Integrate Kogan SmarterHome products into HA

Feature Requests
1

Hi All,

Kogan have just expanded their Smarter Home product range to includes lights and pugs with energy monitoring. They started with just heaters and look to be adding a whole range of products (including A/C, cameras, doorbells and IR controllers - this is from the add device option in the app).

I bought some of the light bulbs because they are just basic wifi bulbs (no extra hub needed) and they are really reasonably priced - $89 AUD for a 4 pack of coloured bulbs and $69 AUD for a 4 pack of white bulbs.

Their devices are controlled by an app called SmarterHome (https://www.kogan.com/au/smarter-home/) which offers basic functionality.
I would love to see these products integrated into HA.

Calling on the fantastic HA developer community to help out a non-developer but HA enthusiast.

Cheers
RE

2

Yeah. This would be a good source of cheap automation gadgets but it would probably have to be reverse engineered. I contacted them about HA compatibility. The support staff I spoke to had no idea what an API was or if their products have one.

3

If it helps, when you launch the SmarterHome app, it says “powered by Tuya”.
Maybe the Kogan devices are re-branded Tuya products.

Tuya support was added to HA in version 0.74

Not sure if that helps.

4

It’s all there then. The heater or AC unit should work with the Tuya climate component, the bulbs with the light component and the smart plugs with the switch component.

Best to test with something cheap like a LED light bulb.

Looks like they do not work with this platform, see post below.

5

Has anyone got this to work? I have tried every combination using the tuya component but no matter what I do I get a username/password error.

Edit: Ok, so I got it to work by installing the Tuya app, creating an account in it, and registering the devices in there.

Would be nice still if they could add kogan as another platform (currently they have tuya and smart_life) since it seems to use the same API URL as the Tuya app, but accounts created in Kogan just dont seem to work in Hassio

6

Did you add your country code as per the document here?: https://www.home-assistant.io/components/tuya/

I don’t actually have any of these devices but would consider them if I knew they worked with the Tuya component.

7

Yes, but the config only works if the account is created in the tuya app, not the kogan smarterhome app.

Below is my config that works with the lights:

tuya:
username: 0400000000
password: xxxxxxxxxxxx
country_code: 61

but this did NOT work with the account created in the kogan app, only the tuya app - interestingly it let me use the same phone number on both kogan and tuya

8

Try to register your Kogan products with the Tuya app … this worked for my Kogan light bulbs.

It will not work if you are using the Kogan app

9

Ok let me get this straight.

Instead of registering an account with the Kogan app you use the Tuya app. After doing so all Kogan devices (that have been so far tested) work with the Tuya component in Home assistant.

I don’t reckon the Kogan or Tuya apps would be any use to me once HA is configured to control the devices. So where’s the problem? Why do you have a preference for one app over the other if it is only used for creating the account not control?

Looks like I may be purchasing some heater panels this weekend.

10

no problem - I was just providing the instructions that worked for me :slight_smile:

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11

Looking at the Tuya component docs it seems that they need to talk to a cloud server and then HA picks them up from there… not sure I like that idea since it would introduce lag and means reliance on an internet connection

12

Yes, the HA implementation does only work with the Tuya Cloud-Service. The Kogan app is using its own Tuya instance which is not accessible from HA.

Therefore the Kogan devices have to be registered in the Tuya app… at least the bulbs are working for me this way.

I have used it the same way for a few other devices (e.g. humidifier, smart sockets) which are compatible with Tuya.

13

Ah damn. Back to the plan of using zwave switches for my existing heating then.

14

There are heater panels on the Kogan site which are suppose to work with the same app, they might be compatible with Tuya, but I have not tested

15

Yes they were the products I was going to test (very cheap!). However I am not interested in components that use cloud services.

16

Thanks everyone, finally got it working perfectly in HA.

Here’s what I did:

  • installed Tuya app
  • created an account on Tuya app (used exact same details as Kogan app)
  • set up the light globes in the Tuya app (this removed them from the Kogan app)
  • added the basic config to my HA configuration.yaml file (as per the Tuya component page)
  • restarted HA and voila! the lights appeared

Now to start adding some automations.

Regarding the Tuya service accessing the cloud, I actually prefer this. In my setup I have all my IOT things segregated from my main home network. The only way I could access the lights using the Kogan app was to be connect to the IOT network. With the Tuya app (and connected in HA) I can access the light settings from anywhere.

Once again, thanks all.
RE

17

I just hooked up my Kogan Aircon, to the Tuya app. But I had a few issues that I resolved:

First, I’m on a windows install of Home Assistant.

In my config file, I put this in:

tuya:
  username: 0400000000
  password: !secret tuya_password
  country_code: 61

It didn’t work, the command prompt for home assistant complained it couldn’t get into it.

So I registered my new account on the Tuya app using my email.
Then I had to go in and register my phone number.
I hit the Me button in the bottom right, went to account security and register number. I got a text, then entered the 6 digit code.

After that, my config settings worked.

Next, I had to re-pair my aircon to the Tuya app instead of the Kogan one.
I didn’t bother de-registering it. I just clicked add device in the Tuya App, after picking Airconditioner in the first Home Appliances tab.

I held the “Speed” Button for 10 seconds, and got three beeps. The Wifi LED started flashing. This little detail is not present in any online manuals. “Refer to device specific pairing method”. Dick move.

After I hit confirm indicated rapid blink, I gave it my Wifi Password. Android keyboard kept sticking a space at the end of the password when I entered it. It scanned, and the aircon was added at about the 47% mark.

The device pops up as:
climate.71645600b4e62d210c2

I stuck that in the lovelace ui via a thermostat card.

2 Likes
18

slightly off topic FYI, Kmart sell similar tuya bulbs to kogan at a better single unit price (difference being 9w vs 10w) branded as “Mirabella Genio”

kogan are probably better value if you’re buying the 4 pack

Bunnings sell a better smart plug for $20 thought as it has a built-in USB outlet (also tuya based)
Mirabella Genio sells the same smart plug as bunnings for $29

I’ve managed to flash the plug with tasmota to get away from cloud dependancy
Havent tried flashing the bulbs yet

19

hey fam,

your humidifier, did you do anything special with it?

I have a renpho humidifier, its tuya based and I used the tuya app to connect it, its showing up in tuya but not in Home Assistant… my tuya bulb shows up fine but not this humidifier / light

20

Just bought a couple of the brilliant smart switches from bunnings, used tuya-convert to flash with tasmota, then migrated to esphome.
They seem to work fine.

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