Tuya Smart Brings No-Code IoT Development to Anyone Using Silicon Labs’ Wireless Solutions

The Speed of IoT Adoption Depends on More Accessible Wireless IoT Development

IoT adoption has increased exponentially over the last decade, with the rapid proliferation of new devices that make our lives easier, safer, or more convenient. Wireless connectivity has given rise to a seemingly countless number of products that, just a few years ago, we didn’t even know we needed. For example, how many of us anticipated just how useful our digital assistants like Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant would be? But the IoT is also making the things we’ve always relied on, like our household appliances and consumer electronics more useful. It’s this group of devices that holds the key to mainstream IoT adoption. Lights and thermostats are useful, but making them smart has been a gamechanger. The energy savings and convenience these devices have afforded were hard to imagine in the days when you had to walk across the room to operate them.

But wireless design is difficult, and manufacturers that are focusing on delivering the next big innovation for their customers might not have the engineering expertise to build connectivity into their solutions. Standing up an internal design team is expensive and even then, building a proprietary solution from scratch requires technical expertise and significant development time. Tuya Smart understood this and didn’t want the daunting challenge of IoT development to prevent OEMs from delivering the benefits of the IoT to its customers. Now, their no-code IoT development platform allows any device maker to go from prototype to mass production in just 15 days.

The Challenge

Creating an end-to-end, full-stack development platform to empower anyone to build IoT functionality into their applications regardless of the level of engineering knowledge or wireless development experience.

The Solution

Working with leading companies that can deliver on technical challenges while fostering a collaborative, open partnership is important to Tuya. Silicon Labs’ portfolio, including the EFR32MG24 Series 2 Multiprotocol SoC and industry expertise was an ideal fit.

The Result

The Tuya IoT Development Platform has accumulated over 510,000 registered developers from over 200 countries and regions. Smart devices powered by Tuya are sold through 100,000 online and offline sales channels worldwide.

Hear from Alex Yang, Co-Founder and COO, Tuya Smart as he speaks to the partnership between Tuya Smart and Silicon Labs.

Finding an IoT Partner in Silicon Labs

In English, the word tuya is a type of volcano that forms under an iceberg. The same word in Chinese means graffiti. It’s with this spirit of explosive creativity that Tuya set out to help brands increase the value of their products through connectivity. But to do that, the company needed to find a silicon provider that could support what it believed would be a multiprotocol future. With its first projects focused on Wi-Fi, Tuya knew it would need to expand to other protocols to give its customers low-power options with maximum flexibility depending on their application needs. The MG24 multiprotocol wireless SoC was a perfect match – it is designed from the ground up to support the Matter standard, it provides the best link budget in the market for 802.15.4 wireless protocols such as OpenThread, and it delivers a long range of up to 200 meters indoors for OpenThread while enabling Bluetooth Low Energy commissioning on the same chip at a very low energy level to enable long battery life.

Silicon Labs is a great fit for Tuya because whenever we think of a new feature, we know that Silicon Labs either already supports it or it's on their roadmap.

Seeking out the best partners in this endeavor was also important to Tuya, and the company’s philosophy that this approach would produce the best solution led them to Silicon Labs. With an established track record of developing pioneering hardware and our leadership position with leading ecosystems (Silicon Labs is one of the largest code contributors to Matter alongside Amazon, Apple, and Google), Tuya was confident in Silicon Labs' technical ability and commitment to pushing the industry forward was the right fit. In addition to Silicon Labs’ reputation for tools that open up differentiating features to customers, Tuya wanted a vendor that could provide flexibility through a variety of device I/O, APIs, and other options that extend flexibility to developers.

In selecting the MG24 to be part of the Tuya platform, the company looked at three characteristics. First, it had to have enough computing capability and RAM to manage the sophisticated systems the company is helping its customers build. Second, Tuya needed a variety of available I/O to build more types of IoT devices. Finally, as a member of the Board of Directors of the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) and one of the early members of the Matter Working Group, Tuya affirmed its support for Matter with a commitment to ensure Tuya’s customers and business partners can seamlessly join in the new smart home connectivity standard. Therefore, Tuya chooses chips that support Matter.

IoT Development for All

Getting to market fast is the single biggest pressure facing device manufacturers. Because of the level of openness that Silicon Labs offers in terms of stack and API development, Tuya can dramatically speed up development for its customers. Additionally, the two companies work closely on debugging, testing, and other tasks that expedite the design process. IoT adoption depends on great companies working together. The more trusted brands that create great IoT experiences for users, the faster this adoption will happen. When companies like Tuya and Silicon Labs work together to bring down the barriers to IoT development, everyone wins.

Nobody wants to fall behind, and so many of our customers come to IoT development with no experience. Working with an established leader like Silicon Labs gives us - and our customers - the confidence to innovate.