Alexa fails to turn off switch that was manually turned on

[michaelbailey]

My home has five Echo Dots and most of my lights, fans, and switched outlets are on Kasa smart switches (HS200, HS220). Occasionally when I instruct Alexa to turn off a switch that I had manually turned on, Alexa will respond with the tone indicating the command was successful but the switch remains on. If I instruct Alexa to turn that switch on, I get the successful response and the switch remains on. If I then instruct Alexa to turn off the switch, it will succeed. This only happens occasionally but it can affect any of the switches from any of the Dots. It's a minor inconvenience but I'd like to understand the problem and any methods of preventing it

[jwlv]

The problem can be any number of things.

When Alexa hears your command to turn something off, it sends that command to Amazon, which then connects to the skill of the light bulb (Kasa), which then the Kasa server connects to your light bulb and tell it to turn off.

As you can see, if any one of these steps encounters a problem, then the command fails. On Alexa's side, all it knows is to send that command. The confirmation beep only confirms that Alexa heard you and sent that command to Amazon's server. It does not verify that the skill is currently working, the Kasa server received the command from the skill, the Kasa server connected to the light bulb, or the Kasa server successfully told the light bulb to turn off.

Although it has not been confirmed, but the word on the street is that TP-Link is planning to discontinue the Kasa line of products. In the past when other companies began to sunset their products (e.g. Blackloud Smart Switch, Logitech Harmony) users have reported intermittent problems. That is, things that used to work fine started not working once in a while. And then that once in a while becomes more and more often.