‘Good morning, Dave’: The new world of physical AI in daily life

Summary:

• Moving beyond screen-based assistants, Tuya Smart is developing physical AI that integrates into the real world through environmental perception and proactive service
• Called Hey Tuya, it’s a multimodal AI life assistant designed to understand and care for users across various devices, including smart speakers, wearables, control hubs, AI companions, and home appliances.
• Built on a massive developer ecosystem, this tech adapts to diverse lifestyles by assisting professionals with work tasks, helping seniors monitor health and nutrition, and supporting homemakers with energy management and home security.
• Download the Tuya app and experience the Hey Tuya AI assistant for yourself.

Beyond the action scenes, one of the more compelling aspects of Marvel’s Iron Man movies is seeing how Tony Stark lives and works. It gives audiences a glimpse at a day in the life of a fictional billionaire tech genius.

Turns out, most of his day-to-day tasks are managed by an AI assistant called JARVIS, which stands for Just a Rather Very Intelligent System.

In reality, we haven’t quite reached that same level of tech – and certainly not the dry humor Paul Bettany infused JARVIS with. Still, smart home solutions abound.

Tuya Smart, a leading global AI cloud platform service provider dedicated to incorporating AI into everyday life, is bringing something new to the table with physical AI. Daniel Yu, the company’s product director, describes this as “breaking out of the screen and gradually integrating into real life.”

“From the large-scale commercialization of autonomous driving to the surge in service robots, AI is no longer confined to screens and conversations,” he says. “It is transitioning from passive response to proactive service, with an increasing number of products emphasizing environmental perception and scenario prediction capabilities.”

A life assistant for all scenarios

Tuya Smart has built a comprehensive ecosystem for AI development. Between its TuyaOpen open-source development framework and universal AI agent engines – including an AI agent development platform – the firm integrates multimodal AI capabilities to lower barriers for AI development.

The company says that as of September 30, 2025, its Tuya AI Developer Platform has over 1,622,000 registered AI developers from more than 200 countries and regions.

It is from this considerable foundation that the development of Hey Tuya, a “next-generation Super AI Life Assistant,” came to be.

Daniel Yu, product director at Tuya Smart. / Photo credit: Tuya Smart

“Hey Tuya can be described as a ‘model home’ for AI-powered lifestyle scenarios that we have developed after years of going all in on AI,” Yu explains. “It is essentially a microcosm of Tuya’s AI development objectives: focusing intently on how to use AI to make living spaces truly understand and care for you.”

Try the Hey Tuya app for yourself today

The firm is transitioning from a behind-the-scenes platform to an “experience-driven engine.” This shift is underscored by defining the scenarios mentioned previously, showing its ecosystem partners how to integrate disparate elements like security, health, and daily routines into a cohesive experience that proactively serves users.

To do this, Hey Tuya empowers users to summon their AI assistant through a variety of devices, from the Tuya app to smart speakers and even AI toys and wearables produced by the company’s hardware partners.

Work, health, and home

Hey Tuya is indeed taking a holistic approach to demonstrate AI’s potential to help people in their daily lives, regardless of their profile or activities.

Here are three examples:

1. A busy professional

For the modern office worker, multitasking is the norm. Their calendar is filled with diverse responsibilities, from external meetings to stretches of deep work. In this context, Hey Tuya plays the part of a work assistant:

• It can generate minutes and provide real-time translation during meetings with international partners.
• It can summarize lengthy market reports into key bullet points for presentations via voice memos.
• When it’s time to work on a new campaign proposal, the user can also rely on voice memos to tap into Hey Tuya’s mind mapping feature, which can help them organize their thoughts visually.

Photo credit: Tuya Smart

2. An older, retired person

As a person gets older, their physical and mental well-being starts to really climb the ranks of life priorities. Hey Tuya offers a variety of support solutions to stay on top of things:

• It can analyze the user’s sleep performance and suggest adjustments to their bedtime routine.
• When preparing meals, the user can simply show their plate to Hey Tuya, which can then recognize the food and track their caloric intake, ensuring that their dietary goals are met.
• After a daily walk, the AI helper can log exercise data and generate weekly health reports.
• Hey Tuya can also provide reminders for medication schedules, as well as suggest physical activities when it notices that the user has been sedentary for too long.

3. A homemaker with children and pets

The work of a homemaker is diverse, requiring them to know a little bit of a lot of things to keep the household running and make sure the children and pets get the care they deserve. Hey Tuya can make things easier to manage:

• It can help save energy by monitoring and analyzing energy consumption in real time, proactively suggesting turning off idle devices or adjusting air conditioner temperatures according to weather changes.
• Hey Tuya can provide some measure of home security, sending alerts when the security camera notices an unfamiliar person approaching the main door.
• It will be integrated with Aura, Tuya’s pet companion robot that can track pets’ eating patterns, activity levels, and behavioral changes, alerting owners to any anomalies.

Photo credit: Tuya Smart

Hey Tuya is built on the company’s proprietary Physical AI Engine (PAE). In addition to visual, conversational AI, and IoT engines, PAE is supported by a variety of real-time communications, network solutions, and short-term and long-term memory. This means it’s designed to learn and adapt to users’ routines, environmental preferences, and habits.

Over time, PAE is programmed to evolve beyond reactive commands to anticipate needs and offer proactive recommendations. This continuous learning process is designed to make interactions feel more intuitive, seamless, and efficient.

The architecture of the PAE. / Photo credit: Tuya Smart

Smarter homes – and lifestyles

Looking ahead, Tuya Smart expects AI’s shift to more physical devices – and therefore more daily life scenarios – to continue to grow. Through TuyaOpen and the Tuya AI Developer Platform, the company is confident in accelerating physical AI’s evolution and adoption, with growing numbers of developers coming up with ever-increasing ways to improve the quality of life for people of all lifestyles.

The hands-on nature of Hey Tuya-enabled devices also allows the team to “receive the most direct feedback, which in turn enhances our technology, and allows us to work together with our entire ecosystem of partners to deliver superior experiences,” Yu says.

“The way users interact with AI is undergoing a fundamental transformation: evolving from simple voice or text interactions to multimodal interactions combined with emotional understanding,” he adds, affirming that the future promises more natural companionship and interactive experiences.

Tuya Smart is a leading global AI cloud platform service provider dedicated to bringing AI into everyday life. Try out Hey Tuya, its next-generation AI life assistant, on its website.

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This content was produced by Tech in Asia Studios, which connects brands with Asia’s tech community. Learn more about partnering with Tech in Asia Studios.