Possible Serious Design Flaw in Tapo Switches

Possible Serious Design Flaw in Tapo Switches

Possible Serious Design Flaw in Tapo Switches
Possible Serious Design Flaw in Tapo Switches
2024-04-04 21:41:17
Model: S505D  
Hardware Version: V1
Firmware Version: 1.0.0

I am encountering a very severe problem with your Matter-compatible switches. It appears to be a design flaw.

 

PROBLEM: Following a brief power failure the switches are unable to reconnect to the network/home controller. I am using Apple HomeKit.

I have purchased and had professionally installed approximately seventy (70) TP-Link/KASA Matter Smart Switches. They have all be working well and with no issues.

 

There was a brief power failure (due to testing the emergency generator). Since then, these switches have been unable to reconnect to the Apple HomeKit controller. Even though the switches cannot connect, they are otherwise operable by touching the paddle button. So the switches are functional except that they have lost their connection to the controller.

 

As an experiment I power cycled the circuit breaker for some of them and those ones did connect after power was restored.

I have done further testing and I believe I have identified a specific failure case where the switches cannot connect. (Unfortunately, this happens weekly, making the switches useless.)

 

The steps to reproduce the design fault is as follows:

 

1) Install the switches normally, and ensure that everything is working on Apple HomeKit.

 

2) Experience a power failure whereby the switches and the WiFi lose power.

 

3) Restore power. Note that the switches will power up quickly, but (at this site) Wifi can take up to 3 minutes to restore. Therefore, no WiFi will be available at the time that the switches power on.

 

4) The switches will never ever reconnect.

 

I have been able to reproduce this behavior.

 

The key issue seems to be that if there is a power failure, and WiFi comes back on after a several minute delay, reconnection of these switches will frequently (70%) never happen or will take several hours.

 

This is a high-end home and a high-end network system by UI com (Unifi). WiFi connectivity is corner-to-corner on the property.

 

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