Kasa devices and Home Assistant - Integration now broken due to firmware update
Hello everyone,
I created this post to raise awareness around TP-Link's recent changes affecting Home Assistant users:
https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/tplink/
Those who use Home Assistant consider it irreplaceable.
Arguably, Home Assistant offers the most complete feature and integration suite vs any competing power user home automation platform today.
It would be in the top right corner if there was a "Gartner Magic Quadrant for Home Automation Platforms".
Some of my personal use cases that were easily build-able because of Home Assistant:
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I use Home Assistant + my Kasa devices + my continuous blood glucose monitor to wake me up in the middle of the night when my blood sugar levels go low (e.g. turn on my bedroom lamps and lights when my blood sugar is below safe levels).
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I control all my house fans in the summer per-room with localized temperature sensors in each room of my house
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I turn my RGB lights red or blue if my insulin is approaching an unsafe temperature (freezing damages insulin).
The recent firmware changes completely break the sole reason I bought my TP-Link Kasa devices.
I fell in love with the Kasa product line's quality, price-point, electrical testing certifications and the open integration with Home Assistant.
Amazon reviews, YouTube videos, podcasts and community posts gave me comfort to invest heavily into the Kasa ecosystem.
With Kasa, I felt confident I would have a rock solid device from a big brand to use with Home Assistant.
I was an early adopter of WeMo and have since passed them on as gifts to others - I can't ask for them back now.
The few WeMos I still have work perfect with Home Assistant.
I've never felt worried about a firmware update breaking how my WeMos integrate with Home Assistant as Belkin understands Home Assistant use cases and the values users get from Home Assistant.
Belkin was victim to typical IoT security anti-patterns (e.g. unsigned firmware updates), but over the years has subsequently hardened their WeMo offering and still allow local control.
Users like myself have invested hundreds into TP-Link products (and my recommendations to friends have resulted in them spending hundreds).
We also (in good faith) allowed cloud connectivity (providing TP-Link with analytics data). I am now blocking all of that cloud connectivity.
Here are some community posts. It's only a matter of time before this gets picked up by HackerNews or another big tech site.
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https://community.home-assistant.io/t/tp-link-hs110-smart-plug-disappears-after-latest-firmware-update/244229
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https://twitter.com/TPLINKUK/status/1328687659133399043
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https://alerts.home-assistant.io/#tplink.markdown
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https://community.tp-link.com/en/home/forum/topic/236268
I strongly encourage TP-Link to work with the Home Assistant community in good faith to resolve this problem.
Other vendors like Phillips, Belkin WeMo, IKEA, etc. all understand the value of power users pushing the home IoT space forward and have not disrupted the local control capabilities of their products.
Some recommendations:
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Publish a secure local API for Kasa devices
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Allow for users at their discretion to opt-in / enable legacy versions of the port 9999 based API / old local control mechanism in the meantime
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Create a more secure implementation of the initial configuration mechanism (e.g. that does not use port 9999)
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Publish firmware release notes as per industry generally accepted practices
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Allow for opt-in beta testing of firmware
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Publish CVEs for vulnerabilities discovered as per industry generally accepted practices
I hope this post raises some more awareness for us Home Assistant users now left with 15+ "broken" devices!
Thanks for reading this!
I've lost sleep over my now broken smart home and am trying to constructively work on a solution!
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I am just learning about this issue. I am US based and some of the links I've seen seem to reflect this is a UK firmware change. Don't know if similar change has been or will be made in the US but am responding in an attempt to avoid any nasty surprises. To date, I have loved TP Link products. As someone has said, good prices, good quality, and good performance. I have a ton of TP link smart home products. That said, Home Assistant is FAR more valuable to me. If TP Link is making firmware changes that wlll break the Home Assistant Integration I will rip out and replace ALL TP Link products and go with another vendor. That is a non-negotiable. I also don't see a case where I would be likely to buy TP link again in the future.
Sure, I might be over-reacting here since I don't know the full picture yet ....so I would love more info from TP Link....What products are impacted by the firmware change that triggered this thread? What geographic regions are impacted? Will other products evenutaully be similarly impacted? If one of my products is on the impacted last can I avoid the firmware update by not using the app?
Thanks
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Cheers all for the efforts on this.
Late to the game but have HS110's and a KP303 which look to be affected.
Have sent a mail to support as per the instructions to try get them downgraded
Completely get it from the TPLink side, securing iot devices proactively is awesome and should be applauded but unfortunately the impact of this one has been pretty significant to the home assistant community.
Definitely agree with @Bartem, an option to accept the risks would work nicely.
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@Brook - this is great news that the change is reversible. Please can you (or other TP-Link person) contact me, I will share the MAC address of my affected plugs and look forward to receiving Home Assistant functionality again. Thank you.
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I received a reply from the UK support people indicating that they were not aware of the problem, or why I was sending them the MAC addresses of my HS100 plugs.
The reply was from Echo.Xie@tp-link.com.
Regards, John
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I too would like the instructions on how to downgrade. I have a KP400 that is no longer working with Home Assistant. Worked fine last week and continues to work from the Kasa app. Please help. I’m in the US if that matters regarding firmware.
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Latest reply from TP Link UK customer support:
Thank you for your feedback.
We are aware that the support of Home assistant is a very useful feature for some customers and our senior engineers are looking into the possible solution.
So I don't think downgrade instructions actually exist yet. But at least someone somewhere in TP Link has recognised the need to work out how to support the non-Kasa community. I'll post here if I get any more info.
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Great! Thanks Andy.
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I'd encourage you all to be a little more incessant that they revert the firmware or provide replacement devices with the previous firmware version.
To me it is totally un-acceptable that a vendor believes they have the right to remove functionality (whether official or not) from a device I own. It’s not like these devices are leased from TP-Link.
I have had my device replaced.
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@drewy when you say replaced, do you mean that you purchased devices from another company that work with Home Assistant? Or do you mean that TP Link replaced them for you with different devices with firmware that works?
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thought I was pretty clear, but to resolve any misunderstanding. TP-Link UK replaced with new device running the previous firmware version.
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