#SMART MOTION SENSOR LIGHT SWITCH MANUAL#

While the sensitivity of motion sensing is tweakable, I found that even the most sensitive setting didn’t pick up movement until I was a few too many steps into the room. A randomized vacation mode is also available, as is support for Alexa, Google Assistant, and SmartThings.Īgain, I found all these features worked flawlessly, with minor caveats.

#SMART MOTION SENSOR LIGHT SWITCH MANUAL#

During daylight, I set the switch to be manual only, so people coming and going during the day wouldn’t needlessly waste energy by tripping the sensor and turning on the lights. With the Kasa, I was able to set not only whether to turn the lights on if motion is detected but also if it’s dark in the room – and even how bright to set the lights during this time. I installed the switch in my garage, where I want automatic lighting during nighttime hours, but usually don’t need any lights at all during the day. Manual controls are also available on the hardware itself, courtesy of two small buttons above the pushbutton-style switch, all of which work well.

The switch will remember the last brightness setting used when the lights are turned off and back on, and you can configure the length of the fade-on and fade-off features. Presets let you choose between four saved brightness levels, or you can move over to the Brightness tab to dial in a new level in one-percent increments. A quick calibration step gave me pause-my lights didn’t dim at all when they were supposed to during testing-but after a firmware update, I found the lights worked as expected. When it comes to controlling the dimmer, I found the app worked just fine. For example, I found it impossible to delete an old group with no devices in it Kasa would re-create the empty group every time I tried to erase it. The app itself is easy enough to get around, though it desperately needs some modern polish and bug fixing. Its true potential is unleashed when programmed with other Kyla Gen 2 products Try pairing it with our Gen 2 Light Switch to automatically switch on the lights. Fortunately, the bridging process worked without issue, and I the switch connected successfully to my 2.4GHz Wi-Fi network (5GHz isn’t supported). TP-Link hasn’t dramatically upgraded its app in recent years, and it’s still erratic and a little archaic, starting with an old-school routine that has you manually connect to a temporary Wi-Fi network to get things going. With the switch hardware in place, I turned to the Kasa app to set it up and begin using the switch’s features. The Kasa Smart app offers plenty of options for controlling the dimmer, including behavior according to the time of day and a countdown timer that will automatically turn the connected light off.

Smart motion sensor light switch