Tuya Smart Reviews

by Chu^2

I’m extremely frustrated with the new app, one day all of a sudden in late December, my app microphone stopped working, I thought, ok, maybe because I’m using iOS 9.3, so I tried my husbands phone he has iOS 10 and it still didn’t worked, I thought maybe because camera defective, so I tried it on my other camera still doesn’t work, after going through 4 more updates, they still didn’t fix the problem at all, right now both my microphone and camera tilt/panning control no longer works, customer service stopped replying back to me what’s going on, I cannot believe they broke TuyaSmart and never fix it. By the way I finally broke down and tried it on my iOS 12.2 on my iPad and thinking maybe it will worked now, NOPE! Still broken, camera froze as soon as I touch microphone or panning button. By the way their app also said the software is compatible with iOS 9 above, so they had no reason to deliver broken software when none of my iOS worked

by Jeremy Moran

I am not sure what has happened to TuyaSmart within the past few months, but once every three weeks, the light bulb disconnects and I have to reconnect it to the WiFi and set up the device all over again. Now, not only is the device not automatically recognizing my WiFi networks (unless I always allow TuyaSmart to access my location, not sure why), but in order to set up the device, I have to MANUALLY enter my WiFi SSID EVERY TIME I RESET. I have tried COUNTLESS times in the past few days and nothing works. It is beyond frustrating since the reset process is long and tedious, and even more so because I am entering all of my information correctly. I used to love TuyaSmart, but I can say that I am considering throwing away this light bulb and app for good if this issue isn’t resolved. Beyond frustrating.

by TigerMO53

As long as you just use the basic timer to turn things on and off at a set time, TuyaSmart works fine with the mini smart socket. Other features that look like they should work in TuyaSmart, don't work. For example, TuyaSmart says you can create a scene to turn lights on and off at sunrise and sunset. In order for that to work, the location services within TuyaSmart have to be able to find your city. I live in the fourth largest city in Missouri, but my hometown is not on the map. The GPS correctly finds my location on the map, but there is no city shown there. Without TuyaSmart knowing what city I live in, it is unable to look up the sunrise and sunset data for my location. Rather than having lots of features and not have all of them work, I'd rather TuyaSmart be bare-bones and have fewer features that actually do work.

by Bostelmann

How many times are you guys gonna put out an update that screws up my camera? When I originally installed TuyaSmart , it worked beautifully on my iPhone and iPad. You then put out an update that made the image upside down and not fill the screen on my iPad. About a week later, you fixed it. A week after that, the image is upside down and won’t fill the screen, again, on my iPad. Whatever you’re doing, maybe see it working on these devices before releasing it to the public. It’s a great app when it’s coded and working correctly. Please, fix it so the image (and the entire app, for that matter) is right side up when my iPad is in the horizontal position, and so that the image fills the screen. And, no, this has nothing to do with the “flip camera” settings in TuyaSmart . It’s about the way TuyaSmart interprets the iPad’s gyro information.

by Blkgayguy

Joining these to my network is always a bit of a challenge but I get there. My biggest gripe is that it’s obviously “cloud-based“. Meaning, even if the outlets and my phone are all on my private home network, if my outside Internet is down, I can’t communicate with the outlets in my own house! That was a RUDE SURPRISE the first time I had an Internet outage! With everything on the same wi-fi network my phone and the outlets should be able to communicate directly at all times. Any “added bonus“ that the cloud may give should be icing on the cake, not a requirement. Still, once these are joined to your network, and if you don’t have an external internet outage (which is rare), they work and work fine. TuyaSmart is simple and intuitive. Nice interface.

by Mystakill

I cringe every time I see a “1X” or “2X” pop up the first time I run a new app. It’s ridiculous to still be developing iPhone-only apps 8 years after the introduction of the iPad, and nearly as long for Universal apps. Utilize all of the available screen real estate to minimize scrolling and eliminate sub-windows where possible.

Scheduling is more difficult than it needs to be because each on or off operation needs to be added separately, which is counterintuitive to how most people define schedules. Please provide the ability to define both on and off events in a single timer entry.

Finally, the “Common function” link is completely superfluous, since there’s already a power toggle button in each item pane. If there are more options for a given device, then either provide that link, or provide addition buttons or sliders in the panel, as appropriate.

by Nbachampions2016

So, I think this problem may go back to the July 8 update. I have a light that goes on by itself. I noticed it three days ago, but my husband says it's been happening for at least a week. The first time I noticed it in the middle of the night, I opened my Alexa app and turned it off. Fifteen minutes later, it turned back on. This time, I physically turned off the light. I'm writing this in the middle of the day and it has happened several times already. I've also turned it off using the Tuya app, but it still comes back on. What the heck? ? I've had these bulb for more than five months and have had no problems running through Alexa. I used the Tuya app initially for setup. Just thought I'd report this in hopes the developer can investigate.

by WFnN

Monster size reach. I am impressed. Surprised I hadn’t heard more or much about them. I would readily give 5 stars for the information they make available and willingness to share BUT I have a this app Smart cam that keeps going offline on me and there is no way to wake it up as well as no way within TuyaSmart to communicate with it.

It gets very frustrating to repeatedly see the “camera offline “ message and no way at all to do anything about it to get it back online.

Otherwise very helpful links in the help section but none that easily or simply addresses the ‘camera offline’ issue for how to activate it to get it back online.

by Jaison13

I will definitely say that of all the smart bulb and plug type apps this one does work the best. You do get an occasional moment where it doesn’t connect with the Alexa app but it’s very easy to fix. The one thing I would love to see change would be involving scenes within the bulbs.
Scenes would be so much better and more useful if they could be set up as a library of scenes and then attached to a bulb. How they are set up now you have to set up a scene inside each lightbulb. So if you want all the lightbulbs to have the same scene you have to go into each lightbulb and try to duplicate the exact same thing which isn’t easy. Plus if your bulb goes off-line you have to start all over again because all your scenes will be lost. If the scenes were a library outside of the bulbs and then a scene could be attached to a bulb or a group that would be awesome and way more useful. If you can do this and change TuyaSmart that would be fantastic!

by Nrsngstudnt

Almost Five Stars 🌟🌟🌟🌟
This device and app was very easy to set up and works great, and I only have a few recommendations for improvement to make this a five star 🌟 🌟🌟🌟🌟 winner. It is fast and works great with Echo / Alexa. On a few occasions Alexa would inform me of trouble connecting to the device and we weren’t able to connect via TuyaSmart either. There was an error message stating the device was offline.

I contacted customer service quick and easily via TuyaSmart and they responded fairly quickly within 3 hours on instructions on how to restore the device connection by pressing the button on the device for 6-8 seconds. While this worked in a snap, my concern is what if we were away and wanted to turn the lights on remotely via one of the wonderful features in TuyaSmart ? There’s no way I could have reestablished the connection remotely. Thank goodness this problem has not occurred to often and did not appear to occur when we were away and wanted to turn the lights on and off at random times to ward off any potential burglars. Being able to reset the device remotely would be ideal.

Other recommendations I have is to allow landscape mode in the iPad version of TuyaSmart and to allow options for temperature readings in both Celsius and Fahrenheit. Also would like to be able to control via Apple Watch ⌚️. But works great otherwise.

by Guoji Shangren

Bought some of the Tuya WiFi wall outlet switch modulesThey were simple to set up as long as you followed the instructions on the paper insert. TuyaSmart also tells you what to do. Make sure you have a clear view of the LED. Even when you unplug the module, it still retains it’s name, the one you choose when setting up the module. Use TuyaSmart . Pretty straightforward.

It’s also easy to integrate with Alexa. The Alexa app has the ability to pull in different manufacturers of smart home hardware, by giving each its own name. I recommend keeping the same name on the Tuya app. Amaze your friends by what happens when you say, Alexa, turn on front fountain!”

One last thing: I discovered TuyaSmart let’s you set timers. Choosing start, stop times and repeating days. It’s easy to set it, vastly superior to a electromechanical timer I owned in the past. Have fun with TuyaSmart , making your home smarter!

by Addy2010

I have several switches with schedules assigned. Last week all schedules disappeared from TuyaSmart under each device however the schedules are still working from their servers. This would be ok but I can’t change an existing schedule nor could I delete one if it was no longer needed. Tried to uninstall and install app as well as contact via feedback but no solution to be found. Also, if I lose power all switches have to be reset—which is a pain for the modules behind a large piece of furniture. Works great with Alexa and this app app to turn things on and off and would get 5 stars if it weren’t for the schedule, lack of support, and reset issues noted above.

Update May 31, 2018
It looks like the latest release fixed my missing schedule problem, but now the widget function seems to have disappeared.

by SaltPeanuts

I have several outlets that connect to the this app app as well as a wemo light switch. I have been using these devices for over a year now, and I have found that the this app app loads faster and picks up communication with the attached devices faster.
Switching devices on or off from TuyaSmart works just as fast as flipping a wall switch. The wemo device seems to work faster after it warms up, but other then to compare it for a review, I’m not sitting in front of my hall light toggling the thing on and off until it works fast enough. I always notice a lag with the wemo, but there is no lag with this app.
Adding devices to TuyaSmart is also much easier and it works with Alexa. When I shop for additional wi-fi devices, I will look for compatibility with TuyaSmart.

by Upback

This last update by the company actually made the device useless to me, you can still turn it on and off with TuyaSmart but the timer function to turn on and off, that was working great until the update, does not work anymore. I even removed my device and set it up as new again and it still doesn’t work. Why would a update ruin a good device? Maybe so you have to purchase another one. Sorry never will I buy a product from you again. If it is ever fixed I will do a follow up review.

by ReVOLTe Lighting

This device works great However, I can see how some consumers could get really confused when setting the time for astrological timing. I would give it 5 stars if you fix the recommended issues below. The scenes do not work at all. It would be nice in the timer section to give your first option a sunset/sunset adjustment feature then a specific time. Then for the other two in the middle allow a set time with the very last timing adjustment to allow for sunrise/sunrise adjustment or a specific time. Scene would be great if you are grouping devices together to create a scene between multiple devices. To confusing to have a scene adjustment and then a separate feature of just time adjustment. The other thing is make it understand its geographical area and whether you use military time or standard 1-12 as well as Celsius vs Fahrenheit. Other than that TuyaSmart is super fast and responsive and works great with Alexa. Please make the fix for I sell these devices and do not want anymore calls or returns because of goofy programming.

by Davidreinstein

I have become a fan of Wi-Fi controlled lights and household devices that I could activate from my iPhone app when I am away. Lights, music, etc. It helps me feel more secure when I am not home.
The consistent problem has been the inconsistent ease of installation and performance of the available plug-in devices. Also, the expense can get out of hand when you need it to be several of them. With one major brand, it took nearly an hour and additional time on the phone with the helpdesk to get a single Wi-Fi hub let plug up and running. It took me a total of five minutes to successfully install three of these-two for lights and one for a radio. Please plug seem to have worked out all the bugs found in earlier and clumsy or attempts. Additionally, they are smaller than any of the others I have found-taking up just a tad more room then hey single plug and, most important Lee, not covering the second outlet on the wall plate.
Suffice it to say that I love these! They do the drug easily and reliably from anywhere you have access to Wi-Fi. Great product.

by Dallyoop

I got these because my old fashioned timers became inconvenient every time I lost power for any length of time. I would have to go to each one and set them back to the current time. These smart plugs are so easy to use and they will reset themselves if I lose power. One of the many functions I love is the timer setting. I’ve turned on my scented tart warmer many times and forgot about it only to see it still on the next morning. With the timer set to 3 or 4 hours I don’t have to worry about it. I love these so much I got two sets. There are so many functions to these. They’re great for Christmas lights too.

by Mindy Cline

With the most recent update to the iPad version, there is no longer the ability to watch the feed fullscreen without viewing it through a small emulated phone screen. I much rather preferred the option of using the phone app and just using the built in full screen button that Apple includes for apps that don’t have a supported app. If there is a way to revert to a previous app version, I would do it in a heart beat.

EDIT: They have updated TuyaSmart and fixed the video feed to be fullscreen rather than the weird emulated phone they included with the recent update. Thank you!

by Kate Kniga

So i bough The LED wifi lights and i think it’s awesome u can control them with my phone and ipad i think that it’s so cool because when you put music on it flashes to the beat. Also Price wise they were worth it. In my opinion though they were very hard to set up, it says your supposed to reset the device to get the, to get them connected but that’s not how i did it. I tried resetting the device so many times, but i wouldn’t work. I was about to return them when my dad found out how to get them connected. He said you have to play with the little white box. I wish it would have been so much easier. But overall after i got them set up and around my room they were awesome! I use them everyday!

by Maricela8824

This has made my job feeding my furry babies much easier. I have a schedule set for them to keep their feedings consistently. All I have to do is check that they are being fed. This product is helpful for families with busy lifestyles. I love that the feeding bowl is detachable so that it can be easily washed. I also love that this devise is about the width of a gallon of milk. So far I have had this devise for almost a year. It also holds plenty of food to feed an animal possibly longer than a week and it is easy to refill. One tip to make this product better is to have a stronger lid because some animals may be smart enough to open it (cats).

by Grfvdyvcfjzssyjkbss

You can edit a scene’s icon, name, the colors used in the scene, the speed it changes colors, etc., however you have to do this EVERY time you go into the scene. It ALWAYS defaults back to red, green and blue in “flash” mode. Very time consuming when you just want your custom settings to work.

Music mode - is relatively useless. I have to lay my iPhone on Alexa and crank up the volume very loud to get an occasional change of color. And the second your phone screen turns off the color freezes on that one color.

Smart mode - you can set up events to run, such as “turn on scene mode” or “turn on color mode”, which can be triggered by Alexa - cool!
But... The first time you run the scene, they first set all lights to cold white. Then you run it again and it works. Until next time.
UNFORTUNATELY, there is no way to set a specific color, or a specific scene of colors/speed/etc. You can set a color for a single light, but if you want to control a group of lights, you’re out of luck. The only way to set a group of lights to a scene or color is via TuyaSmart , and you have to program the colors every time you open TuyaSmart , as it resets to defaults.

by Gatsu41

Great product, very good application has many useful features for those who start in smart homes TuyaSmart has great control and very good intuitive interface, but I would like to see in a future update the consumption of my appliances and not only to me but to several people as I read in the comments to those who would like to see the consumption of the product is good can be handled with different apps but these apps as I had mentioned do not give energy consumption out of this everything is fine with the product ⭐️⭐⭐️⭐️ additionally I would like continuous improvements of TuyaSmart . good job.

by Zzznorch

I switched to this app from JinVoo Smart as the latter was having done device detection issues. Plus with thought of trying other devices, this app supports a wider range of devices.

Update: I have been trying to get scenes to work with Alexa. First mistake was deleting the built in "Good night" scene. It is gone and I cannot get it and the moon icon back. I create a new "Good night" scene but it is a generic icon. Secondly, I cannot get scenes to run with Alexa. Any scene I create Alexa says the function is not supported when try to activate it or turn it on. Scenes run fine from the Tuya app but cannot be voice controlled.