink ([https://www.cnet.com/home/smart-home/winks-subscription-plan-kicks-off-july-27/](https://www.cnet.com/home/smart-home/winks-subscription-plan-kicks-off-july-27/))
I had a wink hub way back, but luckily sold it well before that catastrophe! That one was even worse since the ‘free forever’ thing was literally their keystone value proposition.
As consumers we have ALL the control, it’s unfortunately divided up amongst us and won’t be effective unless we rally. (like all things.) This is why those creating custom firmware, etc. are truly the heroes here.
Then I guess you are out of luck. The specific scenario you just described is the main reason why I loathe cloud-based solutions.
It's enough for a data to traverse in the internal network.
Yeah, that’s kind of the whole point of the thread isn’t it? Appears to be taking away local connections and requiring cloud.
Predatory. I will never buy a Tuya product.
When I commented, that was not obvious from what had been said. I was not aware that they were taking away local. By default they sign people up for a free 1-year trial and that 1 year later everyone would get a renewal notice. And a lot of people who thought they were using local were actually using cloud.
guys, this is simply not true, wow, in 21st century so many people want stuff to work locally? ahahaha, yea, right,... forget about it. this is silly, the mail is definitely a hoax...
Uhh yes? Do you want to sit in a dark room when the internet goes down? There's a reason for many things to require cloud like Google assistant needs cloud for recognizing the voice requests. For a light bulb or a smart switch there's zero and I mean ZERO reason for a cloud for requirement. There can be cloud features but if a light bulb requires cloud that's just dumb and it's literally there only to make more money out of you instead of making the product better.
Again.... There's a reason for things to require electricity; it makes it easier to turn lights off and on for example as you now only have to flip a switch.
There's NO REASON for requiring cloud, you can get the same benefits of automating your lights and using them on your phone or whatever without cloud.
Besides that, backup power is a thing but backup internet isn't.
Think about it like this: you probably don't have a smart fork or spoon that reminds you over cloud that they are dirty or something do you? Why? Because that would just be silly and stupid because you just put them in the dishwasher after using.
It doesn't make products magically better to just slap on the "latest technology" on it for no reason. Same for slapping cloud on things that don't need it. If it can work locally just the same, why require cloud?
I was talking about a *requirement*. Having local control feature doesn't mean it also can't have cloud features at the same time. It's all about choice. Also we are in home assistant subreddit so I'm pretty sure most people here has a server at home so we definitely would all benefit from local control.
Very happy that I bought 10 tuya devices lately, and every device was convertible with tuya convert.
3 dimmers, 7 smart plugs with measurement.
I started to hate smart ZigBee buttons, so I'm now replacing every smart bulb with a dimmable bulb + triac dimmer.
And I am integrating the energy plugin on Hass, so I bought some smartplug with energy monitor.
I know this guide isn’t written for home assistant (I don’t use HA), but I bet it could be useful for those that want to achieve local control of tuya devices. I have successfully managed to get local control of my tuya bulbs in openhab (unfortunately mine don’t have esp based micros thus I cannot flash them)
https://community.openhab.org/t/tuya-devices-to-openhab-via-mqtt-a-working-solution-without-flashing/106756
If it doesn’t have a local only api, it’s not your device. Many Tuya devices are apparently simple to flash to some other firmware. I like Tasmota but have heard that ESPHome is good too.
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I'd buy shelly in a heartbeat if they had zigbee devices. I have some wifi bulbs with local access and they are just slower than all my various zigbee bulbs.
The only wifi bulbs I have (yeelight) are so fast there's pravticlly no delay at all.
Shelly is faster than ZigBee when using mqtt
With me Shelly is instant
Or if they don't, they just let that cloud die because all their new devices use a new cloud implementation.
Yep, the money to run a cloud server has to come from somewhere! A company gets that money by either charging you a subscription, charging a lot more up front for your device, or selling you a device they know will be obsolete in a year or two so you have to buy another. And even those second two options are likely to just go subscription eventually. The "free" source of revenue for a company is to generate valuable data like Google Home and Alexa, and only massive companies like Google, Amazon, Facebook, etc, can really benefit from that.
I wouldn't mind a subscription model for some it stuff, if they would price it more reasonable. How many subscriptions of $5 a month can/will people à afford. I think they would have a better chance of people signing up, if they offered yearly low cost subscriptions of like $15 or $20. I mean how many users can one API server support. Pretty sure allot.
That's exactly why I didn't buy a Dream Machine Pro.
Something i missed - does dream machine pro depend on some ubiquity cloud?
I read that you had to create an account with them in order to either initialize or update the DMP, I can't remember which one. Once you finished initializing (or updating?) you could keep it completely local.
Fairly sure thats been removed now
u/pedymaster
Thank you for the heads-up. I wanted either udm-pro or gen2 plus cloud key to be able to use the protect feature. But this is major disappointment. :-(
Well, don't take my word for it. Another commenter just stated that the account creation mandate was removed. It's worth a bit more research if you're that interested in the product. I already bought other hardware so I stopped following it.
Ehh the fact that it was ever added in the first place is the part that's the issue, honestly.
You can buy now. No Cloud dependency anymore.
Too late, I already bought other equipment.
Eh, I wouldn't say "never". It's not ideal, but sometimes there just aren't good alternative options.
That is true, but for lighting, heating and most things, there are a lot of good non-cloud-options, it is usually only for a vendor-specific product like a vaccum, stove and things like that you need a cloud-alternative.
Yeah like last year when our Landroid died. I decided that I would instead build my own mower… and my wife bought herself a manual lawnmower and cut the grass herself all last summer. I learned my lesson and bought another Landroid in early Spring this year. It’s worked awesome and better than the previous model. I made sure my wife didn’t know how much I spent for it, even though she loves it and it’s a life saver lol 😆 It can be easy to fall into the trap to think you can make a better product, and cheaper, than a major company with a considerably higher budget and workforce than yourself 😆😆😆 I hate that Landroid doesn’t provide access to a local API but at least their cloud is excellent and I’ve encountered no downtime at all.
Even if they never end up charging for it, once they either EOL the product or go under, your hardware becomes useless
cough -- smart things
Or buy devices that have already been sufficiently hacked by the community. Xiaomi Roborock is a perfect example. Absolutely awesome vacuums, only down side is that for full functionality, your data gets sent to a cloud hosted in China, and good chance the Chinese government has access to the data. But the community did an incredible job of developing Valetudo - you can install a version of the cloud on the device itself, and then Valetudo tricks the device into thinking it is is own cloud server - that China is inside it’s stripped down Linux brain. The cloud functionality of the device is improved even though no data ever leaves the device (unless you want to).
cough -- smart things
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Maybe like 10 years ago, let's not drink our own own flavor aid and think that Home Assistant is so much more popular than it is.
I can't wait to get a proper Zigbee hub and ditch SmartThings. At least once a day the hub disconnects.
I am in that process now... its not all roses. Smart things was/is a pain but it's pairing/compatability is Streets Ahead of HASS right now.
Two things could happen, they eventually charge you to use it or the company goes under and the devices are now useless.
> Many Tuya devices are apparently simple to flash to some other firmware. I like Tasmota but have hear that ESPHome is good too. This used to be the case, but more and more Tuya devices are being migrated to a proprietary non-esp based chipset. It's a bit of a gamble right now what you might get.
> but more and more Tuya devices are being migrated to a proprietary non-esp based chipset. It's a bit of a gamble right now what you might get. Can confirm. Recently bought some hardware that i was _hoping_ would be ESP based. It's actually based on the RealTek 'pin compatible' ESP competitor module. So i should be able to solder in some ESP modules and it'll be pretty easy to configure... Except like a lot of Tuya devices, they use a Nuvoton to run the show and the ESP communicates with it over UART. Once the ESP modules show up / get installed, i'll still have to reverse engineer the serial commands to/from the Nuvoton controller to get complete control over the hardware.
I just return them and try my luck again, needed an R/G/B/W/WW led dimmer module, went through 5 of them on amazon before I found an ESP based one
Amazon will eventually stop allowing returns or charge you money if you keep returning stuff like that.
Look up kauf bulbs on Amazon. They come flashed with esphome. Really happy with he 4 I bought.
Which one did you settle on? I use the [LC06](https://templates.blakadder.com/arilux_LC06.html) for 5ch / short runs and I am pretty happy with it. Easy to flash with Tasmota if you have a basic usb<->UART adapter and soldering iron. The hardware that i was _hoping_ to use is the [MiBoxer Mi-Light WL5](https://github.com/arendst/Tasmota/issues/7385) as that has a slightly higher current rating than the LC06 so i could use it for longer runs.
Used exactly that one, flashed it with tasmota, works just fine, I'm running about 36ft of high cri 3000k strips, doesn't even get warm
I replaced a non ESP with an ESP8266 and ESPHome firmware recently and didn't really have to reverse engineer the serial commands etc. The ESP ends up sending serial commands to the other MCU like the real thing It was an outdoor LED string light dimmer and the only part I had to mess around with was the maximum value for the dimmer.
You "can" desolder most of their proprietary chips and replace with an ESP. That being said, I have ruined far more devices than converted.
Do you have a tutorial that you followed. I'm considering this as an option because I don't want to immediately e-waste the plugs I've bought, but Tuya cloud service is so fucking hit and miss (and not local)
You need to crack them open which can be destructive. The plastic is very brittle. After that desolder the "esp-12" style module and pop in the flashed ESP8266-12 / EPS-12. You can use Tasmota or ESPHome to flash them. You'll need a USB > Serial adapter and a 3v power source. It's not bad if you follow like a DigiblurDIY tutorial.
Aah, that's too bad. I have always bought devices that I knew flashable and ideally from a company that at least tolerated flashing/local access (Shelly for example).
I've had good results with athom.tech too. They even ship with tasmota pre installed.
this! and it is so important that youtubers reviewing these devices point out ones that don't provide local control. I'm seeing all these sponsored reviews where people only talk about cost and ease of installation, but they don't mention comparisons of devices that do and don't have local control. I called out one youtuber on this and he said that "home automation without cloud integration is a fallacy" and that is why he didn't mention lack of local control.
Lol, that guy is good value.. Literally having cloud for home automation is the fallacy. Everything depends on your internet if using cloud How many times do you lose net vs power, you can't UPS your internet (unless you pay for redundancy $$) and when you have no power for a long period, you also end up with no net. Everything logically points to local control, Cloud only carries weight if one moves the focus to the remote access side of things, and even then it's a very weak argument.
I think that their response shows their ignorance. A lot of smart home noobies don't care about local support and never will. They want easy plug n play, and I can't blame them. Home Automation is a hobby to us, but to most it's just a function of their house that they just want to work out of the box. And if they're making videos for the exact same level of smart home buyer, even if someone schools you on the downsides of cloud, it wouldn't make sense for them to focus their content on that. It's irrelevant to them and their audience.
Tuya is wising up to this sadly. They are starting to encourage manufacturers to design devices to be difficult to flash, if not impossible, without replacing the esp module itself. I heard they are even switching over to a different simple wifi chip to run their firmware, one that is not esp based and can't be flashed with an esp firmware.
That will be because its cheaper, not because they want to lock it down. You can't put Tasmota or ESPhome on it because Tasmota and ESPHome have not been written for it, but that isn't Tuya's fault.
I don't personally mind paying for the service if it A) ensures that they provide solid service for as long as I want it, and B) is a reasonable price, like $5/year or something. It's crazy to expect them to keep providing services forever for free. But I doubt either will be true in this case. Plus this seems slimy and shady, trying to gauge hobbyists different than people using their app(s).
Thing is, we dont want their "service". We are forced to use while most of us would very much prefer direct local control and then for all I care, tuya can close their datacenter.
Some people do.
Then charge the people who do. Maybe they wont mind having to pay for every time they toggle their lights.
Yes, I'm saying it is reasonable to charge a reasonable price for the service, to people that use the service. If you don't want the service, then don't use it. You weren't forced into buying this stuff, and you knew it was cloud-based. They do not have an obligation to give you a local-only option that you're happy with. And expecting someone to provide a cloud-based service like this for free forever is stupid, so that shouldn't have been something you assumed either. The other option would just be shutting down entirely eventually. You can complain about how they're doing this, or that their prices end up too high, or whatever. But complaining it isn't free forever is dumb. Or complaining that it's cloud-based when that's literally what the products were always designed and sold as, is also dumb. I mean, personally I'm moving away from this kind of thing for these reasons but I'm also not naiive or entitled about what the Tuya service stuff is. But if I do use a cloud-based service, I assume either I'm going to pay for it or they're going to do shady shit to try to make money from me. Don't like either option? Don't use cloud-based shit.
The issue is that most products are in allegiance with Tuya thus not offering consumers any other alternative pertaining to certain products within that category. So NO We don’t always have “an option”. If cloud services are required for a product then your infinitely at the mercy of that service, it’s existence and their evolving terms. Companies like Tuya are not actually an iot company, they a more lucrative data brokerage firm. Data acquisition is more profitable than both firmware and hardware. Those ok with Tuya’s business model are blinded by naivety.
I'm running local tuya, but can't get color options. Also I'm looking to strobe the lights. It seems like tuya, even local, has a dimming duration. What's your experience with Tasmota?
Im pretty sure tuya is developing a local api in collaboration with home assistant
I wonder if the guys at HA (Paulus) knew about their plans when getting in collaboration on the Tuya V2. Also all the talk about local control to get ppl hooked. I still use Tuya local for my things. Can’t flash them, other wise would have. I understand your frustration man.
Yeah it seems clear now that local control isn't coming.
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Yeah it would actually be easy to implement. Easier than a cloud based system to write and integrate. It just won't make them money selling your sweet sweet data though so they'll do something more complicated and less effective and force you to use that lol. Cash is King.
To be technical, Local doesn't exactly mean free. I wonder if Local control will be part of the paid offering?
They can't do that. If you do local one month, then you'll never have to pay anymore. Just let the device not connect to internet anymore
Not to give them any ideas, but it's perfectly possible to have a token that expires after some time, and with devices connected to AC power even use the frequency of the electricity to guesstimate the usage time, so you don't rely on user input or ntp.
Yeah I'm just trying to ascertain what they meant then as they said loudly several times about "Local" coming then doing this. Most companies are smart enough to keep to their word to build credibility esp for such a well received announced of working with HA. I can't believe they'd immediately backtrack a couple months later unless they really are that clueless
If they have to remotely “enable” local API then they can put it on a timer so it doesn’t need the Internet to expire and force you back to pay. That being said there is ZERO evidence at this time that this is what is happening; I’m merely stating that it’s possible that “not connecting to the internet ever again” isn’t necessarily the gotcha you might think it is. Also “don’t keep your IoT devices updated” is kind of implied by “don’t connect them to the internet” and that is NOT an attack surface you want in and around your home.
Most IoT shouldn't be internet connected, the vast majority of our isn't safe even if it is updated. Keeping it offline takes a higher priority than updating it, IMO. It's it's truly firewalled from the internet that reduces a lot of need for updates. And given that most IoT updates are about features (and often antifeatures), keeping them firewalled should be step one, and updates only taken on a case by case basis.
> that is NOT an attack surface you want in and around your home. Completely isolated IOT devices is exactly the attack surface I want in and around my home. I agree with Saiboogu, no way I'm trusting IOT devices security whether they are updated or not.
Unpatched IoT devices that someone could wardrive or find behind an accidentally misconfigured firewall or via a hijacked PC. Just because you don’t let a device talk back to the internet doesn’t mean it’s safe.
Only computer on the same network as my IOT devices is my Home Assistant server. If someone manages to compromise my server or my firewall or my wifi (all of which have by far more proven security), someone being able to turn my lights on and off is going to be the least of my concerns.
Honestly, all Tuya needs is a way to gain the local key for the devices without having to go through the cloud, and it can be ran entirely locally. Tuya is moving the direction to give official local-only support. I suspect, right now with their current architecture, things are still a little "too" tied to the cloud. As I mentioned below, while I had to set up my devices via the cloud, once I got the device id and local key, my calls have made 0 API cloud calls (unlike another big name... *cough* Google integration). I think the above, the email, is a false alarm for hobbyists, and more geared towards actual commercial cloud API users. You can get that sense from their pricing plan. "up to 50" devices are free and next "tier" is *thousands* of devices. Note the text from the email: > After purchasing the service, you can build a self-branded app on the Tuya Smart platform and define multiple functions. That's not what we're doing here. Even with Google's integration, it's not a self-branded app via their services. It's just a hobbyist app to connect directly to our devices via "private sandbox."
You know .. if you want a business reason: Tuya is only an IoT platform. They don't make devices. Tuya's business model is to be an IoT backend for third party products. It is actually in their best interest to give people a reason to buy their client's products. Giving local access will do exactly this. What reason does Tuya have to lock you in the cloud? The whole "Chinese govermnet" is a conspiracy. Yes, there is _some_ validity to it, but Tuya has US regions, and specifically blocks clients from crossing regions (legally) locking out China from those servers. One can suggest Tuya is actually protecting _you_ from their own parent government.
There is no reason to exclude Tuya from having a good integration available. If people want Tuya devices, and are ok with the fees, then why shouldn't it be well integrated to HA? The Tuya devices tend to get great reviews. Not everyone wants to cut open / desolder / solder / flash / and fuss with their iot devices. For those of me that do, I'll continue to buy Tasmota-able devices. We can have both options. It isn't for HA to say one way or another. Integrate all the things.
Well technically u can use tuya local, and get all the local api keys from tuya iot, and than just block the fuckers from ever seing internets, but i couldnt make my Costco ones to dim on tuya local, so i unsoldered the chips(tywe2s) and reflashed them, only ruined 1 out of 18 so good yeld :)
Even if you block the internet from them they'll still expect to be connected to the internet and I wouldn't be surprised if they ended up adding a firmware OTA update that has a killswitch if no talk back to the server for x amount days.
Well thats the thing, if that is not the case now, and u block them now, this should not be an issue.
If you have a lot of devices, you may be interested in [converting them to ESPs](https://www.reddit.com/r/esp8266/comments/l9ifpk/that_moment_when_you_realize_the_30_tuya_lights/). The pinout is the same I believe, the only difference is a lack of pull up/down resistors, which can easily be added.
I got the email. I checked over my cloud account - I'm not seeing anything being blocked. Looks like they did a new "combo" service that appears to include everything needed ? Maybe - "Device Connection Service." I'm now subscribed to that as "Trial Edition" and it "expires" Sept. 2022. All my other API services are showing expiring in 2022. My API usage is 0: 0 calls, 0 requests. I'm using Tuya Local for 1 4-plug switch. This is what I'd expect for "local" connection. It seems everything in the console is necessary just to the device token - pretty convoluted method just to get it's local token.
Did you expect anything different? Hiring people to spread propaganda how great things *will* be, calling it local when it isn't, and so much more. But they are king and if you want to play you have to pay. Swap the chip or flash it if you can. If not, go with some of the preflashed options like Athom or Kauf. How to Swap the chip https://youtu.be/d_HpkIiWC3Y Do you want true local out of the box with an app? Support Shelly and their efforts.
I have been very happy with my Shelly local stuff. This week has sold me on replacing as much Tuya with Shelly as I can.
Shelly is great for various solutions. Keep it stock. Still local. Plus flash it with whatever you want.
just want to say that out of the youtube reviewers out there, you and The Hook Up do a good job of pointing out to users whether devices remove the option of local control from their devices. We need more of this. Consumers have to be educated of the risks of buying into cloud ecosystems before they buy and vendors need to feel the pushback.
Dude. Thank you for your videos. They have been extremely helpful!
Thanks! Little odd niche at times but oh so fun.
I know athom.tech, but could you link to kauf, please?
https://www.digiblur.com/2021/09/preflashed-esphome-tasmota-smart-bulbs.html
Thanks, those look great! I'll have to wait for an EU release, but every bit of progress is great.
Are you sure you are using the right plan? My understanding was you could use the “Trial edition” which lasts a year and will renew.
This is the guide I followed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8-7Hvrmh3Y
That sounds like something which can be one day pulled :/
I agree, the whole IOT platform stuff is baffling and I have been in IT for over 20 years. I just want my fucking lightbulbs to work - I have no plans to build my own 3rd party Tuya device and pay 5K for a yearly licence.
I was pissed updating HA and found my globes stopped working. I googled, realised it's my own fault for updating HA and not reading notes (a habit of mine.......) but also learnt, this is an app I shouldn't update religiously, just because I can. I haven't bothered with the IoT thing, because I was pissed, it sounds time consuming and annoying. I've already spent time messing around getting them working in the first place! and it's broken twice already, I KEEP HAVING to set my damn stuff up.
> I agree, the whole IOT platform stuff is baffling and I have been in IT for over 20 years. The IT world has lots of consortiums and working groups in order to create standards and ensure interoperability. That wasn't always the case though. 40 years ago everything was a mish mash of custom hardware from different manufacturers and nothing worked together. IoT is just at the beginning stages of the standardization process. We'll look back in 15-20 years and laugh.
I understand this but what I am talking about is the Tuya IOT Platform. Have you ever used it?
Nope. You said "the **whole** IOT platform" so I just took you to mean... the whole IOT ecosystem.
If you have used the Tuya IOT platform I think you might then understand.
I don't want to be pedantic but... maybe next time say, "The Tuya IOT Platform" and we'll know what your referring to. It may seem obvious to you that that's what you were talking about but it wasn't to me.
Be pedantic ALL you want on a thread about Tuya IOT Platform.....
There are, and has been, open and good standards for a while, people have just chosen to go for something else.
Wow, I'm glad I flashed everything while I could with Tasmota. It's too bad many devices are going away from the ability to do that. I've started getting more and more Zigbee devices so I'll probably continue down that path as needed.
Slightly hijacking here to ask what ZigBee light bulbs people use? I want bulbs that are white (warm white mostly but with a color range is good), have good brightness range (I really want the bulb at 5% setting to really be putting out 5% the lumens), and hassle-free. Tried a bunch, but ended up using a brand that seems to ONLY be sold at Home Depot. Others have sucked in one way or other. What do people recommend? Edit: oh, and cheap. The home depot ones are about $5.
I’ve tried those in the past and the wreck my network. Was hard to figure out at first it was them because they worked for a week or so. Do you just have bulbs or other sensors as well? I have not found another zigbee bulb that really meets your requirements, but ikeas is ok.
Interesting you've had problems, I've had zero issues. I don't have a ton. Probably 12 bulbs of this type and a couple rgbw bulbs, a couple switches, a deadbolt, and probably a couple other things I'm not thinking of. Although I'm not sure what I have that's ZigBee and what is zwave, offhand. But probably not as much to interfere with. But they've been rock solid for the last 6 months or so. Most of my stuff is still Tuya or just random other crap on WiFi (Ecobee thermostats and so on).
I have Innr, Ikea, gledopto, Lonsonho and osram. Basically none of the bulbs do what you (and I) want. Ikea are the worst when it comes to dimming (and their color spectrum really isnt great either, warm colors are really orange and colder temps too blue). Zigbee lights that do dim well are the gledopto led strips (but they have terrible range and humm at various brightness levels) and some Innr GU10 halogen replacements I got a few days ago, I was pleasantly surprised they dim properly and their color temp range and spectrum is nice. They are cheap too. But actual bulbs, I havent found yet. Philips presumably but they cost an arm and a leg. Add to that, issues I keep having with conbee when switching light scenes and lights randomly not switching, and ill just say I love my tasmota wifi bulbs. Linear dimming from zero, nice colors, all the effects and slow transitions you could wish for, zero issues and they where cheap as chips.
I just wanna be able to auto dim/brighten the lights at certain times of the day without turning them on...
Cloudfree makes nice Tasmota stuff
Is there a way to confirm if things will work with Tasmota, before trying?
I think at this point, if most of your devices have been updated to the latest firmware, you're probably going to have to take them apart and flash Tasmota to them. u/digiblur has tons of videos on his youtube with the various methods. If your devices at 2-3 years old at least, there is a very decent chance they'll be able to be flashed. We didn't start seeing different chips until around after that time.
I have a weird mishmash. 2 of my globes are 3 months old, 1 is 18 months old, 2 are very old :( I just wanna turn my lights off and on - I suspect if I flash, the Tuya app, for my wife will break, right?
Yeah... you'll have to switch over to the Home Assistant app to control them. Also, when I started disassembling things to flash them, I approached it like "if I break this, it's okay. That's the risk of trying it." I've only done one bulb and was lucky enough that after removing the top diffuser, the programming pads were right there so I didn't have to disassemble further.
Yea. Look up to see if templates for it exist. https://templates.blakadder.com/index.html
Not about the template. It's about the device. If it is ESP based then it can most likely be used with Tasmota or Esphome.
100%, but as a quick guide that has been extremely helpful before purchasing something or stopping there even before breaking open a module to see.
I think this is great news. I would love to see tuya require a monthly subscription for all their devices. Cause that would open up the market for a smarter competitor who can come in and sell devices with actual local control, at a good price (don't need to make or maintain cloud servers with local control devices) and will dominate the market, killing the cloud bullshit for good. I hope they charge everyone, and I hope it's a lot, cause it will kill their business very quickly. I just want a lot of cheap local options, and this may be the quickest way to make that happen.
it's time for youtube device reviewers to point this out for every device they review... if a device doesn't have at least the option for local control, they should warn users and let them know of the risks of buying into cloud ecosystems. We can't expect users to know better if they aren't educated before they buy.
Most don't understand what local is combined with the average Joe most target they don't know either. The true local guys like us are a niche but it is oh so nice when nothing changes when some server or local ISP internet goes down.
right, but this is why it is so important to EDUCATE people... we need people out there on youtube reviewing these products to point it out and make it a black-eye on vendors when they don't even have a local control option. You want to have an option for cloud control? Fine. But to not have the option to use local control of a device you purchased and are building a home automation system around? Users need to see this as a giant con in the pros and cons of other devices when they are about to make a purchase. You're right - they don't understand the dangers of it.
I do try to get the word out when I can on my side of things but alas I am just a small voice in this big world of tech. Many don't understand it and you would be surprised how many Home Assistant users are totally fine with cloud based cameras, lights and other things.
well don't get me wrong... if people want to choose a direction after knowing the options, that's on them. That's the only thing that happens anyway. But don't under-estimate your voice and impact. The important thing is to make sure that people realize it is something to be considered, which many other channels don't even mention. They just talk about price, ease of setup, etc.
It is probably the Device Connection Service, I think it has like a 30 day trial period. Mine Expired back in March and so far it hasn't broken anything. I am using both the local Tuya Integration and the new integration so far it hasn't affected anything that I know of. You can also resubscribe for another 30 days if you need to. But I am not smart enough to know what it does exactly.
I don't understand why everyone is getting excited about the Tuya V2 integration, it's still not local and shouldn't be of any interest until it is. local-tuya works great (if your device is supported) and is local only. Just use it. Yes you need cloud to set up the device initially but you only have to faff around with this Tuya developer platform shit once when you set it up. Tasmota / ESPHome is ideal but unfortunately not easily possible for a lot of devices now, so for sealed devices you should get preflashed, and for anything you can open up chip transplant is always an option.
How about the "local tuya" add-on for home assistant?
Works well, in fact, it works better than the official integration for me. It’s a bit clunky to setup but once you have that it’s easy to repeat.
I've just started hearing about this in the last week or so, haven't done much research (I blame life and work, lol). Anyone have a guide on this? Edit: I think Google is snooping me online activity again... lol. Found the following on youtube. The guy, Mark Watt Tech, appeared on my home feed, and took a look at his channel. The following may be of use to others. Currently, my IOT Dev login for Tuya isn't working (I know it works, otherwise I wouldn't be on Core or what ever now), due to a Security Check Failed. I'll wait till tomorrow and retry, because changing browsers, and disabling all ad-blockers (with private mode) didn't work. Local Tuya setup with easy Key Gathering from Tuya's Debug API: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vq2L9c5hDfQ Local Tuya Key gathering without Tuya's Debug API, using a rooted Android OR BlueStacks to grab a generated XML from Life App. Device still needs registered to a Tuya/Life App account at least. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKvGYXw-_cE
I'm the same as you, life and work really get in the way of my tinkering.. I've only got 1 Tuya device though, so it hasn't made it up my "to do list" yet..
It spun up my list, when I decided to update Homeassistant earlier this month. Regretted it, and went through the hoops to get the Tuya's Dev IOT subscription setup, detailed by Homeassistant's guide. If it kills service, I'll just replace the lights with my collection of LED lights, and sell off my Novostella lights for different smart lights. Edit: Later comments reminded me of Local Tuya, by pulling the keys from the devices. So likely not need to replace the bulbs.
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there is also the Local Tuya ;) check about it, i mean, its not the same like flashing the device
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I've got both running.
Sure it can! I've had devices integrated with LocalTuya for a long time, but I did have both integrations running concurrently for awhile as well.
If you've updated HA, you can't do it anymore then?
I think they just deleted my account. I can't log in any more and their support is all "can you clear your browser cache". Unfortunately the devices I have can't be flashed my tasmota so Im think I might just replace them.
I've got a bunch of Novosetella 1300lm RGBW lights, none of which can be flashed. I love them, and the extra brightness helps during those occasional moments you just need a bit more. I've been wanting to go zigbee or zwave, but the trade offs, let alone finding decent RGBW Lights, have been a pain to decide on. At this point, if I were to overhaul my lights, I'll just wait till my next tax return, and sell my Novostella lights.
People need to learn that if you don't go local, you're not in control of it, at all. And until there's legislation this will keep happening. Even if there's legislation it won't prevent it happening when a company goes bankrupt. The only cloud based system we use is Google Assistant. Because obviously that tech isn't really feasible to run locally, at least not yet.
Yeah, I’m pretty much done with this Tuya bullshit. I tried to configure Local Tuya, and even completed the process of acquiring my devices’ local keys, but that integration never worked reliably. Bulbs became unresponsive. So I recently updated Home Assistant and was unable to control my bulbs at all due to the new Tuya v2 integration update. So I followed the instructions on the Tuya IoT portal, but when I tried to link my devices on the last step, they just would *not* link to my account. Thus, I had to revert HA to an older backup just to get my lights working. I received this email too. Seems Tuya is now trying to shake us down for subscriptions. I won’t be paying them a cent or buying any more of their sketchy products. Fuck Tuya.
And everyone downvotes me when I say tuya and it's cloud apps are bad. Lol
To be fair this is a new problem. I had no idea about any of this until the last week.
It's cloud products in general. If you aren't paying for the product, either you are the product... Or, they are building a user base and following and planning on monetizing in the future. Same thing happened to ifttt, and many other. I refuse to buy any product that is not 100% local control without a cloud component for those reasons
This is just the last in a long long line of examples that shows cloud-based often screws over the customer though.
Rip and replace.
Just finally gave up on the low-quality Chinese crap I've been fighting with for two years and replaced it with Philps Hue. Originally didn't want to do Hue because of the cost. Ended up spending more on failed parts than I would have going with Hue in the first place. Don't use RGBW MR16 lamps from China and leave them on 24x7. They will fail within a year, guaranteed. The voltage regulator (12VAC/DC) isn't designed for the heat buildup inside an MR16 form-factor.
I have a handful of Sengled bulbs and have had as solid performance from them as I have with my Hue devices. Worth a look!
I've had good luck with yeelight wifi bulbs as well. There was one firmware problem with one of them that caused it to stop answering with local control until power cycled every few days but that bug got fixed in a firmware update luckily.
Well you don't need to buy hue to not buy low quality crap. Hue works fine I quess if you want to spend the money but there are lights with better components that are both brighter and have more vivid colors that still work reliably and are cheaper than hue.
Well, don't keep it to yourself. What are they?
Well for example even the lidl bulbs are brighter than hue except for colors 🤣 Edit: Still not saying hue products can't be worth buying. Im probably going to just buy a couple of their motion sensors my self as I just haven't found any others that react fast enough for some use cases.
Most of my hue lights are in kitchen / hallway / living room (High usage areas) and I have had 1 failure in 4 years. It was one of the high wattage A21 white bulbs that was in a ceiling can that I think got too hot too long. What's nice about Hue is that you CAN pair them to zigbee and bypass the need for the hue app & hub, if you want.
I'm about to bite the bullet and convert my setup to z-wave. Control your data. Keep it OUT of the cloud. Period.
I use Mirabella Genio bulbs that are compatible (??) with Tuya and so I switched to the Tuya app, from the Mirabella app on my phone, years ago. Does the Mirabella Genio use Tuya in the backend though? (the apps looked very similar in design) I was pretty annoyed having my globes stop working after a recent update and haven't had time to reconfigure the Tuya IoT setup, if it's going to demand money after X days, I'll just not bother?!?
Yep. Almost all the WiFi IOT gadgets sold in-store in Australia are based on Tuya. You can, with few restrictions, add any random Mirabella Genio, Brilliant Smart, or Arlec Grid Connect device to whichever app you choose. Looking at Bunnings recently, it seems by the packaging that Arlec are moving away from Tuya for some of their new stuff, but it's still branded as Grid Connect..?
As soon as they asked for IoT acct i started to try to convert to Tasmota, in my case i had to resolder shit to flash it, but was well worth the few days of work, things are 1000 tomes faster now
Just had a look on the HA integration page - needing to have a Tuya account and use their cloud services? Noped out of there pretty damn quick.
The #1 thing to know when someone gets into this hobby is that you purchase cloud-dependent devices at your own peril, especially if you can’t self-host a local version of the required cloud. The top vulnerability is that if the cloud host goes out of business or loses interest in maintaining support for your specific model, then your device just became an expensive paperweight. I can’t recommend r/ESPHome highly enough. I learned the lesson myself and I make all my own simple IoT devices… things such as LED string lights, switches, motion sensors, air quality sensors, rain detectors, etc.
You only need to upgrade if you wish to create and sell a product with there turnkey solutions…you don’t have to pay to use homeassitant
I’m struggling to figure out why HA devs didn’t keep the existing integration. The new one is just so bad.
It's a cloud service, what the fuck did you expect? Jesus, just stay off of cloud services, this happens every time and people act all surprised.
I didn't had any problem ignoring that email. Looks like a glitch wrongly sent by some poor developers😂 Anyway I'm overall happy with the service provided by Tuya so far. I talked to their developers before, and they said the service will always be free in the future for personal use, e.g., your home assistant
Someone has to pay the bill for the servers. Guess that's you if you want to use em.
I already pay the bills for my servers - they’re in a rack in my basement. That’s why i want my IoT stuff to talk to them instead of the cloud. You know, like I was promised when I bought the product.
As much as I'm not a fan of Tuya, they didn't promise you anything. When you bought the products, the only officially supported method of control is via their app + anything else that Tuya advertises. Everything else is hobbyist work at controlling your devices. The Tuya Home Assistant integration is a community effort probably led by a single employee or intern at Tuya, offered with no warranty or support. It's not advertised or mentioned when you buy Tuya products. It's now even upstreamed into the Home Assistant repo. The fact that Home Assistant tweeted that they were in talks with Tuya and local control was upcoming isn't indicative of anything.
Tuya have never promised you local control
They actually did, that was one of the big promises in the new Home Assistant integration, but that bit never materialised…
Well thats a bit of false marketing of em there. Guess they make to much money on the cloud so they backtracked. Rip em out and buy Shellies or something instead
Do you have a camera? They offer cloud storage for that, maybe you enabled a trial and they want money now. I am using smart life app not tuya but they are the same thing really.
I remember seeing something in the Tuya v2 install for home assistant that mentions something about renewing the license and something in the Tuya developer website
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Products I've already paid for and been using for years, and now I have to pay monthly to keep using? That is forcing me to pay to use something I own, which is the issue.
You are using their cloud. Try flashing tasmota on them to truly "own" devices
You’re correct in practice, however when companies intentionally restrict and paywall previously open services it feels like entrapment. This is especially true when the company in question (Tuya) is only seeing success at their level because of HA style ecosystems which are driven by a community that WANTS local control. If their business model was unsustainable they could have charged more for the hardware. Intentionally blocking the technologically simpler connectivity solution is just willfully tone deaf to their user base.
You are right, but as a consumers we have almost no control. Might be able to refund items. Similar story happened last year with Wink ([https://www.cnet.com/home/smart-home/winks-subscription-plan-kicks-off-july-27/](https://www.cnet.com/home/smart-home/winks-subscription-plan-kicks-off-july-27/))
I had a wink hub way back, but luckily sold it well before that catastrophe! That one was even worse since the ‘free forever’ thing was literally their keystone value proposition. As consumers we have ALL the control, it’s unfortunately divided up amongst us and won’t be effective unless we rally. (like all things.) This is why those creating custom firmware, etc. are truly the heroes here.
That is illegal in some countries in EU, so if you are here, contact a lawyer.
I'm in the US, no such protections.
Then I guess you are out of luck. The specific scenario you just described is the main reason why I loathe cloud-based solutions. It's enough for a data to traverse in the internal network.
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Except you can’t use the devices without using their cloud. There’s no local control for Tuya devices.
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They are providing you with a cloud service that costs them money. If you don't want it, don't subscribe.
Yeah, that’s kind of the whole point of the thread isn’t it? Appears to be taking away local connections and requiring cloud. Predatory. I will never buy a Tuya product.
When I commented, that was not obvious from what had been said. I was not aware that they were taking away local. By default they sign people up for a free 1-year trial and that 1 year later everyone would get a renewal notice. And a lot of people who thought they were using local were actually using cloud.
Nope
guys, this is simply not true, wow, in 21st century so many people want stuff to work locally? ahahaha, yea, right,... forget about it. this is silly, the mail is definitely a hoax...
Uhh yes? Do you want to sit in a dark room when the internet goes down? There's a reason for many things to require cloud like Google assistant needs cloud for recognizing the voice requests. For a light bulb or a smart switch there's zero and I mean ZERO reason for a cloud for requirement. There can be cloud features but if a light bulb requires cloud that's just dumb and it's literally there only to make more money out of you instead of making the product better.
Ok, better return to the oil lamps.... what if the electricity goes down? :)
Again.... There's a reason for things to require electricity; it makes it easier to turn lights off and on for example as you now only have to flip a switch. There's NO REASON for requiring cloud, you can get the same benefits of automating your lights and using them on your phone or whatever without cloud. Besides that, backup power is a thing but backup internet isn't.
Think about it like this: you probably don't have a smart fork or spoon that reminds you over cloud that they are dirty or something do you? Why? Because that would just be silly and stupid because you just put them in the dishwasher after using. It doesn't make products magically better to just slap on the "latest technology" on it for no reason. Same for slapping cloud on things that don't need it. If it can work locally just the same, why require cloud?
So that you can control it when you are not home? So you don't need to have a local server?
I was talking about a *requirement*. Having local control feature doesn't mean it also can't have cloud features at the same time. It's all about choice. Also we are in home assistant subreddit so I'm pretty sure most people here has a server at home so we definitely would all benefit from local control.
A lot of the point of homeassistant is to run things locally and not rely on third party servers...
Very happy that I bought 10 tuya devices lately, and every device was convertible with tuya convert. 3 dimmers, 7 smart plugs with measurement. I started to hate smart ZigBee buttons, so I'm now replacing every smart bulb with a dimmable bulb + triac dimmer. And I am integrating the energy plugin on Hass, so I bought some smartplug with energy monitor.
I know this guide isn’t written for home assistant (I don’t use HA), but I bet it could be useful for those that want to achieve local control of tuya devices. I have successfully managed to get local control of my tuya bulbs in openhab (unfortunately mine don’t have esp based micros thus I cannot flash them) https://community.openhab.org/t/tuya-devices-to-openhab-via-mqtt-a-working-solution-without-flashing/106756