4 ms·

Tuya devices are available in Zigbee for about $5, and the Zigbee versions have no way to phone home. The nice thing is you can: 1) Buy eight random Tuya Zigb

by blagie 3y ago

Tuya devices are available in Zigbee for about $5, and the Zigbee versions have no way to phone home. The nice thing is you can: 1) Buy eight random Tuya Zigbee outlets ($40) 2) Three PIR presence sensors ($10) 3) Fancy Sonoff Zigbee USB device ($20) 4) Three RGB-CCCW lightbulbs ($15) 5) Three or four temperature/humidity monitors ($15) And you're at the $100 mark with a basic smart home without breaking the bank, with a good path to upgrade if you like it. The main annoyance are shipping times from China.

minimalist 3y ago
Only thing I'd add is to try to get devices that can be flashed with esphome[0] for future-proofing. There is an onramp[1] for devices that can be flashed with Tasmota. Also be very wary about devices that are not (verifiably) UL listed / CE rated, especially if the device is to be plugged into mains and tucked behind some furniture (or worse yet, installed into the wall). [According to internet folk lore] some of these can be grounds for being denied insurance coverage in the event of a fire or other damage [citation needed]. Personally, I don't mess around with random-china-devices and mains outside of the workbench. [0]: https://esphome.io/index.html https://esphome.io/index.html [1]: https://devices.esphome.io/guides/tuya-convert/ https://devices.esphome.io/guides/tuya-convert/
- ihattendorf 3y ago
  > Some of these can be grounds for being denied insurance coverage Is there a reason you think insurance wouldn’t pay out because you used a non-listed device? This is something I frequently see people asserting without any basis in reality, and I’m curious where it comes from. People do stupid things that insurance covers all the time. I do agree that you should only use listed devices whenever possible.
  - minimalist 3y ago
    Best include the whole quote: >Some of these can be grounds for being denied insurance coverage in the event of a fire or other damage. Honestly, I don't know and I haven't personally heard of anyone getting denied claims because of stupid things related to DIY repairs/modifications. I think this repeated wisdom comes from things that we read in HOA and rental agreements about DIY modifications. I'll edit my comment with a [citation needed]. Thank you for the question :) It does make me wonder: what if a fire caused by a DIY installation of a ebay gadget resulted in loss of life? If the aggrieved parties went to court, who would be held liable? Here is another discussion: https://old.reddit.com/r/HomeImprovement/comments/7vwe23/does_anyone_have_hard_evidence_that_homeowners/ https://old.reddit.com/r/HomeImprovement/comments/7vwe23/doe...
efitz 3y ago
I am less than impressed with Tuya. They want to be an ecosystem, just like HomeKit or SmartThings, so you either have to go all in on them or use some bridging solution. And they charge (a lot) for their cloud development platform (used to have a free tier), and they change apps from time to time requiring new accounts and reconfiguration, etc. Not a fan.
- XorNot 3y ago
  I really wish Tuya would just sell products and provide a way to flash them, because under the hood the platform is quite sensible: serial controllers for core functions with a wifi daughter board. So if you can chip swap them, and ESP can drop right in with ESPHome. If they'd just let us flash custom firmware without needing an exploit then you'd be able to run ESPhome without any fuss on the raw chips (the Bekan firmware is included in ESPhome now - it's great). They're sitting on a pile of easy "family and friends" recommendations if they'd just drop the ecosystem aspiration.
  - blagie 3y ago
    That's a really broad-reaching statement, much more so than might seem to a casual reader. In an ideal case, each of these devices would: 1) Be open-source 2) Be programmable in a stack of kid-friendly languages, with a stack including Blockly, CircuitPython/JavaScript, and full-fledged kernel hacking 3) Clean, clear documentation and web interfaces for doing this 4) Integration with a secure non-wifi protocol like Zigbee 5) Have a standard, maintained back-end, so things like security fixes can hit all devices, no matter the sensors Kids can (and some would) learn to do things much as they do with Scratch or Hour-of-Code projects, and it'd just be a different dynamic. There is a mint to be made there if a platform like Tuya could pivot here. It's a decent chunk of work, but far from astronomical. Step 2 would be to do something similar for HomeAssistant, or for a similar platform, and there ought to be devices which ship with that. The Zigbee coordinator should be programmable, configurable, and kid-friendly to do so. It should also automatically install security updates (ideally, via Ubuntu, rather than the vendor; Ubuntu is looking to make money; a $5-per-device plan for long-term remote maintenance would do it a lot better than giving me warnings about my machine being insecure, and if I won't pretty-please opt into having them track me with their premium platform)
j45 3y ago
This is really helpful to know - Zigbee for a while was a premium compared to other protocols and it's nice to discover that has drastically changed.
- blagie 3y ago
  It's still often double the price. * Wifi spy-on-you-compromise-your-network version: $2 * Zigbee version: $4. I can spare the extra two bucks, though.
  - averageRoyalty 3y ago
    Or buy the wifi one and flash with esphome or similar.

by blagie 3y ago

minimalist 3y ago

Only thing I'd add is to try to get devices that can be flashed with esphome[0] for future-proofing. There is an onramp[1] for devices that can be flashed with Tasmota. Also be very wary about devices that are not (verifiably) UL listed / CE rated, especially if the device is to be plugged into mains and tucked behind some furniture (or worse yet, installed into the wall). [According to internet folk lore] some of these can be grounds for being denied insurance coverage in the event of a fire or other damage [citation needed]. Personally, I don't mess around with random-china-devices and mains outside of the workbench. [0]: https://esphome.io/index.html https://esphome.io/index.html [1]: https://devices.esphome.io/guides/tuya-convert/ https://devices.esphome.io/guides/tuya-convert/

ihattendorf 3y ago
> Some of these can be grounds for being denied insurance coverage Is there a reason you think insurance wouldn’t pay out because you used a non-listed device? This is something I frequently see people asserting without any basis in reality, and I’m curious where it comes from. People do stupid things that insurance covers all the time. I do agree that you should only use listed devices whenever possible.
- minimalist 3y ago
  Best include the whole quote: >Some of these can be grounds for being denied insurance coverage in the event of a fire or other damage. Honestly, I don't know and I haven't personally heard of anyone getting denied claims because of stupid things related to DIY repairs/modifications. I think this repeated wisdom comes from things that we read in HOA and rental agreements about DIY modifications. I'll edit my comment with a [citation needed]. Thank you for the question :) It does make me wonder: what if a fire caused by a DIY installation of a ebay gadget resulted in loss of life? If the aggrieved parties went to court, who would be held liable? Here is another discussion: https://old.reddit.com/r/HomeImprovement/comments/7vwe23/does_anyone_have_hard_evidence_that_homeowners/ https://old.reddit.com/r/HomeImprovement/comments/7vwe23/doe...

efitz 3y ago

I am less than impressed with Tuya. They want to be an ecosystem, just like HomeKit or SmartThings, so you either have to go all in on them or use some bridging solution. And they charge (a lot) for their cloud development platform (used to have a free tier), and they change apps from time to time requiring new accounts and reconfiguration, etc. Not a fan.

XorNot 3y ago
I really wish Tuya would just sell products and provide a way to flash them, because under the hood the platform is quite sensible: serial controllers for core functions with a wifi daughter board. So if you can chip swap them, and ESP can drop right in with ESPHome. If they'd just let us flash custom firmware without needing an exploit then you'd be able to run ESPhome without any fuss on the raw chips (the Bekan firmware is included in ESPhome now - it's great). They're sitting on a pile of easy "family and friends" recommendations if they'd just drop the ecosystem aspiration.
- blagie 3y ago
  That's a really broad-reaching statement, much more so than might seem to a casual reader. In an ideal case, each of these devices would: 1) Be open-source 2) Be programmable in a stack of kid-friendly languages, with a stack including Blockly, CircuitPython/JavaScript, and full-fledged kernel hacking 3) Clean, clear documentation and web interfaces for doing this 4) Integration with a secure non-wifi protocol like Zigbee 5) Have a standard, maintained back-end, so things like security fixes can hit all devices, no matter the sensors Kids can (and some would) learn to do things much as they do with Scratch or Hour-of-Code projects, and it'd just be a different dynamic. There is a mint to be made there if a platform like Tuya could pivot here. It's a decent chunk of work, but far from astronomical. Step 2 would be to do something similar for HomeAssistant, or for a similar platform, and there ought to be devices which ship with that. The Zigbee coordinator should be programmable, configurable, and kid-friendly to do so. It should also automatically install security updates (ideally, via Ubuntu, rather than the vendor; Ubuntu is looking to make money; a $5-per-device plan for long-term remote maintenance would do it a lot better than giving me warnings about my machine being insecure, and if I won't pretty-please opt into having them track me with their premium platform)

j45 3y ago

This is really helpful to know - Zigbee for a while was a premium compared to other protocols and it's nice to discover that has drastically changed.

blagie 3y ago
It's still often double the price. * Wifi spy-on-you-compromise-your-network version: $2 * Zigbee version: $4. I can spare the extra two bucks, though.
- averageRoyalty 3y ago
  Or buy the wifi one and flash with esphome or similar.