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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 bridgin

by 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)
happymellon 3y ago
If they are Zigbee, then it doesn't matter what they want to be? Just get a Zigbee dongle for a Pi and pair them if you want a hub. Admittedly I do not use Tuya, I'm only going off the parent comment about it being Zigbee but Zigbees ad-hoc mesh hasn't failed me.

by efitz 3y ago

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)

happymellon 3y ago

If they are Zigbee, then it doesn't matter what they want to be? Just get a Zigbee dongle for a Pi and pair them if you want a hub. Admittedly I do not use Tuya, I'm only going off the parent comment about it being Zigbee but Zigbees ad-hoc mesh hasn't failed me.