Using Kasa Smart Plug as Trigger via IFTTT or Alexa
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TP-Link is currently missing an important intgration feature. @TPLink, can you please create an integration point to allow your smart products to be used as a trigger for IFTTT and/or Amazon Alexa. As of about a week ago (7/11/2022), it was possible to use Kasa plugs as a trigger in an Alexa routine. I had this running and it worked very well. Then for what ever reason, Amazon pulled this feature (not sure if this was driven by Amazon or TP-Link).
For energy saving automation routines, this functinality is important. A couple examples include turning lights off X minutes after they turn on (I had this set up in my garage so lights would not stay on for multiple days if someone forgot to turn them on. I've also used the plug as a trigger to create a looped routine for my hot water circulation pump. To save energy I had set it up on a Kasa plug, and then triggered a routine to turn on for 2 mintues, off for 20 mintues, then repeat. There are likely many other usecases, and it seems like this would be a farily easy thing to enable.
Please help!
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Hello,
As confirmed with our team, Alexa Routines supports Voice command or Time-based trigger in Alexa APP, while Alexa has not supported Kasa Plug or Switch as a Trigger
before, as for now, Kasa Switch or Plugs can only work as the Action
Using Alexa "Routines" feature with your TP-Link Smart devices
Thank you for your feedback or improvement suggestion with Alexa device working as a trigger, this has been requested before,I'd record your feedback first for future evaluation.
This thread will be temporarily marked this the ' solution' of this thread based on the current information we got. If anyone found a different case, kindly provide some photos and comment below, thank you.
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Hello @RyanR006
Thank you for the feedback, I'd shared your feedback with our team for some further test.
At the same time, it is also recommended to Amazon Alexa support here and see if there are changes on the Alexa Routine in the Alexa APP.
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@Solla-topee , Thanks for the reply. I have reached out to Amazon and they have been unsuprisingly non responsive. This seems like an issue that could be solved by either TP Link, or Amazon. And seeing that this is TP-Link's product, it would be nice if you prioritized this even if that just means updating your IFTTT integration points, or working with Amazon in some manner.
As you can see from Byjam, he was leveraging TP-Link plugs to trigger energy saving routines. This feels like a big miss to me, and something that TP-Link could fix pretty easily. I like the TP-Link plugs quite a bit, but I will not be buying any more of them until this functionality is resolved. It sounds like Wemo does support this. I don't share this as a threat... its just a really important integration point for me and likely a lot of other people that are selecting the TP-Link product to help make their home more efficient.
Thanks,
Ryan
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@Byjam , Thanks for sharing Byjam. What you described is exactly what I'm experiencing also. Very annoying. While our frustration should potentially be pointed to Amazon, TP-Link could fix this easliy thorugh IFTTT if they added a service to let their smart devices trigger commands. If TP-Link could somehow restore this functionality in Alexa, that would be the best, but that may be outside of their control.
Thanks,
Ryan
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Hello,
As confirmed with our team, Alexa Routines supports Voice command or Time-based trigger in Alexa APP, while Alexa has not supported Kasa Plug or Switch as a Trigger
before, as for now, Kasa Switch or Plugs can only work as the Action
Using Alexa "Routines" feature with your TP-Link Smart devices
Thank you for your feedback or improvement suggestion with Alexa device working as a trigger, this has been requested before,I'd record your feedback first for future evaluation.
This thread will be temporarily marked this the ' solution' of this thread based on the current information we got. If anyone found a different case, kindly provide some photos and comment below, thank you.
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@Solla-topee @RyanR006 Missed your reply to this message a couple weeks ago. I disagree with the statement about triggers since I had many Alexa routines setup with Kasa switches as triggers and they all worked for a couple months until around June 27th, the Alexa lost connection to all the triggers. All the routines now have an error "Trigger cannot be loaded".
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@Byjam , I agree that responses have been mediocre at best. It's also just really annoying that this functionality was working fine, and then got taken away. Perhaps this is a complaint better directed to Alexa, but TPLink could step up and provide better capabilities themselves. I like the TPLink products quite a bit, but I will not purchase any more of them until better smart home integration capablities are supported. I have not tried a Wemo plug yet, but they at least market that they support the desired integration. @TPLink, it seems like a no-brainer to allow your plugs to act as triggers if you want to better support energy effiiency.
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Hello @Byjam
As far as I could tell that's the answer from Alexa representative when we got in touch with them.
If you found something different, can you share some photos of previous settings, it would be better if you keep any of previous setup. So far as tested in the lab, kasa plug and switches does not show up as the options in the list of trigger in Alexa Routines.
Another thing I found in KB article here Using Alexa "Routines" feature with your TP-Link Smart devices, the 2nd comment of Tony in 2020 mentioned kasa switches does not support being a Trigger in Alexa routines.
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