I’m about to start using HA instead of various cloud platforms, a main intention is to disconnect from cloud platforms but now I see having a Tuya account is a prerequisite. So does this defeat one of the main purposes of HA, being local?
Some Tuya devices use Expressif processors and can be flashed with ESPHome. Search the forum for “Tuya ESPHome”, or " ESPHome".
Hi Larry, I also started using HA with a few Tuya devices because they are dirt cheap and you can get them almost everywhere.
Apart from powerplug (which I could flash with Tasmota) I ditched the rest.
If you already own these devices you can see if you can use them locally, there is ‘Tuya local’ and ‘local Tuya’ so just do a search here on the forum.
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Not sure I follow, seems like lots to learn…
Thanks @Nick4 , I found the Tuya Local article - will need to read up some more. Most of my devices are Tuya 
but I may need to follow your advice and ditch…BTW - is there a list of recommended devices?
take the red pill and you’ll know how deep the rabbit hole go 
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Now, THAT is a whole can of worms…
Ask ten Home Assistant users what hardware they recommend, and you will get eleven different answers- all of them correct. That is the versatility of Home Assistant.
One thing that nine out of ten Home Assistant users will agree on it to avoid cloud devices wherever possible.
Also, no matter which protocol you select to start with, I guarantee that within a year you will be adding other protocols to the system. Some IOT manufacturers are displaying a “Works with Home Assistant” label, so you are safe with those.
As of the recent prior release, Home Assistant is compatible with devices with the Matter protocol. If you see this logo there is a very good likelihood that it will work with Home Assistant.
That said- I have never seen a device with the Matter protocol. It is quite new.
In my home - and this is only what is in my home - I have a healthy mix of Z-wave, WiFi, Zigbee and 433MHz. Each has its strengths and each had weaknesses. Everything that is WiFi has been flashed with ESPHome. By the way, Athom sells switches, plugs, lights, etc pre-flashed with ESPHome.
Of my devices I prefer WiFi (cheapest) with Z-Wave a distant second. Zigbee is good for battery powered devices because they can run for months, sometimes years on one CR2032 battery.
I do NOT have any “smart lights”. I am OK with ON or OFF, so most of my lights are controlled with a $12 WiFi wall switch is. It doesn’t make sense to me to have a $30 smart light when a $5 LED light will do the same. If I need dimming, say in the living room, I use a Z-wave wall switch. I don’t need nor want colors, but I am an old fart.
BTW, what hardware do you plan on running Home Assistant on? I started with a Raspberry Pi3 and outgrew that about a year ago with almost 100 devices around the house. Trust me you will get there. I am now running Home Assistant on an Intel NUC computer in my basement. My system can never outgrow this computer.
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Also, don’t throw out your Tuya devices. I don’t have any Tuya lights or switches, but I am certain that others here have installed ESPHome or Tasmota software on them.
And if it can be tasmotized, 99.9% change it’ll also run on ESPHome 
I’ve done that when I had some older devices running Tasmota, just use the OTA Upgrade of the Tasmota device to flash ESPHome binary.
Me too, but not so simple anymore nowadays 
It’s very hard to install any firmware on tuya wifi switches as they don’t have uart pins exposed plus you have to find out a way to boot them in flash mode. I don’t say it is not possible but it takes a lot of effort to do it. They designed it like that on purpose. If they didn’t everybody will get decent wifi switch under 10 $.
This is not sonoff switch that can be easily flash.
Should be easy to do with cloudcutter which doesn’t require serial flashing/soldering.
However, with tuya starting to patch the exploit with latest firmware update on their recent hardware, at some point it will eventually be difficult to find compatible devices just like tuya-convert.
I tried cloudcutter but it seems that this doesn’t work for me. I bought those wifi switches few years ago and I think that they are esp based switches. Any other solution for uploading ota firmware that works?
If tuya convert also doesn’t work, then serial method is your only option.
Fyi, you can avoid soldering by using dupont cables and blue tacs
Just cloned tuya convert repo. I put switch in ap mode, and run a script. I connected laptop to tuya ap and now I’m looking dots on my screen.
Edit:
Never mind. I probably upgraded firmware to patched version and this is probably the reason I can’t upload firmware ota. I’m not gonna try to do it using cables, too much work and hassle. I have just 3 of them.