IMO, the best approach is to avoid purchasing and using any Tuya WiFi devices, no matter how cheap they are.
The “contract expiry/renewal reminder” issue hits pretty much every home automation platform except Home Assistant - see here.
Home Assistant is different because it no longer uses the developer API model at all. It uses a Tuya-approved QR/OAuth login that connects directly to your Tuya / Smart Life account, so there’s no developer project, no subscription, and nothing to renew.
Because of that, other platforms can’t really “fix” this on their side. Unless Tuya officially gives them the same kind of access Home Assistant has, they’ll keep running into the same contract-expiry limitations.
I don’t think Tuya will ever be willing to cover the cloud hosting costs on behalf of other commercial home automation platforms (like Hubitat, Homey, or SmartThings). That’s probably why Home Assistant ends up being the only real exception — its community-driven integration and Tuya-approved login flow avoid the whole developer cloud subscription model altogether.
thanks. I'll check it. But if it works, then do we still need Tuya cloud control ?
edit:
I tried it and seems to work fine.
I just had to assign static IPs on my router.
so now , even if my Tuya developer account expires, I can continue using it through local commands. right ?
Yes, the local WiFi communication to my Tuya RGBW bulb works pretty well.
Once configured, you don't need the Tuya 'developer account' anymore, you can leave it expired.
The “Tuya Local RGBW Light” driver didn’t work for my particular Tuya bulb, because it has hardcoded “Data Points” for local communication — and the DPs in my bulb are different. My bulb however matches the Tuya Generic Light Bulb Template specifications.
I tinkered with the driver code, and this is the result:
All RGBW commands are working OK, the colors seems to be accurate.
Also, my bulb can be controlled both locally and from the Smart Life app at the same time (as long as there’s an Internet connection, of course...). The local control always works (except when I turn off my WiFi LAN router )
The moded driver needs some more work to hardcode the default Tuya scenes / light effects - these are also working, when copying the code manually from the Refresh() command debug logs :
Ok, I've got this added and working, ceiling fan is showing in Hubitat and I can control the light, but no fan control. I've been searching but not coming up with a solution. Any help is appreciated.
That worked! Thank you! Can't control fan speed or color of the light but honestly those would be nice to haves, I really just wanted to be able to automate turning the fan and light off when my kids inevitably have both on when they leave.
Well, I just tried this for my Tuya-cloud-controlled Soleus Window Saddle Heat Pump and it logins in and populated devices (2 window heat pumps). I had to go add (and link my Smart Life App) to the app I generated in the Developer's center in order to have my app username and p/w work. It provides a scannable barcode so the app links to the Dev Center.
Just a note to those with Soleus Saddle Window Heat Pumps: You can get far far more information - though not all buttons will do what you want them to - if you set the child devices to "Generic Component Thermostat". The soleus doesn't have auto-heat-cool ranges like the thermostat expects, but doing this allows you to get true temps from the unit and still allows turn off and turn on. I hope this will be exposed in a future version of the driver...but I am happy enough to be able to turn the darned heat pump on and off when I wish to - based on environmental factors.
Thanks @jonathanb ! This is exactly what I needed!!!
Jann
ps: @leo_charles : this works on our saddle units! Just sayin'
Yes. I previously chose the “correct” data centre based on the link, but encountered the same errors. Hence, tried another data centre to see if it will work - but unfortunately it didnt.
My Tuya Cloud account has stopped automatically sending updates for the device attributes.
Refresh is still working and sending commands just fine, but the sensors (especially the motion and contact sensors) aren't updating their status in near real-time. This really makes the cloud integration not very useful for me.
I am assuming the region you selected is what the smartlife app shows. I would double check that and then unlink the app on the IOT platform and start over. I think I have read others having issues after changing the region and not unlinking the app.
