Given that Hue is “integrated” with Sense it seems that their outlets would work but I don’t see them listed as compatible.
I know that there has been lots of discussions on “smart plugs” and very few work in Sense. Most of the posts on here are getting a little dated and was wondering what is the latest info on them.
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Hi @ron111157 ,
I’m not super-familiar with the Hue smart plugs, but do know the Hue lighting system fairly well. Based on what I can see and know, there are two reasons that the Hue smart plug is very unlikely to be supported by Sense.
- It doesn’t appear to support power measurement - not even clear if it can do dimming. Looks like simple on/off control.
- The feature in the Hue hub that supports the power “measurement” and connects with Sense hasn’t been updated in a long time. In fact, AFAIK, the power estimation part of the API was removed from the developers manual, so it’s really not available for new integrations. Sense is lucky that they got in when they did. This is a common challenge with the past 10 years of home integration automation - each manufacturer did their own thing and sometimes indiscriminately added and removed features, often without maintaining backward compatibility. But that’s common for consumer stuff, where the manufacturer’s want everyone to migrate every few years to the newest stuff.
ps: Recent lack of backward compatibility has affected many Kasa users recently - they thought they were buying Kasa smartplugs that were fully compatible, but Kasa moved forward to the new standard, Matter, abandoning their old standard.
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3 posts were split to a new topic: How I Would Implement Detection With the Sense Monitor
I looked into the Kasa API and what is broken to look at the KP125M. Guy, it is so simple this has to be a joke. The KP125 code will work but for one assumption you forgot to add. And it is simply this. The KP125M has an additional range of MAC address. E4:FA:C4:74:59:E4 Add the addition MAC inquire range and the existing code will work. Send me the snippet and I’ll fix it for free. Its the E4:FA:C4:74 portion.
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Sorry, but you are misidentifying the problem. If the identification/operation of the Kasa integration was as simple as looking up manufacturers based on MAC addresses it would have been fixed in a New York minute. The manufacturer codes are immaterial to the operation of the integration and different supported plugs, the HS110, KP115/KP125, and HS300 all have different prefixes.
The issue is that the entire original TP-Link protocol for acquiring power data transitioned to Matter with the KP125M without Kasa maintaining backward compatibility with the older protocol. If you want to look at code for communicating with both protocols, you can look here.
The new Matter protocol requires authentication to each plug, which essentially would require a new Integration managed by the UI and the Sense cloud and monitor.
It would be worthwhile to study the problem more before leaping to your assumed solution.
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So I now have both KP125 and EP25. They both have the same API. Not a peep out of Sense in a whole week. I will look into it later this year. I have an Automation project for the Permian Basin Oil Field systems and have to automate that first. Will look when I can.
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@vance.turner, are you sure ? Kasa app talks via both Legacy and Matter protocols. No easy way to tell API from packaging (except for the “M” in the KP125M). Old versions of EP25 talk legacy, newer (v2.6 and beyond) talk Matter only.
Kevin, You cannot order a Kasa device that works with Sense in that the first thing the device does on initialization is upgrade its firmware above 2.6 Thus making them adhere to the Matter standard. I would say that the development schedule is in line with this video clip.
https://youtu.be/VA7J0KkanzM
And what about smart switches? I can’t see one smart switch you support.
Here is how all of this can be fixed. Hire me a a very modest salary as Vice President of Product Development. And if I fix this all in 6 months I want 5% of the sales increase starting today for the product. With a renegotiation clause that I generate revenue sharing of the new product and support lines I develop. I have staff now working on Oil Field Automation. We can do better than your current staff in less time with a higher ROI. Or wait till WAGO or even Siemens works with me. I dare you, bring me in for an interview Sense. And really, not one attempt on reading a smart wired light switch?
@vance.turner , you might be right that it is getting harder to order Sense-compatible Kasa devices, but your reasoning is wrong. Somehow you managed to conflate hardware and firmware versions. I have a KP125 (HW v1.X - non-M) smart plug, and an EP25 (HW v1.X) smart plug, both with the absolute most recent firmware for both (1.0.13), and both are completely Sense compatible and working fine today.
The real issue is that TP-Link Kasa is End of Life’ing the KP125 non-M version, and all new EP25s use v2.6 hardware. So the only supply of KP125s (non-M), and the EP25s that currently work with Sense is in the sales channels or would come via used sources (eBay).
Looks like Amazon is still selling plenty of KP125s (non-M).
As for light switches, the ones that work with Sense via the Wiser Integration are the Wiser X-Series of outlets, switches and dimmers. They are one of the few smart switches/dimmers/outlets that actually measure power usage.
I’m the wrong guy to make a proposal to - I’m just a user who helps moderate this forum. But if Sense were to ask me, I would give you positive marks on being gutsy and motivated, but would also question your ability to deliver over the long haul given all the constraints of an existing user base and product feature set. Seems like you’re not that great with the details and prefer to chart your own course based on what you think needs to be done, vs. deeply understanding the current challenges and breadth of what Sense is trying to do. I wouldn’t say no - but just that set f skills would need to be tested.
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