The smart energy sensors – available in the market at the end of 2022- use Wifi or Zigbee communication protocol. A product update in the summer of 2023 expanded its communication options to Modbus wired communication (RS485).

In the selection of Zigbee communication variant, a Zigbee gateway is needed. If you have already a Zigbee gateway from Tuya Smart installed at home, then there is no need to buy a new one.

The “hanging-on-cable” (also name as “flexible” ) variant basically fits all brands of circuit breakers, because it is installed via hanging on the phase line passing through the hole of the sensors.

For the “mounted-on-MCB” variants, we have to test their compatibility with different product lines of miniature circuit breakers one by one. There is no shortcut here, because the terminals and the housing of every circuit breaker manufacturer vary. So far, we have tested most of MCB/RCBO/RCCB from Siemens, Hager, ABB and Eaton sold in Europe and China. You may contact us to know more about the details.

If you are not sure whether the “MCB-mounted” variants of SPM01/02 can fit well for your MCB, RCCB or RCBOs, we strongly suggest using “Flexible (hanging-on-cable)” variants.

Yet we understand some users prefer power distribution boards with very orderly components and wires inside (The author of this FAQ is this sort of user). One of our system integration partners shared with us that the flexible variant of SPM can be fixed to MCB/RCCB/RCBO with the help of double-sided tape.

Flexible (Hanging-on-cable) SPM01 Installed in a Power Distribution Board

Smart Life APP can be used to pair the SPM energy sensors with the Tuya Wifi/Zigbee modules. Also, your specific APPs can be used with one of the following approaches:

(1) Connect the SPM sensors using standard Zigbee clusters/attributes to a universal Zigbee coordinator, then further interact with your selected cloud and APP.

(2) Connect the Modbus sensors to a DTU or controller, then further interact with your selected cloud and APP.

(3) Program the ESP32-C2/C3 Wifi modules on your own and send us for its ODM collaboration (Please use our Modbus register address for Modbus communication over U-ART ports between the sensor measurement board and the Wifi modules)

(4) Use the powerful API provided by the Tuya Smart IoT platform. The device can be expanded for further connection to Google, Apple and IoT platforms used by our ODM customers. Tuya also provides ODM service for Smart Life APP, which makes it easy for our hardware ODM customers to have their ODM software.

Yes, the SPM01/02 energy sensor using Tuya Wifi/Zigbee modules can be accessed by Home Assistant via the Tuya Integration add-on. You can find a tutorial on how to set up the integration from this tutorial.

Alternatively, if you prefer locally direct access to the SPM through Home Assistant, we recommend waiting for our upcoming products that utilize the Zigbee 3.0 standard clusters/attributes (expected release in Q3 of 2023).