Yes, they all said N/A instead of ON/OFF.
This same issue happened to my parents and self-corrected after 24 hours before our team here could observe it occurring. Iād continue to share details with Support and keep an eye on it - my parents have not had this issue again since the first time it was resolved on itās own.
Mine came back just as they were before loosing the connectionā¦
Unfortunately Disabling/enabling is the integration is not a viable fix for this. It did exactly as I feared. All my KP115ās went offline again today. I tried Disabling/Enabling the integration. It did bring them all back online but lost all historical data and Sense info (standby thresholds, alerts, device details, etc). That was a pain putting that all in again. Iāll continue the run around the house unplugging and re-plugging them as the fix for now.
Thanks for sharing this, I should have specified in my response what data would be preserved vs. not preserved. Iāll double-check in the morning, but I think this is worth adding to the Smart Plug FAQ on help.sense.com in the future. Apologies for the inconvenience on reentering information on your end.
All good. I just didnāt want anyone else with KP115 issues to think deactivating the integration was a shortcut to getting them back online without consequences. Unplugging the KP115ās is the way, everything comes back as before. Now if Sense tech support could figure out why this keeps happeningā¦
Just an update. This is still happening. Today 2 of the 5 KP115ās went dark at the same time (6PM). I just unplugged them and re-plugged them in 5 hours later and they are back now. Kinda makes these worthless. Is there any other smart plug that is more reliable with the Sense meter?
I have about 15 HS110s and they work very well. I just bought two KP115s. A bit hesitant because of this thread however they have been online since install last week.
You could look at the Wemo insight. I have one in my system.
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@Offthewall Have you reached out to TP-Link/Kasa Support? Iām curious if theyād be of help for you here (or replace the smart plugs if they donāt find anything.)
I just switched out all my networking gear from reliable, but old Apple & Netgear, to a full Ubiquiti setup. In doing so, I had to reconnect all my many HS110s, HS300s, and solitary KP115 to the new WiFi APs. As I was bringing up all the Kasa smart plugs, I noticed that all of them had a possible firmware upgrade. For the HS110s and KP115, it was v1.2.5 to v1.2.6. Since I have had rock-solid connectivity between my Kasa smart plugs and my Sense monitor for the past few months (including the KP115), I decided to forgo firmware upgrades on all but one of my HS110s, as an experiment. I donāt have a second KP115 so I canāt do a controlled experiment, but perhaps Iāll see a difference with the HS110. Will let folks know in a week or so.
I have not but since the KP115ās have zero issues with the Kasa app, only Sense, I donāt see how they could be of much help.
Interesting on the Firmware. When I installed all 5 of mine a couple of months ago, they all asked for a firmware update to 1.0.10. I just checked and 1.0.17 was offered for all 5. I updated. Letās see if there is any differenceā¦
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Just realized I was wrong on my KP115 firmware - version number is 1.07.
Again, will let you know if I see any communications issues with Sense monitor in the next week or so.
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Iām about to give up on the KP115ās. They REALLY do not work well with Sense. It seems every few days all five KP115ās simultaneously become dead to Sense. They continue to work in the Kasa app as well as another third party app but not Sense. Only unplugging them and replugging them will make Sense see them again. I am the monitor now instead of the KP115/Sense doing the monitoring - ironic. Sense tech support has been silent in their responses for a couple of weeks after stating they needed to āinvestigate furtherā. Frustrated.
My speculation is that the core issue lies with the wireless infrastructure. Many wifi implementations either purposefully interfere or are unreliable with broadcast packets. It might be better if Sense offered a ptp mode for polling. The Kasa devices certainly support it.
FWIW, I have 5 of the KP115s and have had no issues. However my network is specifically configured to support broadcast. In their default config, my wifi ApPs (Unifi) would block broadcast packets.
Interesting. This problem has spanned two completely different WIFI systems Iāve had installed. I originally had a FIOS supplied router with three Apple Airport Extremes in AP only (bridge) mode, all three with Ethernet home runs back to the main switch. I have since switched to using the same FIOS router but now use a three unit Netgear Orbi WIFI 6 system in AP mode. The main unit connected via Ethernet, the two satellites via a dedicated 5GHz backhaul. The simultaneous dropping of all 5 KP115ās continues with either WIFI system every week or so.
Hmmm. I know the Orbi messes with the broadcasts. I returned an Orbi system a few years ago because I had similar Sense/TP-Link smartplug dropouts. But the incumbent system (not replaced) that did not suffer from dropouts was an all-Apple system similar to yours (4 basestations as APs with wired back haul). The only major difference is that I also used another Apple basestation as the router together with a unmanaged Netgear switch, instead of the ISPs integrated modem/router/switch combo.
The reason I replaced the Apple system after many years of reliable service was that it was dropping my smart light switches CONSTANTLY as soon as I started to exceed 50 or so total WIFI devices. The Orbi has been rock solid in that respect with over 80 connected devices (other than this continued Sense/KP115 issue). I forgot to mention that for a short period of time I had the Sense and the KP115ās alone on just the Verizon routerās WIFI (itās normally off). The Sense/KP115 issue was happening with that setup as well. So Iām wondering if itās something in the FIOS router itself?
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It just happened again. Here is the screenshots of 3 KP115ās that were monitoring systems that were (and are still) drawing considerable power. They all went OFF in Sense at exactly 10:36PM.
As you can see they are still drawing power as indicated in the Kasa app.
The Kasa app gets its data through a cloud service, and the cloud service is pushed via point to point by the plugs.
The Sense device polls all the KP115 plugs using a single broadcast packet. There are several places that this could break down:
- Sense itself may not be sending the broadcast packet. I tend to discount this because if this were the case many people should be experiencing the problem.
- The network infrastructure may be dropping the broadcast packet. This could happen inside the access point, or between the access point if multiple are involved. Dropping broadcast packets is a common āoptimizationā these days as most protocols are multicast these days.
- The KP115s may be receiving the broadcast packet, but refusing to send a response. I tend to discount this as well, again because of the small number of people experiencing a problem and also because of the correlated nature of the plugs going offline. Although you did mention use of a third party application, which could also be interfering with the plugs responding.
- The network infrastructure may be dropping the point to point reply packets. This could happen if the infrastructure tries to implement some form of stateful firewall.
If itās the network infrastructure, determining where the problem lies will require the ability to sniff the network at various points. Unless you are a network engineer, this is probably a significant barrier.
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