A Chinese company named Tuya offers a free-to-brand turnkey smart home solution to anyone. Using their offer is dead-simple, since everything can be done by clicking through the [Tuya web page](https://en.tuya.com/), from choosing your pre-designed products or pre-programmed wifi-modules (mostly ESP8266) to building your own app. In the end, this has resulted in as they claim over 11 000 devices 'made' by over 10 000 vendors using Tuyas firmware and cloud services.
Aside from that, they claim their cloud solution has 'military grade security'. Michael Steigerwald, founder of the German IT security startup VTRUST, was able to disprove this claim and presented his results in the "Smart home - Smart hack" talk at 35C3 in Leipzig: https://media.ccc.de/v/35c3-9723-smart_home_-_smart_hack
In the following days, VTRUST and the German tech magazine c't decided to work together. Since reflashing devices using the ESP8266/85 is widespread among DIY smart home enthusiasts, we wanted to provide an easy way for everyone to free their devices from the cloud without the need for a soldering iron.
Please make sure to visit VTRUST (https://www.vtrust.de/), since the hack is their work.
Please be sure that you understand what you're doing before using this software. Flashing an alternative firmware can lead to unexpected behavior and/or render the device unusable, so that it might be permanently damaged (highly unlikely) or require soldering a serial connection to the processor in order to reflash it (likely).
### ⚠️Be aware that you use this software at your own risk so neither VTRUST nor c't/heise can be held accountable for any damage done or loss of functionality⚠️.
TUYA-CONVERT only provides with the means to backup the original and flash an alternative firmware. Please do not ask for hardware support for your favorite alternative firmware in this repository, rather open an issue in the corresponding repository.
Since Tuya devices are spread around the world with likely a vast amount of different brand names, please tell the community if you find one! There is a device list in the wiki that you can help extend. Please at least add the device model number, brand name, geographical area where you have bought the device and its flash mode (as seen in the device information). Add the GPIO assignments as well if you have found them to save the developers of alternative firmwares some time. Please note that we do not develop or maintain alternative firmwares and so post installation issues should be directed to the respective project.
Any Linux with a Wifi adapter which can act as an Access Point should also work. Please note that we have tested the Raspberry Pi with clean installations only. If you use your Raspberry Pi for anything else, we recommend using another SD card with a clean installation.
As of January 28th, 2019, Tuya has started [distributing a patch](https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Smart-Home-Hack-Tuya-veroeffentlicht-Sicherheitsupdate-4292028.html) that prevents tuya-convert from completing successfully. It is up to the individual brands to adopt the patch, so some devices may be affected sooner than others. To ensure the best chance of success, **do not connect your device with the official app** as it may automatically update the device, preventing you from flashing with tuya-convert. Some devices are already being shipped with the update, in which case there is unfortunately no work around available at this time.
Follow the instructions in the start_flash script. It will install our flash loader onto the ESP and connect to the access point created by your wifi adapter.
Currently a Sonoff-Tasmota [v6.5.0](https://github.com/arendst/Sonoff-Tasmota/releases/tag/v6.5.0) basic build is already included. It will open an WiFi access point named `sonoff-XXX`. Please note that while we include this for your convenience, we are not affliated with the Sonoff-Tasmota project and cannot provide support for post installation issues. Please refer to the respective project for support.
