My Experience with the new Tapo and Kasa apps

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My Experience with the new Tapo and Kasa apps

This thread has been locked for further replies. You can start a new thread to share your ideas or ask questions.
My Experience with the new Tapo and Kasa apps
My Experience with the new Tapo and Kasa apps
2023-10-14 09:09:20 - last edited 2023-10-14 09:10:41

I have combined my Kasa devices with the Tapo app and there were a few things I learned along the way.

 

The Kasa app had 14 smart plugs, lights, switches, and 1 EC70 camera.

This app was logged into a Gmail account. I had a previous account at Yahoo that I no longer used.

 

The Tapo app had 5 C200 cameras, 1 H100 hub, and 1 T100 motion sensor.

This app was logged into a Yahoo account.

 

In the Tapo app I went to the "Link Tapo with Kasa" and stepped through it. I was never asked for the Kasa account I wanted to link but it displayed "Authorized" so I assumed all was well. Looking at the "All Devices" tab did not show any new devices. Back at the "Link Tapo with Kasa" screen still only showed "Authorized" with no way to change the Kasa account or even Unlink it. Seems I was stuck with no way to change anything to do with the link setup.

 

Was looking around in the Tapo app and I discovered that when adding a device there is now an option to select either a Tapo or Kasa device. I checked and all of my Kasa devices were listed as devices that could be installed. So then my plan was to Remove each device and add them into the Tapo app. This worked just fine, all Kasa devices were in my Tapo app, and I was extremely happy only requiring one app now instead of two. I was also able to use the Tapo motion sensor now with my Kasa devices which is something I wanted to do when I bought the Hub and Sensor six months ago. So what could go wrong now?

 

With the Tapo app containing all of the Tapo and Kasa devices I went to my Google Home app and linked it with Tapo. Now another problem showed up, The Home app only showed the Tapo devices, none of the Kasa devices linked. This surprised me since all devices were now in the Tapo app, shouldn't everything in Tapo show in Home?

 

After a while of some thinking, and remembering that I was never prompted which Kasa account to link, and also remembering that I had a Kasa account at Yahoo setup with the same credentials as the Tapo app. I tried removing a Kasa device from Tapo and added it into the old Kasa account I no longer used. This configuration worked, the device in Kasa now shows up in Tapo and adding a link to Kasa from Home brought the device into the Home app.

 

So all Kasa devices that were installed into the Tapo app had to be Removed and added back into the Kasa app with the account credentials matching the Tapo account. This gave me access to all devices in the Tapo app and all devices in the Home app.

 

1. It appears that to link the Tapo and Kasa accounts they must be under the same account name. Is this the way TP-Link intended the link to work? The Tapo app was not intended to ask for which Kasa account to link to?

 

2. Why do the Kasa devices added into the Tapo app not show up in the Home app after Tapo was linked to it. I have used Samsung Smart-Things and Home Assistant in the past and am wondering now it the same issue would appear linking to Tapo with any Kasa devices added into Tapo.

 

3. I also found out that after linking the Tapo and Kasa apps with Home that any groups setup in Tapo or Kasa do not show up in Home. I had to setup Automations in Home to be able to control multiple devices similar to the Group assignments in Tapo and Kasa.

 

I really like having all devices accessible in a single app (even though I really have two apps - Tapo and Kasa) and am able to use either or both Tapo and Kasa devices in Automation programs, thank you for that. I am interested in hearing back any comments on the steps I had to go through to make this work.

 

Thanks,

Jerry

 

 

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#1
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Re:My Experience with the new Tapo and Kasa apps
2023-11-20 23:41:59

  @JerryInTellico,

Apologies for the late response, but let me know if you've made any progress since posting.

 

As far as I am aware this is the intended operation, while it looks to be a 'linking of accounts' its more akin to simply allowing devices to appear in the Tapo app if they were linked to your TP-Link ID. Essentially, you have one TP-Link ID that is used across multiple brands and products - by having another email, you had two TP-Link IDs that were not connected to each other.

 

I believe that you should be able to reset the devices and set them up via the Tapo in-app setup to have access to the Google Home app.

 

This is also where there is a difference between setting a device up in your Tapo app, vs linking your Kasa account. Did you set the devices up as new devices after a reset, or did you simply link your account?

 

You may see if you can add the devices to the Kasa app while you are logged into the Kasa app with the TP-Link Id with the Yahoo email. This should allow the device to be brought from Kasa into Tapo. Otherwise, reset the devices and add them directly into the Tapo app to see if they appear.

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#2
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Re:My Experience with the new Tapo and Kasa apps
2023-11-22 20:11:31

  @Riley_S 

 

I was able to reset all of the devices I had setup in Kasa and set them up in the Tapo app. However only the real Tapo devices would show up in the Google Home app, all of the Kasa devices setup in Tapo do not show in Home. That's why I had to remove all the Kasa devices from Tapo and set them back up in Kasa. Now with Home linking to Tapo and Kasa everything show up in  Home. If this gets fixed I can move everything into Tapo and do away with Kasa, but not until something gets fixed.

 

Hope this makes sense.

Thanks,

Jerry

 

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#3
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Re:My Experience with the new Tapo and Kasa apps
2023-12-03 14:47:32

I didn't have any issues as described above - perhaps because I used the same email for both Kasa and Tapo apps?

 

My issue was that while the devices in my Kasa app showed the correct time zone for me (America/New_York), the same devices in the Tapo app were showing America/Cancun. This had changed while I was trying to correct it - before I did a complete remove of all devices and re-adding them it showed a different place several time zones away.

 

Even uninstalled the app, downloaded it fresh and still the same.

 

I finally found where you set your time zone - Me / Tapo Lab / Location and Time ---- which was set correctly for America/New_York. I changed it to another location, then back to America_New York and now all of my devices in the Tapo app are showing my correct location (America/New_York).

 

I suggest moving the "Location and Time" setting to a more obvious location - NOT under the "Tapo Lab" link.

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#4
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