tuya-convert

> They cost >2x the Meross ones. Got 2. They work so far. Crossing my fingers they're legit, though my guess is they won't last. FYI - there are plenty of cheap Tuya devices[0] that can be flashed with alternative firmware[1] which works locally. More generically, there a lot of ESP32-based switches that work with Tasmota open-source firmware[2]. There breadth of devices is annoying because it makes configuration difficult since manufacturer wire up the relays differently, so it took me trial and error to figure out which device/"port" the firmware needs to toggle to turn the switch on or off 0. Any device that requires installation of a phone app named "Smart Life" or "Tuya Smart". 1. https://github.com/ct-Open-Source/tuya-convert 2. https://github.com/tasmota

>You can open them and reflash then with Tasmota but they are a pain to open. Not sure if you tried it, but depending on the age of the stock or the tardiness of the OEM in applying security patches, it may be possible to flash them without opening them first. https://github.com/ct-Open-Source/tuya-convert#procedure

https://github.com/ct-Open-Source/tuya-convert is useful for re-flashing some widely available smartplugs without opening them up. Then you can use MQTT or HTTP. Unfortunately some newer plugs are incompatible with the hack (different chipset - https://github.com/ct-Open-Source/tuya-convert/issues/484 ).

Many of these WiFi-LED lamps contain esp8266 devices, which have a lot of open source alternative firmware available, like esphome[0] or tasmota[1]. You can reflash them by opening them & connecting a cheap (1$) usb-to-tty adapter. If that isn't an option (for reasons like not wanting to permanently damage them or being afraid of electrical shocks) a lot of them come with tuya firmware, which you can (still) often exploit and convert with TUYA-CONVERT [2]. I found the Tasmota Device Templates Repository[3] to be a really valuable resource, although I've been using zigbee devices for lightbulbs. [0]https://esphome.io/ [1]https://github.com/arendst/Tasmota [2]https://github.com/ct-Open-Source/tuya-convert [3]https://templates.blakadder.com/index.html

I didn't try to run a command, I ran this exact script: https://github.com/ct-Open-Source/tuya-convert/blob/master/i... Actually you could be right - that script does run `python3` after apt-get'ing everything it needs. Anyway.. I didn't look into it any further because I didn't feel like investing any time into learning the 'Ubuntu way'. I installed Debian instead and it worked perfectly without any grief. It also worked perfectly on PopOS when I used it a few days later on a different machine. Canonical can make whatever changes they want of course, I've just become increasingly less patient when it comes to machines not acting how I have come to expect. So I'll just stick to what works. Oh man - I'm becoming one of those old dudes...

It's worth noting that at the moment, tuya-convert is broken and doesn't work, so you have to resort to soldering pins to flash custom firmware onto these devices. https://github.com/ct-Open-Source/tuya-convert/issues/483 https://github.com/ct-Open-Source/tuya-convert/wiki/Collabor...

I've switched a lot of my existing light automation over to esphome [0]. I flashed it on various cheap LED Wifi bulbs that have been 'liberated' via tuya convert [1] After going through zigbee and zwave, I feel like I finally arrived at a solution that allows me plenty of reasonably priced selection and extreme customization (e.g. just using the warm/cold white LEDs on a RGB+white bulb). Great experience so far and completely automated integration within homeassistant. I hope that the esphome-configs project [2] will grow over the next little while and provide more and more copy+paste configurations for various hardware. [0] https://esphome.io/ [1] https://github.com/ct-Open-Source/tuya-convert [2] https://esphome-configs.io/