I know this is water that's long passed under the bridge, since we now have the builtin TP-Link driver, but I still am curious about this, mostly for my own understanding, and to help debug packet sniffs.
I have no plans to install that driver, why would I? However, it does contain command strings that control a "smartlife.iot.dimmer" device. If these command strings are known good with the KP-405, it would provide a very handy reference to help me understand what's going on when looking at a packet sniff.
The code for the built-in and community app are the same (with minor exceptions). I still provide updates to the built-in app for inclusion by the Hubitat staff. It follows my (not the staff's) rule not to compete with the built-in capability; which would confuse users.
As far as sniffing the packets, all commands are encoded via an XOR routine before sending and responses have to be decoded similarly before receiving. The messages are a hex stream in the sniffer data. Wireshark now decodes the encoded messages to plain text.
Kasa Future: Kasa is still alive; however, there is evidence that they will convert new hardware and hardware versions to the TP-Link KLAP or AES protocol. They have already done this on the EP25 smart plug (latest HW version) as well as the MATTER devices. The built-in Kasa app will not currently detect these devices. Although feasible, there are no plans to do so. HOWEVER, my community TP-Link /TAPO integration is set up to be able to install/control these new Kasa devices (and works quite well).
