Posted 3 September 2023
Tuya Smart plugs - Who's had them and managed to get them to install? Or other Smart plug problems?
I bought a pack of 4 plugs from Amazon, at a total price of £15. Yeah I know. Buy cheap, get crap. But I only wanted them to make it easy to monitor a couple of houses for energy wastage, then they would be used infrequently.
On opening the box, you are looking at 4 aesthetically pleasing plugs. Neat, smooth, white, and round. The power button is discrete, and overall they don't look amateur. And there the pleasure stops.
They are supposed to be able to connect via your phone over the 2.4ghz frequency. Allegedly.
The supplied instruction booklet requires a magnifying glass to be able to read it. If they are in greater than 3 point text, then I would be surprised.
The instructions are written in proper English, comprehensible, and easy to follow. But nothing works if you do.
Following the instructions to the letter, the pairing stops after 15 seconds or so because it "cannot connect to the router". Various options are offered. All tried. All failed.
I looked through various forums and sites, and it seems that they have a reputation for being disastrous to connect.
So, why did I try?
Make sure the plug is near the router. Well if it was any nearer they would be welded together.
Turn off the 5G service, so that only 2.4 is available.
Check the password for the wifi is correct - many times.
Turn off the WMM. No explanation for what it is, but some found it to work. Not in this case.
Tried every one of the units, so if one was bad, then they all are.
Rename the SSID. Should not need to, but that didn't work either.
Reboot the router.
Bluetooth and location permitted. But location won't work indoors. Why would it?
Reinstall the app. Now that was fun, because the details they give for downloading the app lead to a page that throws up an error, so you have to find the app yourself. And it turns out that out of 2 available, the app you want is not made by the same company.
For something that is supposed to be smart, and make your life easier, these cost me a couple of hours of frustration, and if you ever move the plug then you have to go through half the effort all over again.
Do I recommend them? I couldn't give them a lower rating for usability if I tried.
So, before I sling them back at Amazon, does anyone have any advice to offer?
On opening the box, you are looking at 4 aesthetically pleasing plugs. Neat, smooth, white, and round. The power button is discrete, and overall they don't look amateur. And there the pleasure stops.
They are supposed to be able to connect via your phone over the 2.4ghz frequency. Allegedly.
The supplied instruction booklet requires a magnifying glass to be able to read it. If they are in greater than 3 point text, then I would be surprised.
The instructions are written in proper English, comprehensible, and easy to follow. But nothing works if you do.
Following the instructions to the letter, the pairing stops after 15 seconds or so because it "cannot connect to the router". Various options are offered. All tried. All failed.
I looked through various forums and sites, and it seems that they have a reputation for being disastrous to connect.
So, why did I try?
Make sure the plug is near the router. Well if it was any nearer they would be welded together.
Turn off the 5G service, so that only 2.4 is available.
Check the password for the wifi is correct - many times.
Turn off the WMM. No explanation for what it is, but some found it to work. Not in this case.
Tried every one of the units, so if one was bad, then they all are.
Rename the SSID. Should not need to, but that didn't work either.
Reboot the router.
Bluetooth and location permitted. But location won't work indoors. Why would it?
Reinstall the app. Now that was fun, because the details they give for downloading the app lead to a page that throws up an error, so you have to find the app yourself. And it turns out that out of 2 available, the app you want is not made by the same company.
For something that is supposed to be smart, and make your life easier, these cost me a couple of hours of frustration, and if you ever move the plug then you have to go through half the effort all over again.
Do I recommend them? I couldn't give them a lower rating for usability if I tried.
So, before I sling them back at Amazon, does anyone have any advice to offer?
Community Updates
20 Comments
sorted bySadly most of them only work on 2.4Ghz. I use a Virgin Media SuperHub 5 and have both 2.4Ghz & 5Ghz running. I found the easiest way to set it up is to use the app, let it connect to your phone and then set the details for the 2.4Ghz network on the phone - this then sends the details to the device so it can continue using the Virgin Media SuperHub 5 and when it connects Alexa reports it's found a new device.
I am in the process of recording the power consumption and figuring out what I can turn off at night, but the savings are going to be less than a tenner/year so there seems little point.
One thing I have noticed though is the inability to export the power consumption reports from various plugs. Taking a screen shot is not the same!
I have found another page that mentions "Access Control", and "IP & MAC binding", but nothing comes up once the device is in pairing mode, despite refreshing the page.
The 2.4ghz band selection option for hotspot set up only appears on my phone if wifi is turned off on the phone first.
This has worked for me getting an awkward 2.4ghz only device (wasn't tuya, but that makes no odds) to connect to an ISP router with extremely limited wifi setting options. (edited)
Well, it was for a minute.
I found another site smarthome.news/buy…ide
On there, and nowhere else so far, it tells you that setting up a profile is obligatory. Nothing will work if you don't.
So I did the profile, the location service somehow found me. It rarely does, but why should it in your home? And as soon as the home location was entered and a nickname given, then the Smartlife wifi connection became available. So I did the obvious and tried o connect a plug. This time it made the full journey for pairing, but kicked me off at the last second. Now I can't find the Smartlife wifi. I turned nothing off, the profile is still live, internet still works, but it didn't need it any way.
So now I have to figure how to get that network back
There is little info floating around, so for those who have any issue in connecting these alleged "Smart" devices, you MUST turn off the Access Control in the wireless settings.
One simple slider, and it connected immediately
If you are interested, then amazon.co.uk/dp/…PDR