I swear that I'm never buying anything with the word "Tuya" on the pack ever again!!
I purchased a couple of sensors to remotely monitor my Mum's old house while it was empty - we had to wait far too long for probate and then the house to be sold so it was over 12m in the end. I didn't have time to get Node-RED set up originally so I brought a presence sensor and temperature/humidity sensor, both with Tuya.
Now that the house is sold, I've brought those back home and wanted to use them offline with my home Node-RED. But, for the life of me the only way I can find to do it is to have the Tuya Dev Platform.
It seems that platform has drastically changed and it appears that you only get a 30d trial period after which you have to pay?
Not sure if there is any other way but I've not been able to work it out.
In case you are interested, the sensors are:
They were cheap and Tuya seemed the best quick win at the time. They've done fine for remote monitoring so I can't really complain. But it is annoying if there is no other way to use them.
I have no idea if it will work with these devices but I use node-red-contrib-tuya-smart-device with a few Tuya wifi devices (Power monitor SO & coloured lamp). Still works for me. (complicated initial setup)
Tuya zigbee devices are most of the time flaky. Heavy talkers on zigbee...
Tuya wifi usually needs a hack to work without tuya cloud. Free or not free, is "almost" a second level problem.
If doable, on this particular device, try installing ESPHome. That's the only long term workable solution.
There was an issue fetching that device. Make sure your account is linked and the ID is correct.
The device(s) are linked and the ID is copied from the Tuya dev website. I've tried 2 other nodes as well - both of them baulked on the fact that I don't have a current license (my trial ran out).
I guess if you have one that is already working, it will continue for now - at least until Tuya make further changes to lock you out.
Unfortunately, they are sealed units with no available info.
Hi Julian,
I have quite a few Tuya devices—as you said, they're cheap and work well, but they're tied to the Tuya cloud. I have two types of devices:
those permanently plugged into mains power: smart plugs, ceiling fans.
those running on battery: temperature/humidity sensors.
As you, all are Wi-Fi enabled.
For the mains-powered devices, I use: node-red-contrib-tuya-devices (node) - Node-RED.
As for the battery-operated ones, they sleep most of the time, and the node-red-contrib-tuya-devices node struggles to pick them up when they wake up; sometimes, data is only reported once a day. I regularly make HTTP requests to openapi.tuyaeu.com (using tokens, etc.), but that relies on the cloud—which I know you don't like
Getting back to your issue: I’ve also encountered the "trial period expired" error. If we're talking about the same thing, here is what I do to extend the trial period: Go to :cloud > cloud service > iot core > view details
Ah! Well, that appears to be the place I needed to go to in order to get a 1 year extension rather than a 1 month which the other arcane screens led me to. I suppose this is better than nothing. And now, I can actually get the data I need for both sensors.
So many thanks for that.
I will try out your other things as well - but not tonight, a beer is calling.
If one is a seazoned Node-Red user, i miss the point to go for Tuya. So many cons, not to say the cloud dependency.
I have a variety of this kind of sensors, and first check if a device is compatible with zigbee2mqtt, AND is listed on Supported Devices.
In the beginning i worked with native Aedes, but later switched to Mosquito.
"Cheap" is a good argument, but the waste of time and frustration afterwards is a pain in the butt.
Cheers.
Yes, this is what I normally do. But, as I said, I was in a hurry to fix up some security for an unoccupied house. I didn't have time to set up a Pi with Node-RED, etc and add compatible sensors. It wasn't even a cost issue since the estate can cover that, it was just immediate convenience. And it worked just fine for nearly a year. With temperature and humidity monitoring through the winter and presence detection along with an internal security camera, all cloud based.
The only Tuya sensors I have ever bought (/would ever buy) are Zigbee sensors.
I have a major dislike of any wireless sensor (new home has over 30 sensors so far, all wired)... but I do still have three or four stray Tuya Zigbee sensors, for tricky locations. Very small little wall mounted PIRs and mmWave. They have been reliable (as in - haven't missed a beat for years, no issues or fuss when it comes to changing batteries etc.) and despite some battery reporting weirdness (how accurately can I expect a device that's only just slightly bigger than my thumbnail to report its button battery life?) I would never say Tuya is universally bad. But yes, any devices requiring cloud setup: it's a red flag for me.
try Shelly devices. Cloud or no cloud. access with mqtt or other protocol. Install for instance a raspberry pi with node red red.
use tailscale to connect to the devices without VPN.
I should re-iterate here that these Tuya devices were a convenience in a property that had no automation and no always-on compute. The house was vacant and needed to be sold (but I had to wait on the UK Government to approve that handover of the estate). I would never willingly use cloud-dependent solutions normally. Heck, I don't even like or use HA let alone a proprietary vendor cloud!
In the "old" days, 433MHz was pretty much the best, low-cost wireless solution and I still have a few remnants of that around, now probably a decade or more old.
Low-cost Wi-Fi solutions came next - though realistically only for permanently powered solutions. Some hand-built on various ESP platforms, others from the likes of TP-Link and ITEAD. I do now also have some Shelly Wi-Fi devices.
Then, once Zigbee dropped in price, I added that to the mix with devices from Ikea, and SONOFF.
I do like Shelly devices. But, they are expensive in the UK if only due to the shipping costs. So I might buy a few together in one of their periodic sales.
What I find interesting now is that it seems that we can now get ESP32's with Zigbee so I might try redoing some of my sensors with ESP32-C6 or ESP32-H2 devices over Zigbee. Assuming I can ever find time in retirement!
Any way, this is well off topic from the original question!
By the way, to summarise, you can make use of Tuya's cloud API "for free" but you have to try to extend your access each year. Not sure if they will keep extending or not. Too many other things happening in life right now for me to experiment further. But if you have more info or alternative answers, please do contribute.
