Tuya Zigbee devices

Besides a few western brands that have their own stores on AliExpress (e.g. Shelly), consider everything else as Tuya. The white label doesn't matter, it's the same hardware branded whatever. And there is a BIG difference between Tuya Wi-Fi devices and Tuya Zigbee. Tuya Wi-Fi is cloud-dependent trash (mostly). Zigbee devices are surprisingly solid. Source: I test almost exclusively smart home hardware from AliExpress (smarthomescene.com)

Excerpt saved from the Arctic Shift Reddit archive on 2026-10-23.

I've bought quite a few Tuya-based ZigBee devices from AliExpress - lights, smart plugs and presence sensors, and so far it's all been fine. The physical devices are all pretty simple, and Tuya's ZigBee implementation appears to be solid enough. Everything has worked straight away with ZHA and a ConBee II, they mesh fine, and everything has done what it's supposed to do. The instructions are usually terrible, but it's a ZigBee device - once it's paired there's not much to do. Currently waiting on some ZigBee no-neutral light switches to arrive (also Tuya-based) to control existing dumb …

Excerpt saved from the Arctic Shift Reddit archive on 2026-10-23.

Zigbee devices work fine with zigbee2mqtt. Haven’t tried the WiFi as I believe they’re designed to go tothe cloud and that’s a no no for me.

Excerpt saved from the Arctic Shift Reddit archive on 2026-10-23.

Use ZigBee if you can, avoid Tuya devices if you can, except ZigBee ones, that usually works fine with HA. And make external backups first of all and automate it. And the Nabu Casa subscription worths.

Excerpt saved from the Arctic Shift Reddit archive on 2026-10-23.

Can we have 'bad zigbee devices/do not buy' list?. I'll start. #1 is Tuya and I will not touch any devices from that manufacturer/brand from now on. * Energy monitoring on smart meters is broken. Kwh measurement always shows 'null'. Firmware upgrade to fix it, either by manufacturer or third party is not available * Routers do not allow end devices to connect, even if they are next to each other (the same situation with Sonoff, see below) * Devices drop from the network, this is applicable both to routers (the above-mentioned energy monitors/switches) and to end devices - temp/humidity …

Excerpt saved from the Arctic Shift Reddit archive on 2026-10-23.