Chinese IoT platform company Tuya Smart hopes to help US-based makers of smart, connected devices get their products to market quicker.
Companies often flounder in their attempts to launch IoT devices, because they aren’t able to build a strong application platform that not only works well in itself, but also supports interoperability with other devices.
That’s the issue that Tuya Smart is hoping to tackle, with an IoT platform that focuses on speeding up smart device development and ensuring interoperability.
The company was founded in 2014 by former Alibaba employees instrumental in the development of the Chinese e-commerce giant’s Alibaba Cloud offering, as well as others from well-known smart device makers. Last week, at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Tuya announced the launch of the US version of its IoT platform.
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Getting ideas off the ground
Tuya Smart provides the Wi-Fi modules (appropriately certified, of course), the app template and the cloud connectivity that device makers need to get their idea off the ground. It claims to have its side of the device development side ready for mass production in 15 days, something a device developer starting from scratch could never hope to achieve.
On the app side of things, Tuya will take control of customisation if a device developer wants that, or they can go ahead and do the customisation themselves. Interfaces with platforms like Amazon Echo, Google Home, IFTTT and Google Nest can be built in, and other platforms can be supported as directed.
The pick and mix nature of the services on offer means that device developers can focus on what they do best and outsource as much of the rest as they need to.
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Faster, easier routes to market
The whole point of the Tuya Smart platform is to provider faster and easier routes to market for device developers. And it even goes a stage further, because it’s not just the software that’s on offer here. At the Tuya web site, it is also possible to pick and choose from a range of products like smart lighting, smart switches, and a robot cleaner, configure its features via picklists, and consult on getting the product built.
Tuya Smart says it has helped with production runs that deliver millions of units a month. It works with more than 3,000 manufacturers in the supply chain to help with entry to global markets and provides its AI services to more than 10,000 customers worldwide.
The company also claims to offer long-term support for the devices its platform helps to create, too. Its ‘smart cloud’ apparently caters for millions of users, carrying more than 10TB of data every day.
While Tuya Smart might not be well known to the average consumer, many of the brands it works with are. For example, in the US, Tuya works with brands like Geeni, Energize and Philips, while in China it works with brands such asChanghong, TCL and Delixi.
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