@MikeP 

The correct answer is they don't care about their customers or this would have never happened to begin with.  The only response is to never buy a TP-Link product again.

@TP-Link 

Thank you for arranging this change and I am encouraged that you are looking to allow more third party integration when you have developed your more secure APIs in the future.  However, I have to take exception to the implication that somehow our home networks are more insecure than your (and other) public sites!

Those of us using Home Assistant are possibly more aware of the security implications of having numerous vendor devices on our networks, hence we prefer to use devices that do not require access to the internet to work (thumbs up to you).  This is not just so that our homes do not have a dependency on our broadband supplier keeping our connections working (assuming we are lucky enough to have reasonable broadband in the first place) but also so that we know what is running on our internal networks and possibly leaking information to third party sites. 

Given that TP-Link are unlikely to offer a product for every market (eg. heating controllers) and currently there are no light switches [HS200, HS210, HS220] in the UK and with the growth of the IoT and IFTTT you should not be surprised that people will do their own bespoke integrations via tools such as Home Assistant (other platforms are available).  This actually saves you a lot of effort and cost in trying to develop an overarching control system rather than just the excellent, albeit limited, Kasa app for basic controls that many will find sufficient.

And, out of interest, what do you see are the risks to your products or users of an 'unauthorised' access to a socket?  I'm not aware of any personal or sensitive information being held on them, nor, other than some inconvenience to me, what is the effect of someone taking control of them.  Cameras I can understand might be a security risk, which is why I wouldn't use Alexa/Google display anywhere near my KC110 whether these have been “guaranteed” or not.  You may trust them but I have no way of doing that validation myself, and there have been too many well documented ‘data breaches’ from ‘trusted’ companies.

I will request my version 4.1 switches ‘downgraded’ for now and look forward to a meaningful dialogue in the future that allows the Home Assistant integrations elves to do their magic with your new APIs. Oh, and I have just bought another KL50, so I hope you are not changing their interface just yet. I am holding back on purchasing any more HS100/110s for now as I’m too lazy to go and try to find other products of a similar quality that work reliably with HA.

Keep up the good work with innovative products, but also think bigger about how they might be used in this new world of home automation. You can't do it all - but we can!

@TP-Link 

I've just tried to send my Ticket number to @TP-Link as requested, but on this forum I need to be LV2 and I'm only LV1 (having just joined to get the downgrade).

Why is all this stuff made so difficult to do?

As a clue, the ticket was created around 13:42 on 27/11, has at least HS100 in the title and ends 674. Hope this enough to find it.

Would be handy if i could update my message to tplink with my id (that I forgot to add). Since im a new user I get

You can send new messages only when you reach LV2.

Im lv0 :-(

(edit LV1 now ive posted this)

@Stewhart Guess we have to post/reply more

@TP-Link - Yes - please go ahead and update my HS110's with beta firmware.

I cannot reply via private Message as it requires LVL2.

Thank you.

@MikeP 

I had this LV1 problem, but the support guys seem to be clued up and I got a response from my support ticket requesting the 'downgrade'. They ask you to confirm that you want to go ahead with the beta firmware and accept the potential risks.

I told them that I understand the 'risk' of my well managed wi-fi network being compromised by rogue agents of foreign powers turning on and off my Kasa socket controlling lights to send secret encrypted messages via morse code to my neighbours.  I'm not sure what other risks there are for a socket.