I thought I read somewhere that, to ensure they recover (after power failure) to the same state, you need to update the firmware. Did you do that?
Yes, IIRC they downloaded the new firmware and rebooted right after I configured them in the Kasa app.
If that’s the case, then the short term solution would be to send an ‘ON’ command in the Kasa App multiple times during the day, as often as needed. You can also run IFTTT but that’s already getting complicated.
hello, hope its ok i tag along on this one,
say looking to add an outlet or power strip to monitor loads to keep track of, more short term use, say for an air exchanger, or sub standby power, or aquarium. my question is, this would be better in sense than say a kill a watt meter or something ??
how does moving the smart plug from location to location work in sense, say I want to monitor my air exchanger to get a feel for it, say a few days?? then on to the next item in another location
hope that makes sense, still sipping on coffee, and its early, lol.
thanks so very much for your time.
The KP115s are back on Amazon at normal $22 price sold and shipping from Amazon. Orders can be taken now with shipping in early January.
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@joel.s.c14,
A KP115 is better (and worse) than a Kill-a-Watt for the following reason - time history. A Kill-A-Watt only gives you a single data point about usage. Sense paired with a KP115 gives you a long time history for the device you monitor, so you can see all the extremes in it’s behavior over a week, for example. The downside of that time history is that once Sense knows a given KP115, the history immutably stays with you regardless of which device you put on that plug. Sure you can get rid of the smartplug history via some extreme measures (data reset), but I have found it more useful to have a traveling KP115 that I use to search for the undetected plug-in devices that would provide the biggest payoff for permanent smartplug monitoring. So in my books, a traveling KP115 wins over a Kill-A-Watt, for wealth of data, any day.
Then there are the side benefits of a device on permanent smartplug monitoring.
- Remote power control - you can also turn the plug power on / off to the device.
- Indicator - you can use a device turning on off as an indicator to turn another smartplug on or off. For a example, an AV receiver smartplug on can tell a subwoofer smartplug to turn on.
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Very interesting Kevin1, thank you.
sounds like a traveling kp115 would make sense to incorporate , for the data side. so say you monitor a device for a week, then move it to another location/devise, the data stays with the kp115 with no easier way to reset ?? if so, then you would just use the daily or the week information for the new location. and not be able to use the overall data, correct ??
thanks!!
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That’s the right idea. Move the KP115 every week if you want to use the summary data for each device and it’s corresponding week. I also used the weekly waveforms to examine standby power (visually) and Always On (Sense calculates for each smartplug) power for each device.
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It’s too bad that the KP-115 is crap that won’t stay connected to your WiFi and half the time when it does this it doesn’t bother to reconnect.
Hey there @CBinMA. Happy new year. This is the first I’ve heard of an issue with Wi-Fi drop-outs on the KP-115. I’d recommend reaching out to their customer support (if you haven’t already) to see if there’s a known issue with this - I haven’t seen anything as of yet.
I have a ton of TP-Link/Kasa Smart bulbs, plugs, and switches and don’t have any trouble with them losing wifi connection. 4 Kasa Smart bulbs, 25 smart plugs (4 KP115, 21 HS105/HS107/HS300/KP303, 12 switches HS200/HS220).
I did have an issue with the KP115 just this week. Sense stopped hearing them even though they were still operational via the button and the Kasa app. The Kasa app was continuing to report the power usage although Sense thought they were offline. Restored the Sense connection by unplugging and reconnecting the KP115’s.
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Mine’s a little different in that they show up as disconnected in the Kasa app itself, pretty frequently. Both signal strengths are always in the -40 range when i look, no other devices disconnecting from WiFi. I cancelled my order for 4 more of the 115, I’ll wait for something a little more reliable to come around. Thanks for the info on yours, every little bit of history on issues should help drive device reliability upgrades!
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Just an update, HS300 always online working perfectly (twice as far from my router). KP-115 as normal is disconnected until i unplug and plug back in. After that it’ll be good for a few hours maybe. As i said in my Amazon review, junk.
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I have my router ‘centrally’ located in the house, so that the signal can reach the farthest corners. The 5.0GHz struggles at times, but the 2.4GHz works fine, even in the garage, basement, and front/back yards. My 7x KP115’s are always connected, and never had an issue with them. It is not always fair to compare the KP115 to the HS300 … One is very compact, the other has a lot more room for a bigger/better antenna. Before calling them junk, I would investigate how good the signal is at the extreme corners and other dead-spots in the house.
That happens to me too, I got a couple of KP-115’s and they keep disconnecting at random times of day and night. Unplugging and plugging back in fixes it for a while. They already have the latest firmware according to the Kasa app.
I’ve been trying to figure it out but I can’t tell if the Kasa app and Sense both lose connection to it or just Sense, since the Kasa app is very simple and doesn’t show a real time power meter.
Or maybe the Kasa app interferes with Sense in the readings and causes Sense to lose connection?
I have not been able to figure out yet what’s going on, but hope a new firmware revision comes through that fixes it.
Thanks for your reply. 2.4 network exclusively here. I agree about the unfair comparison RE housing sizes, but if the manufacturer can’t make a reliable product in the form factor they chose then they shouldn’t market it. I’d be happy with a reliable product twice the size. I can guarantee my network isn’t the problem here, like you i have a centrally located modern powerful router. Heat maps are excellent, 115s not in difficult to reach locations at all.
Mine will show disconnected in the Kasa app. In fact they are right now. Greyed out, “Device Unreachable” when you tap on it. Hopefully more and more people who are having the same problems amplify the concerns and it gets back to the manufacturer so we can like you said get an update that fixes the issue. I’d like to post a screenshot here of the Kasa app but the forum won’t let me attach anything. Thanks for sharing your issue, good luck!
Are you using static IPs on your plugs? It might help with random disconnect issues
Sorry you’re having all these issues and agree with you that the manufacturer should have been more ‘thorough’ in their design/validation. That said, there are ‘many’ factors that come into play here, not just the unit itself. For example, the specific router, firmware, number of devices, etc. Not lecturing here, you know all of this already. I have a total of ~70 iot devices connected to my router (most on 2.4GHz band) and have not seen any disconnects. Well, and that’s the catch, maybe there are some but I’m not monitoring all my devices continuously…
Let me ask this then: How do you know that your KP115’s are disconnecting? Do you have alerts/notifications sent every time there is a disconnect? Few days ago, a fellow community member reported that his KP115’s would disconnect every now and then, but never reconnect. He had to unplug them then back and that is how they would reconnect. So, I asked how he did the monitoring, and I did the same in Sense (there is an option to have notifications sent) and for the past several days, I have not seen a single issue. I could be lucky, gotten my KP115 from a ‘good’ batch … or there could a multitude of other circumstances.
What am I saying is, let us turn this into a community experiment, agree on how we monitor our devices, all of us do the same over the course of one week, then come back with results and analyze/summarize … Thoughts?
They show up in the Kasa app as disconnected and the light on them blinks blue. No worries, I’m not spending any more time on them they’re going in the bin.