@Wayne-TP Hi Wayne ,

I think I might have figured out what's going on with this, well at least for myself. So my particular setup is that I have prob about 5 L530 bulbs. Whilst I understand that their is an underlying issue with the reset after 3 powers up and power downs, I'm pretty confident that I hadn't been doing this on alot of the bulbs that I was experiencing dropping off from my setup requiring a resync via the tapo app. What I had suspicions of is that these individual bulbs were losing their assigned IP address that they had been assigned from my ISP router. I proceeded to setup a DHCP reservation for them on my router and for about a month I've not seen a single disconnection. Hoping it stays that way but will update if I see a disconnection but was seeing device disconnect after a week so it's looking good so far.

Wayne-TP wrote

This Article Applies To

Tapo L510 V3.0

Tapo L520 V2.0

Tapo L530 V3.0

Tapo L630 V1.0

 

 

Description

In the future release, the Tapo smart bulb is planning to update its reset mechanism, removing the 3 times off&on method. Once the update is implemented, resetting the Tapo smart bulb requires an operation of 5 times off&on switches: 
1. Turn the smart bulb to the On state.
2. Turn it off, then on.
3. Repeat five times, with 1-second pause in between (each off&on).

 

This modification will be helpful in situations where the smart bulb gets reset frequently due to an unstable power supply at home.

 

 

Pre-Release

Community users can receive early access to this new update. If you want to try out the new update, follow the steps below to apply the beta firmware.

 

 

How to Apply Beta Firmware

*Note: the pre-release is currently available only for the models mentioned under "This article applies to."

 

1. Find the Mac address of your Tapo smart bulb: Open the Tapo app and navigate to the smart bulb's Device Settings page > Device Info.

2. Send a private message to @Wayne-TP with this format: [Tapo Bulb Reset Method Update] + Mac address of your smart bulb

 

Before the Upgrade

(1) Please be sure you have read the Beta Test Agreement before upgrading the Pre-release firmware!
(2) How to update the firmware of the Tapo devices on the Tapo App
(3) Firmware downgrade is not supported. When a new official version is released, updating it will overwrite the beta version.

 

 

Feedback

We would love to hear your thoughts on the new firmware! Please feel free to share your experience in the comments. Your feedback will not only assist other users but also contribute to further improvements of the product.

  @Wayne-TP This happened again. A dozen lights got reset after a brief power cut. It's driving me up a wall as I have to go manually reinstall every light and connected service. Please consider quick public release of this very basic feature for your customers, what really ought to have been done years ago. Why this feature still needs to be beta tested is baffling to me. We are considering moving away from TP products entirely because we can't keep reinstalling the bulbs every time there's a power cut. 

  @nwatts  Hi Nwatts,   not sure if you may have seen my post  earlier but it could be that you are having the same issue I was having. If you had a power cut then it's totally possible that when your router restarted the IP that was previously assigned to a bulb has been assigned to another device and this appears to cause the bulb to lose its connectivity. I'm still waiting for tplink to review my comment to confirm if it makes sense but so far I've not had a single bulb drop in the month I've setup the DHCP reservations.   Turned power off to bulbs multiple times and not seeing it as an issue.  Not saying this resolves the forced reset of the device through doing 3 power off/on, but I think at the minute this is what could be confusing matters and it's actually the users internet router that is causing the issue.

  @Trickyp85 Thanks so much for this info. I'll look into this too as I never considered it before.
 

EDIT: I wanted to add that this behaviour only happens to the bulbs and not the light strips or smart plugs or other devices when there's a power cut.

  @nwatts Not entirely sure to be honest, I have the tapo plugs also and have only really had to experience resyncing one of them in the past.   Maybe it's a case that they are consistently getting power always rather than lightbulbs as they are connected direct to power source, whereas with lightbulbs it's still human nature to every now and again flick a light switch of and on.  So I'm just thinking maybe this puts them more at risk of losing the IP when the DHCP lease of the IP has expired and can't renew it.  Can't say I've really done a deep dive into logs or do any testing as just don't have the time to faff with it. It screams even more that it could be true when I see posts of people saying they have 60+ bulbs in a setup so with normal household router the availability of IP address would be even less so doesn't suprise me that couple of leases expiring throw it all out of perfect setup.   Again must stress this is only my own guess work but seems most logical at the minute with it proved fixing my frustrations

  @Trickyp85 

I am the one that mentioned so many Tapo Bulbs. Through the whole 3 story house, terrace, garden, etc... I even have still many positions with non-smart bulbs because of the investment is very high. Only in the whole garden I have 30 GU10 bulbs.

Regarding the IPs, I bought from TP-Link Deco - the brother of Tapo :-) 3 indoor X50 mesh routers and 1 outdoor X50 mesh router. Each one is according to their website, over to 150 devices, so yes the internet or the available IPs are not problem. The problem is literally the electricity because it is summer house, at least after this forum post it is my conclusion.

This problem through the whole internet is described as "Tapo bulbs is for poor people, as a joke brand, not a serious and reliable" and I thought literally the same until I find this topic which I strongly believe that will fix the problem maybe for almost of the people with similar problems.

  @Janedr HI Jane, I hope it is the case that this firmware fix for the 3 power off reset is a fix for most people but at the minute im convinced there is a mix of 2 issues going on at the minute.  Whilst understand you have a device that supports signifanct number of devices, i would expect it will still function at similar level as most routers from the dhcp element and what ip address's are given out on your local network. My router as an example if a device isnt online when its dhcp lease for said device expires then it will put that ip back into the pool for devices in the house. Now typically when a device gets back online it will get a new ip address from your router automatically, its this element that im convinced is what the smart bulbs struggle with.  Hence my clarification that i too had similar issues that alot of users on this forum have reported or on reddit where the devices were dropping but they werent doing any apparent 3 time on/off reset of the device.  Ive not done this new firmware change, instead i did the dhcp reservation for all my bulbs and its not been an issue for a month.   Hopefully some others on the forums might test this out on there own setup and report back, or tplink provide some feedback if my theory could be correct.

  @Wayne-TP Hi Wayne, not gone too deep into investigation as at end of day I appear to have resolved alot of the issues with the bulbs having to be resynced in my own setup, so reason for my post was more to highlight it if others want to try. I'm not a networking guy so don't have patience to start doing packet traces and all that.

I do see alot of Reddit posts of other users with similar scenarios so whilst appreciate this firmware issue might resolve underlying problem with inadvertently triggering an unsync of device, but for myself I very rarely have power issues so indicated to me quite quickly something else might be at play.   

Just think its something maybe tplink might need to consider as a potential area to review. If a user has a bulb powered off at the switch for 24 hrs and DHCP on there ISP router defaults to renew or release it then could easily be a factor.

At least could be a suggestion for others to test