Split the question in two, because the answers differ.
"Who makes them" - fewer companies than the market suggests. Most names you see on a shelf are brand owners, not factories. They specify a product, pick a firmware skin, and contract the build. The actual manufacturing sits with a much smaller group of firms in Shenzhen, Dongguan and Ningbo, most of which you will never see advertised, because they sell through the same channels their own buyers do.
"Where to find them" - in rough order of how much signal you get per hour spent.
Trade shows. Canton Fair in April and October, the Hong Kong Electronics Fair, CES for anything that wants a US story. Still the highest-signal option, because you can put hands on the product and ask the engineer a question the sales person cannot answer.
Platform listings, but read them differently. Alibaba, Made-in-China and Global Sources are useful for mapping who is active in a category, not for judging who is good. A gold supplier badge is a subscription, not an audit.
Certification databases. If a product claims FCC or CE, the filing is public and it lists the applicant. That is often the fastest way to find out who actually built a device you already own and like. Take the FCC ID off the label and look it up.
Your own supply chain. If you already sell a category, the factory that makes your current product usually makes three adjacent ones.
What separates a real manufacturer from a rep:
- They own the tooling, and will tell you the tooling cost and lead time without being asked twice.
- They can change firmware behaviour, not just print a logo on the same board.
- They quote MOQ by model and by colour separately, because those are genuinely different costs.
- They send a sample before asking for a purchase order, and the sample is not the best unit they have ever made.
Red flags: a company that will not name the factory city, one that quotes the same lead time for 500 and 50,000 units, and one whose factory audit is a photo album.
Full disclosure: I work on the manufacturing side of this, at a Shenzhen firm building Tuya-based video doorbells, smart switches, security cameras and pet devices, so I am not a neutral party here. If it is useful, the range and the certification list are at https://www.xingliaotech.com/ . And if you are comparing suppliers, ask the tooling question early. It sorts faster than any badge.
Xingliao Smart Home builds smart switches, video doorbells and security cameras on Tuya WiFi and Tuya ZigBee, and runs OEM/ODM programmes from Shenzhen. Factory and ODM capability.
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