I’m starting out buying various sensors, cameras etc for my home automation system. What I’m realising is that each device, no matter how good it is as a piece of hardware, is very reliant on the support of the app and potential integrations. The tapo temperature sensor is good, but not much use on it’s own just looking in the app without the ability to use it as a trigger, export data as a graph etc and I’ve seen that I can’t do that with home assistant.
Are there some manufacturers that work particularly well with home assistant so I can invest in those?
I think there are a lot of manufactures that work well with Home Assistant. But what I consider to “work well” may be completely different from someone else’s “work well.”
In general, I would look for devices that have well supported integrations that are not cloud based. For example (and this is only an example - not a recommendation): Shelly products are popular, not cloud based, and well supported. You can glean this from the integration details:
What I usually suggest now in most replies I give is to just get a zigbee and z-wave coordinater, add a thread border router with bluetooth support and then add in lora for long range devices if you need it since you then have all your bases covered to play around with various devices for what is available in your region at the time.
When it comes to most things, the better the mesh for the protocol used the most the better the over all reliability of the devices that use it.
If going the zigbee route then stay away from Tuya WiFi branded devices as they require the cloud connection and apps to be setup and working but those that are Tuya Zigbee branded will work locally without the need to jump hoops in terms of removing the cloud eco system requirement for them.
From there just look at reviews for the devices you are interested in setting up for that use case at the time, for everything else there is esp32 projects for more custom and DIY solutions that are not avaliable off the shelf.
Tuya lights are amazing, and thats where your tuya journey begins and ends dont buy anything else tuya but there lights are very very good. If you do decide to buy them get lumary lights i highly recomend them over other lights as they support BLE+Wifi and they are cheaper but not less functional.
doesnt exist but ill say this, ai is your best friend. I normally ask gpt or gemini to search the web for a particulaur product i have in mind and ask things like intergration and what entities it exposes to ha. usually links me to a post on here or reddit where someone did all the hard worked and shared it with the community
caution gpt will lie sometimes, or hallucinate but youll catch on when it starts doing it
Each integration page will either state which specific devices have passed the certification program, or else will tell you which protocol (eg. Zigbee or Matter) that particular manufacturer’s devices have been certified to work.
These are integrations. Take Zigbee as an example. There are two major integrations, but even so there are a great many products with Zigbee on the box which will not work with one or the other (or both) because the manufacturer has done something peculiar.
At the same time, there are a great many users who struggle with Zigbee and are eventually disappointed because they haven’t got their heads round the fact that it is not wifi. This has nothing to do with “works with HA” - like everything else it’s good at some things and not at others.
There’s no substitute for time spent on reading and research, and you have to accept a few dead ends and a bit of wasted money.
Never, ever, ever buy ten of something before trying out one.
But Tuya is not manufacturing lights or any smart devices. It’s cloud controller that many chinese manufacturers use. Often used on products sold under some “brand” on common online marketplaces, products that are not certified and you can’t even trace the name of the manufacturer.
And they work good, easily integrated, the brand Lumary makes good lights, other brands either are too pricey lack features or no ha integration, tuya may not be the best of everything but their lights are amazing and easy to add to ha without some hacky github addon.
Im spilling beans here because i used many major brands gave em a run, lumary is on par with them but the integration and wifi + ble is the most solid part
“Their lights” technically doesn’t exist.
Anyway, I’m not willing to discuss if Tuya platform is good or not. It’s welcome to us if we get good products.
As an advice, reading also about some Tuya recommendations here: Best is to stay away from Tuya Wifi based devices (Tuya Zigbee based devices are perfectly OK though).
With Tuya WiFi based devices you will never be 100% foreign cloud free. No matter whether you eventually install Local Tuya or one of its many derivatives.
Additionally you will need to open a Tuya Developer Account to aquire an API key and individual IDs and keys for each and every WiFi based device.
Every 6 month your “Trial Period” with Tuya ends and you will need to kind of begging them to extend your trial period for another six month (which is the max time they provide for trial accounts) else you Tuya WiFi based devices will eventually cease to work within HA.
And as a crowning glory whenever your home experiences an extended power outage or somebody (accidently) puts these devices back into pairing mode the above mentioned individual keys will change which puts some additional effort on you to aquire those new keys.
Tuya-based smart lights—like Lumary WiFi + Bluetooth models—are one of the most flexible and cost-effective smart lighting solutions today. Despite what some users claim, you can achieve 100% local control using Local Tuya or Tuya Local, both of which are widely used and maintained open-source Home Assistant integrations. The “trial period” mentioned only applies to cloud-based advanced control—not local access, which is what most Home Assistant users care about.
Tuya lights also offer Bluetooth fallback and mesh capabilities, giving you more reliable connectivity than WiFi-only devices. Lumary, for example, uses this dual-connection setup to ensure quick response and stable pairing—even after power outages. Devices do not reset or lose keys during outages unless manually factory reset, which is rare and avoidable.
Compared to more expensive ecosystems like Philips Hue (requires a hub) or LIFX (no Bluetooth, higher price), Tuya devices integrate directly with your network—no hub needed—while still offering fast response, wide availability, and full control in Home Assistant.
So no, Tuya WiFi-based devices are not locked to the cloud, don’t require begging for API access if you’re using the right tools, and offer real-world benefits like local fallback, multi-protocol communication, and ease of use. Many smart homes today run on Tuya just fine—efficiently and locally.
Edit: to make lumary smart lights disconnect or reset youd have to flicker the lights like Nosferatu for a while, not easily done by accident, or power outage.
Well, make an effort to dig deeper into the latter and you will notice that your claim is not entirely true as for Tuya WiFi based devices.
Using Local Tuya or Tuya Local will not achieve 100% local control!
Cut your internet including all DNS (!) for >24 hours for those WiFi based devices and you will see. Or easier: Search this forum for other user experiences on the latter.
One example (out of many) HERE on how “local” these devices really are.
As for aquiring your initial API key and individual IDs and keys for each and every WiFi based device it is mandatory to open a Tuya Developer Account. This will give you a 6 month trial period automatically which you have to extend every 6 month to keep your WiFi based devices working. Again: Search this forum to get more detailed information on the latter.
