de-Sinicization n. a process of eliminating or reducing Chinese cultural elements, identity, or consciousness.
I never thought that our Smart Home would be caught up in crazy world events. But we live in strange times and the emerging global trade war is affecting everyone. As someone said 'When America sneezes, the world catches a cold.'
We use a Dutch product called Homey to run our Smart Home. Since choosing it a couple of years ago we've been very happy with it: it performs well, is powerful but easy to use, and has wide compatibility with our various sensors and systems.
The company behind Homey usually works directly with the various manufacturers of smart gadgets to ensure the best compatibility. So it was that they were working with Tuya, a Chinese manufacturer of a wide range of good quality, low-priced smart devices: smart sockets, smart bulbs, temperature and motion sensors, smoke alarms and so on. Whilst Tuya gadgets currently work with Homey, the process is somewhat difficult because it involves connecting to Tuya's (Chinese) cloud service, which then operates the devices in our house. To achieve this, I had to register on the Tuya website as a 'developer' and enter the murky world of coding, github and JSON. Hardly user-friendly.
For some time, people who wear tin foil hats have been concerned that Tuya therefore knows your every move and could pass this information on to the Chinese government. Personally, I'm not too concerned if the Chinese government knows that I have just switched on a particular light in my house, or that the temperature in my porch is 15 degrees.
But in 2024 I was interested to hear that Homey and Tuya were working on a much simpler way of operating Tuya devices which kept everything away from Tuya's cloud service. Easier and more secure!
Alas no. Homey recently announced, in 2025, that their partnership with Tuya had collapsed and - put simply - Tuya had taken their bat and ball home. Some people were left - literally - in the dark as their connection to the Chinese Tuya cloud service was severed. Overnight, their smart devices became useless.
The reasons aren't clear, but it's likely that the currently woeful state of global trade is a factor. When some countries seem reluctant to work productively with others, why would a Chinese tech company want to work in partnership with a Dutch company?
So I'm now on a programme of de-Sinicization. I've given myself 6 months to migrate all my Tuya devices to alternative brands which don't rely on a cloud service in China. I'm about half way through and so far everything has gone well.