I’m a bit flabbergasted at this one.
How come there’s no oficial tuya binding and we have to install an alternative market? I just installed the smartlife / tuya app (was looking for a smart portable ac) and I’m astonished at the amount of stuff there. I mean, nevermind everything else, install the app, and slide through the devices they have to configure. Bloody hell I feel like I’ve been missing out.
Guys we need to get in on this.
Who do I have to annoy to get an oficial binding?
It’s the perfect time too, 3 weeks before the last milestone
Well, official bindings don’t just happen. Someone needs:
to develop it
submit it as a PR to the openhab-addons repo
have it reviewed and then merged.
Step 2 never happened. So unless and until someone submits it as a PR it can’t become an official add-on.
Who do you have to annoy? The original author of the add-on. We don’t go out and assimilate add-ons like the Borg. Developers have to volunteer their add-ons by submitting a PR.
I think most people here using Tuya flash the firmware to Tasmota, but I don’t think all Tuya devices can be flashed.
Oh I understand openHABs position. You’d seem pretty aggressive if you did, so I can appreciate that overall things are quite stable.
But for sure I’ll contact the dev and see what can be arranged.
And yes you are right, the old tuya devices were easily flashed, but the new ones aren’t working that way, hence the problem.
For a little more context, “old” Tuya devices that used ESP32 chips were patched by Tuya to prevent over-the-air flashing with Tuya-convert, but in many cases you could still get Tasmota onto them via USB. It was just a lot more work.
Tuya then started using non-ESP32 chips that are not compatible with Tasmota. I haven’t been paying attention, so I don’t know if that’s still happening. Either way, they closed the door on Tasmota.
I have a few Tuyas, but I’ve found that TP-Link Kasa devices are roughly the same price (sometimes cheaper) and work well for me, with good support in openHAB.
Thank you for the added explanation, my understanding was the same but I wasn’t sure if I was correct.
The difference between tuya and kasa is twofold:
Number of people using tuya is waayyyyy bigger.
Number of devices available in tuya is wayyyyy bigger.
I figure that getting tuya in will positively affect the user interest metrics.
So…what’s your point? Unless I missed an announcement that openHAB is now focused on market share, this isn’t a numbers game. It’s a hobby.
What metrics?
I don’t know why you’d think that having a Tuya binding will lead to a sudden uptake in openHAB. Most Tuya users are fine with what they’ve got, and aren’t interested in playing around with complex home automation or Linux on a Raspberry Pi. They just want some light switches that they can schedule, and plugs they can control with a voice assistant of their choosing. That includes my dad, a retired engineer.
Tuya/Tasmota users have had openHAB available to them for years. Same for Kasa, Wemo, and various other products that work with openHAB either directly or indirectly. I’m just guessing, but I’d say that most of them aren’t hanging around here.
The reality is that complex home automation is a niche market, requiring more effort than most people are willing and able to put into it. That’s fine. It’s still a relatively new thing. Matter is a step in the right direction, but openHAB-level home automation isn’t going to take off until something makes it really, really easy for an average consumer to set up extensive rules/routines.
As it is now, openHAB’s not going to be that something (and neither is Home Assistant). It’s a lot of work for relatively little payoff…which makes it a great hobby for people like me, but less so for my dad. He’d rather play golf and squash.
Appart from some discussions/issues in the past, no dev is forced to contribute their new bindings to the official openHAB-addons repository.
Especially, when it cannot be licensed under EPL2.0 (e.g. containing closed source code), it needs to be published other ways.
Therefore we introduced the third party marketplace, where those devs can publish their bindings and make it easier for users to use them.
There is absolutely nothing to complain about.
Forgot to keep up this topic, oops. Wow.
Okay, let’s take it slow.
Using colorful terms like flabbergasted is meant to get people to react and interact. To have a conversation going. At most I’m surprised at the lack of the binding.
I was looking at the device list in the smart life app and just thinking of the possibilities… I got pretty excited. I’m certain you guys do too. I don’t know what to reply other than this.
Im confused. Not at your answer but the wording.
Why did you need to state that you can’t force devs? That seems awfully, painfully specific. Did something happen to make that an answer for when people ask stuff? I am familiar with the workers council so I understand that sometimes you feel like you’re walking on eggshells.
The way I see it we get cool things in one of two ways:
we get more users into the community (who make or bring in cool things)
we share/ask about cool stuff with the community (and promote for the current community to make cool things)
Here I’m doing the second.
What was that the pain point of my question? Maybe I Should not have asked “why we don’t have it”… if that was it I am sorry for my wording and ask that we move past it, I meant no disrespect.
@rpwong , I didn’t get your point, but I won’t go into it in detail. I ask that you don’t either to keep this thread on topic (as much as possible). If you’re not for the binding that’s fine. Let’s leave at that.
So back on topic. @J-N-K , this became a bit too hot maybe. Could we get some words from your side? Who knows, maybe there’s an opportunity to discuss this topic and see the possibility of integrating more bindings into the standard marketplace, somehow??
Ok, it might not have been a complaint, but it should not be surprising to have a third party marketplace for addons, not hosted by openHAB due to several reasons.
In general, we ask open sourced bindings to be contributed to the openHAB-addons repository to make them available for installations. But if a developer chooses not to do this for whatever reason, and I am not going into details here, then we still offer a way to give users easy access to those addons.
That gave me the impression of a complaint…
You still have to understand the difference between the openHAB marketplace and the 3rd party marketplace.
openHAB marketplace is meant for early access to new or updated bindings/addons under development or review process. After such a binding or enhancement has been merged into the official repository, it should be removed from the marketplace.
3rd party marketplace is meant for new or updated addons, where the developer either cannot open source the code or if he/she decides not to contribute to the official repository.
Just to clarify, I never said that I’m against a Tuya binding. I’ve clearly supported the idea in a thread you posted in before starting this one.
I was just asking why you care about the sizes of the Tuya/Kasa audiences and undefined user metrics, and provided some insight into why I don’t think those things are important. You explained your position on that in a subsequent post, so no need to go into it further.
We do get excited. We absolutely do. However, that’s balanced against the fact that this is a hobby for our developers. As you’ve seen, there’s been discussion about a Tuya binding for years, but no one has had the expertise, interest and time to make one. That’s probably why it’s a little easier for me to be patient. J-N-K will publish and announce it when they’re ready, and I will happily make use of it.
I think you might be reading more heat than there is. The big difference between this online forum and many others is that we take the time to explain our positions and try not to assume that others (particularly newer members) know all of the things we’ve talked about over the years. We have meaningful conversations, because we’re not just reacting emotionally all of the time. That’s one of my favourite things about this community.
This is why I’m taking the time to write back instead of just walking away. I firmly believe that we have more to gain from understanding each other…even when we disagree. With this in mind, I apologize if I came across negatively in my previous post, as that was not my intention.
If I could offer some advice, I’d suggest toning down the hyperbole a bit so that your excitement doesn’t get misread by others. I agree that colorful terms generate reactions, but they often come across as adversarial starting points and provoke negative responses. In my opinion, that’s never a good way to start a conversation.
The last thing I want is for you to get discouraged or lose your obvious enthusiasm for openHAB.
I’d also add that it’s an international forum. I bet it’s a minority of users here whose first language is English. It’s hard enough to get tone and intent among native speakers. So sometimes it helps to keep that in mind as enthusiasm to some might come across as aggressive to others. Short clipped responses might be the norm instead of rude, or a result of not being as adept with the language. So we need to make allowances to others on the one hand and dial back on our own emotion, idioms, etc on the other.
to add to this i had a LOT of the esp-based tuyas up and die. i don’t it was related to the esp, more likely the power circuitry. cheap devices. kasa devices are far more reliable.
edit this was a reply to add to the poster’s information, not trying to state something he likely already knows
I don’t think your personal experience will be example of the overall quality of the devices running on the tuya cloud @waspie , with the dozens of vendors/makers on that platform. Let alone the ones who custom make their app. It’s just not possible.
I don’t doubt that you may have had problems with specific devices, but just because they were using the tuya cloud does not imply causality, imo.
