KAUF Power Monitoring Smart Plug with ESPHome Compatible with Tasmota Made for Home Assistant

As advertised, this thing works in Home Assistant natively. It broadcasts its own SSID when you first plug it in, you just connect to it on your phone. My phone then instantly took me to the device's setup page, asking for my real network's WiFi info so it can connect. After that, it restarts itself, connects, and then Home Assistant instantly sees it for setup. Even after setup in Home Assistant, it still has a very neat and useful built-in user interface available at its local IP address, accessed through a web browser (see screenshot). So far it has been great at monitoring power usage and recording data in Home Assistant for analysis and historical purposes (see screenshot). It also features anything you'd expect a smart plug to do: remote on/off, timers, triggers, etc. Read more

Working as expected. Both app and web works flawlessly. Haven't faced any issues with connectivity, connecting with wifi was easy. Controlling from both the web and the app was easy. Only consumes around 3 watts. The on/off switch works instantly. Power monitoring also works perfectly with no issues. Read more

I'm running a DIY solar battery backup system for a couple of circuits in my home. I need inexpensive power outlet monitor and control that I can use over LAN with my own software which uses very simple http communication. I need something that can operate when power and internet are out. Many similar devices out there use phone apps and cloud services, so those require internet and are non-starters. The KAUF is similar to Shelly products. Both offer control and monitoring over LAN from a web browser. I was unclear at first on what syntax to use with the KAUF, but I contacted customer support by email and Brian was quick to respond with just what I needed to know. The KAUF does what I need at a very reasonably price. Read more

These are great devices! They work as advertised. They stay connected to wifi with no issues. Home Assistant recognizes them immediately. They just work. One caveat: the initial wifi config can be difficult. All of my windows laptops and my iPhone have problems connecting to the device's initial hotspot. Oddly, my ancient Kindle tablet connects with no issues. Read more

I purchased a Kauf PLF12 to automate the daily on/off cycle of my home's outdoor lighting. I now have that lighting coming on a few minutes after sunset each day and going off 3 hours later or 10pm, whichever comes first. The PLF12 was extremely easy to setup and the native ESPHome web page and API that it exposes is almost too easy to use. For an outdoor installation like mine, you'll want to purchase an Intermatic WP1020C weather protecting two-gang receptacle box and a very short flat plug extension cord (1-ft or less). Together, those three items worked perfectly to make a nice installation. I am not worried about the connection between the short extension cord and my low voltage lighting transformer, but if I find that it needs weather protection I will add a small water-resistant cord connector protector. See the pictures to see my setup with the Intermatic WP1020C and a 1-ft flat plug extension cord. Using the Intermatic cover, the PLF12 fits perfect in the top outlet slot but will not quite fit into the bottom slot. That was fine for my situation, and a little trimming of the plastic bezel would allow the PLF12 to fit in the bottom outlet slot. Read more

I basically copied Kyles review sit some more info I tried three of these "smart" plugs and they all worked the same. Both of which seem to suffer from some sort of intermittent crash which renders this whole thing unusable. The setup process is supposed to be 1) plug in, 2) connect to fallback wifi network, 3) update local wifi credentials, and 4) adopt. I was able to get to step 2 about two or three times but was being kicked off the wifi network constantly due to the device seemingly rebooting. I was able to get the wifi credentials in there one time, then it rebooted and seemed to work for a minute, I never saw it connected to my WI FI network, even though I had disabled the 5 ghz channels. I really don't know how you mess this up. Like the thing obviously is powering off an on. Asking Chatgpt what to do, I went through a complicated diagnostic process, and basically it looks like they were flashed with the wrong software, and I can't fix that without a soldering iron. I con't know what a good replacement is. I am very disappointed. Read more

Worked with HA immediately. All of it. power monitoring, and even the LED button color. Polished UX. If I can't flash the firmware, I don't own it. Ironically, this is the one piece of home automation gear for which I don't feel the need to replace the firmware. Read more

I have bought a ton of smart plugs. Some with Tasmota, some that could be flashed with Tuya-convert. So far, this plug has impressed me the most. It was pretty darn easy to get up and running. It took longer than it's competitors to initiate it's fallback network but that's ok I knocked a star off for ease of use because ESPHome is supposed to offer you the ability to adopt the plug (this is different than the Home Assistant discovery which worked as expected). It wasn't a huge deal. I went tot he plug's web interface which had a link to the github page. This page had some basic YAML that needed to be imported into ESPHome. You build the binary and push it out and it shows up as expected Time will tell how long this will last. Some brands of smart plugs have started dying within a year while others I have had over 6 years. Hopefully this guy will last! Read more