Tuya

Tuya is a Chinese company offering an IoT platform for generic IoT devices: wireless plugs, lights, and more.

When you come across a smart device with tuya logo, the device is designed and manufactured by a generic company that prepared the device firmware so that it utilizes the Tuya cloud services.

For customers there are no fees: just register a free account with Tuya. Vendors contract separarely with Tuya to get permission to use their cloud: even small IoT companies with no budget to set up their own cloud can sell smart devices.

Why deal with Tuya?

Devices with Tuya logo are WiFi-enabled and microcontroller-based, typically available at exceptionally competitive pricing.

For example, a smart electric plug with built-in power meter is regularly sold for less than €3 at AliExpress. That’s less than a maker would pay for the parts.

Typical consumers control Tuya devices via smartphone app: Tuya or SmartLife both work.

ESPHome And Home Assistant

What makes Tuya smart devices especially exciting is that they can be used as part of automations in Home Assistant and other automation platforms.

You can even replace the firmware on their internal microcontroller to completely take control, and disconnected any cloud dependencies.

• Home Assistant: comes with an official Tuya integration that discovers all Tuya-enabled devices and makes their entities (device features) accessible. The integration uses the Tuya cloud API and requires no changes at the device: very simple to set up and use. The downside is that any failure in any part of the cloud service tool chain is a single point of failure, and Tuya devices become inaccessible - whether your Internet connection fails, the Home Assistant integration has a bug, or the Tuya cloud API does not respond.
• ESPHome: most Tuya-enabled devices use ESP8266, Beken BK72xx, or Realtec RTL87xx. They are all supported by ESPHome, so you can replace the proprietary firmware with ESPHome firmware, turning the device into a locally controllable ESPHome device. This replacement requires expert knowledge, but in exchange you eliminate all dependencies to the Internet and Tuya cloud API. For Home Assistant, the device is now an ESPHome device, and the Tuya integration is not used.

Use Cases

Whether you access original Tuya devices through the built-in Tuya integration, or whether you convert Tuya devices to ESPHome devices: you use cheap but relatively powerful Chinese hardware as part of your home automation:

• Control Applicances and Their Power Consumption: use smart plugs to turn appliances in your household on and off, based on other devices managed by Home Assistant, i.e. buttons, dashboards, or sensor readings. I.e. create a physical dashboard with push buttons to control different appliances anywhere in your home, including power consumption monitoring (most smart plugs come with power monitoring functionality).
• Build Smart Fire Hazard Protection Systems: cheap (but reliable) wireless Tuya smoke detectors can be turned into a sophisticated fire alarm network, and Home Assistant can turn on sirens or alarm lights when any of the smoke detectors triggers, or send off an email. Cost of commercial systems with such a feature set would be prohibitive for private homes.
• Create Open-Source Hue-like Lighting: There are ubiquous Tuya lights and led stripes available, and combined with Home Assistant, you can design your own open-source home light system that controls scenes and can turn on illuminations based on time of day, whether you are at home, or whatnot.

These, and the many other use-cases basically illustrate what Home Assistant enables you to do. Tuya just adds many more controllable devices at a very reasonable cost.

WiFi vs. Zigbee

Wireless Tuya devices use WiFi or Zigbee for wireless connection:

• WiFi Device: connects directly to your WiFi and increases the total number of WiFi devices (each WiFi device requires its own unique IP address). Devices can only be connected at locations where WiFi coverage is strong enough.
• Zigbee Device: connects to a self-organizing Zigbee network. Zigbee devices are addressed by the Zigbee network and do not increase the total number of WiFi devices. A Zigbee gateway connects the Zigbee network to WiFi, and only this gateway must be located within the WiFi coverage. Zigbee End Devices connect to another Zigbee End Devices with Zigbee Router capabilities.

Zigbee devices are ideal for locations with weak WiFi coverage, and to reduce the total number of WiFi devices. A Zigbee Gateway device is required for Home Assistant to be able to contact the Zigbee network.

Zigbee Network

Zigbee devices create their own self-organizing network that is independent of WiFi (it uses the same frequency range). In Zigbee networks, there are three Zigbee device types:

• ZigBee Coordinator (ZC): each Zigbee network has exactly one coordinator. It bootstraps the Zigbee network, then acts as a Zigbee Router, and is always on.
• ZigBee End Device (ZED): the device you want to control: it can poll Zigbee Routers whenever it wants to exchange data. This way, the device can be off most of the time to conserve energy, and contact its Zigbee Router (much like a mailbox) whenever it is ready to exchange information.
• Zigbee Router (ZR): connects to Zigbee End Devices and buffers data for Zigbee End Devices until they wake up and poll data.

Advantages

These modular device types lead to the unique advantages of Zigbee:

• Low Energy: Pure End Devices can be off most of the time to save energy. They can run on a battery for a long time.
• Coverage: End Devices can connect to any Zigbee Router, and most AC powered End Devices automatically also act as a Zigbee Router. To connect to a Zigbee device in a faint location, just make sure you position enough Zigbee End Devices with Router capability between the End Device and the Coordinator. Data can then hop across multiple Zigbee Routers.

Due to its flexible Router concept, you can tailor network coverage exactly to your needs. Just make sure you know which of your Zigbee End Devices are in fact also Zigbee Routers that extend network coverage. AC powered devices typically serve as Routers. Battery-powered devices never route and never extend network coverage.

Zigbee Gateway

In order for Home Assistant to discover and use Zigbee devices, it needs access to the Zigbee network.

This is typically done by plugging a USB Zigbee Gateway device into one of the USB ports of the computer that is running Home Assistant.

A Zigbee Gateway is a Zigbee Coordinator that also translates between WiFi and Zigbee. The maximum number of supported Zigbee End Devices depends on the capabilities of the Zigbee Gateway. Some gateways support just 35 devices while others happily deal with more than 100 devices.

To use Zigbee Devices with Home Assistant, make sure you purchase a HA-compatible Zigbee Gateway device. Some are vendor-specific and work only with Zigbee devices from one particular vendor (i.e. Tuya).

The maximum number of Zigbee End Devices you can use depends on the capabilities of the Zigbee Gateway device you choose. Some support only 35 devices whereas others can coordinate more than 100.

Multiple Zigbee Networks

Some vendors (i.e. Philips Hue lights) use proprietary Zigbee networks with their own Zigbee gateway devices, so in your home there may already be a Zigbee network connected to your WiFi.

Leave existing Zigbee networks untouched: simply add a new Zigbee Gateway device to add a new Zigbee network. Only when you pair a particular device, you select the network the device is associated with.

The only limiting factor is RF bandwidth: all WiFi- and Zigbee-networks in your vicinity (your own and wireless networks of your neighbors) use the same radio frequencies and can interfere with each other.

Caveats

Tuya is a cloud service that works out of the box and requires next to no configuration - so it is very easy to use. This comes at a price:

• Privacy: Tuya knows when you turn on a smart plug in your home. Whether that’s of concern to you is: up to you
• Reliability: Tuya smart devices may stop working when the cloud service stops working. This is always true for devices that you manage via the Home Assistant integration (that is always controlling devices via the Tuya cloud API). The SmartLife app can control devices locally, too, and may serve as a fallback in case of Internet outage.

Evaluate use cases carefully: it may be ok when the garden illumination occasionally does not automatically turn on in the evening. If a Tuya smart plug controls the garden pump and your automation suddenly cannot turn it off anymore (while you may be away on vacation), that’s a different ball game.

If you rely on controlling crucial devices, avoid cloud-based solutions or add a fallback strategy. Such a fallback is sometimes built into the devices: smart plugs have a manual switch that always works (provided you have physical access to it).

Local Control

One way of limiting risk and improving reliability is to control Tuya devices locally.

ZigBee: Simple

For Zigbee devices, local control is easy: excluding Tuya cloud services is as simple as not pairing the devices to a Tuya Zigbee Gateway device.

Instead, pair the device with a vendor-independent Zigbee gateway, and use Zigbee Home Automation (ZH) instead of Tuya or SmartLife apps.

WiFi: Hard

For WiFi devices, local control is much harder: you would need to exclude Tuya at the firmware level:

• LibreTiny: open-source development platform for IoT modules used in Tuya devices. This ecosystem consists of tools like Itchiptool to read and replace firmware, and esphome-kickstart ready-to-use binary firmware files to replace the proprietary firmware with ESPHome firmware. With LibreTiny, you permanently remove cloud dependencies and turn the device into a real local ESPHome device.

Replacing device firmware with ESPHome firmware (or any other) can be done in a number of ways: some exploit bugs in the original firmware and work wirelessly (i.e. Tuya Cloudcutter. Others require opening and sometimes even de-soldering the microcontroller in order to upload a new firmware via UART programmer. Replacing device firmware is the only solid way of removing cloud dependencies, but it is not for the faint-hearted and requires either solid experience or considerable determination.

Replacing firmware comes with risks: the device may stop working altogether, or some of its functionality may become inaccessible.

Tuya Local: Debatable Workaround

If replacing microcontroller firmware is over your head or feels too risky, workarounds like Tuya-Local exist: a Home Assistant integration that can be used in place of the official Tuya integration.

Tuya Local exploits the undocumented Tuya local API: this API is an internal emergency access mechanism designed to complement the Tuya cloud API. The local API is used for temporary situations like internet outage.

Tuya local uses the local Tuya emergency access for permanent use by luring Tuya devices into believing that there is currently an internet outage.

There are a number of debatable issues with this approach:

• Substantial Work: it takes substantial time and effort to reconfigure all devices (and your network) to simulate a local internet outage and be able to access the devices via their secret Tuya keys.
• Unreliable: based on reverse-engineering and a non-public API, this integration may fail at any time as the Tuya local API (like any non-public API) may change at any time without prior notice.
• Limited: Tuya local API is designed to provide temporary basic emergency device access: it may not support all device types and all device features, and it may fail over time when access keys become stale.
• Cloud Still Needed: Tuya Local isn’t eliminating cloud dependencies: you still need a Tuya account, the devices still need to be added to the Tuya or SmartLife app (as the local API requires the Tuya-assigned secret device keys). Contact to the cloud is required in regular intervals.

Worth the effort?

“Freeing” a Tuya device from the cloud takes effort, so unless you are genuinely interested in the involved techniques, carefully consider it:

• Cloud Works Great For Most Users: Try the official cloud approach first, and test the stability for yourself. Any part of the cloud tool chain is a single point of failure: your network setup, ISP, Home Assistant, its integration, Tuya cloud servers, etc. This explains why the majority of users enjoys flawless operation while a few users are regularly hit by frustrating issues and interruptions. With a bit of luck, Tuya devices work great for you as-is.
• Solving Old Problems By Creating New Problems: Always carefully evaluate solutions that claim to work locally (like Tuya-Local). Controlling Tuya devices locally is based on reverse engineering of the Tuya local API, and the result may not be supported for all device types, may require assigning static IP addresses or other network and firewall configurations, and may still require that the official Tuya cloud API is regularly contacted to update keys. Such solutions may work beautifully for you, but they are just workarounds with a lot of configuration effort that do not really solve the underlying problem and can stop working at any time (if the Tuya local API changes).
• Great Alternative, But Not For Free: With LibreTiny, there is a great alternative that truly removes any cloud dependency. Such a conversion is technically challenging though.

Conclusion

Use Zigbee devices instead of WiFi devices if you plan to eliminate Cloud access.

If you have already purchased WiFi devices, use the official Home Assistant Tuya integration first: chances are this works amazingly well for you.

If it does not, or if you’d like to remove cloud dependency for other reasons, replace the device firmware on each device, and use a new firmware that does not require cloud services at all.

Workarounds like Tuya Local do not remove Cloud dependency and provide only limited benefits while adding substantial effort.

If replacing the device firmware is over your head, then stick with the official Tuya cloud, and limit the use of Tuya devices to use cases that you can afford to become temporarily unavailable.

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