Thank you for the goodwill gesture, but all I need is an Alarm Panel Pro so the store credit is of no use to me. I’d be a purchaser if it was a simple discount.
Thank you for the apologies and assurance your working on delivery.
Do you have a date or estimated date you hoping to get working product to all those who have ordered already?
We do not have a date at this time. My estimate is late May or sometime in June.
Nate, given the ethernet issues on the liquidation Pros, I wondered if it was still possible to use a PoE injector to reliably power them? Thank you
Yes, PoE will still work. However, currently only on ESPHome firmware.
The PoE circuit is separate from the Ethernet data controller and it still works fine. On the legacy Konnected firmware however, the device will detect an Ethernet cable plugged in and will disable WiFi. But if you’re using the newest ESPHome-based firmware (configured for WiFi) it should work fine.
1 Like
Brilliant. Thank you
Are there anymore of the liquidation boards available? The link above ends with a 404 page not found.
No, sorry! The party is over for the liquidation deal.
More info to follow tomorrow (in this thread). There have been some… developments 
Breaking News!!
Brief summary: We’ve finally solved the actual root cause of the Alarm Panel Pro Ethernet issue – and it turns out it’s fixable in firmware!! There is nothing physically wrong with the Alarm Panel Pro boards after all! We are working push out a firmware update and will resume shipping and selling fully-functional Alarm Panel Pros as soon as possible!
Auto-generated (lightly edited) transcript:
Hey everyone! Well I have an update on the Alarm Panel Pro situation … um this is absolutely ironic and uh but it’s a good ending so long story short – I’ll start from the end. We figured out we fixed the problem and it turns out in the end there was actually nothing physically wrong with the alarm panel Pro batch 2401 and 2403 and we are able to make them all work fine and ethernet works 100%!
So here’s here’s the breakdown of the issue. I’m going to tell you what what what we found what the issue was, why it was so hard to figure out – it took us four months essentially – and then what we’re going to do about it because I know lots of you have been waiting for your ethernet capable Alarm Panel Pro.
So to back up a little bit when we first designed the Alarm Panel Pro we used a reference design from a board called the wESP32 which – you know it’s a common industry a common practice in the industry – when we’re designing electronics we’re looking at other electronics that are similar or have similar circuitry or components and essentially use that as a reference design. wESP32 is is created by a guy named Patrick at Silicognition – he’s based in Colorado and he’s a good guy, we’ve been in communication for a number of of years, and so he’s shared with us his schematic and some tips and that’s how we built the original Alarm Panel Pro. So the ethernet circuitry uh on the Alarm Panel Pro comes from the wESP32 and we followed their development and I think sometime around 2020 or 2021 the wESP32 switched from one LAN controller to a different LAN controller or PHY (physical interface) to the the LAN. The chip in question is called the RTL8201 which is a Chinese LAN controller chip.
Anyways, long story short, everything was fine until it wasn’t. I emailed Patrick probably six weeks ago now as we were trying to figure out this whole situation and was like “hey have you ever seen this problem with the RTL8201? Suddenly our our boards are not working well on ethernet where they used to” and he was like “no haven’t seen it um not been an issue.”
So it turns out – then Patrick just emailed me again a couple days ago so this all just came came to light – actually another person in the community – I’m not sure who who also reached out to Patrick about the wESP32 and this same issue with the RTL8201 LAN controller chip. So I’m like “wow! we’re not alone!” So somebody else had seen the issue and apparently that person is quite a bit smarter than me or at least knows a lot more about the intricacies of these types of electronic ICs and was able to figure out that there was one tiny little error on the schematic that goes back to probably 2020 or 2021 when Patrick uh and the wESP32 came out. The initial design – the error was so easy to miss because these RTL8201 Chinese LAN controller chip worked fine even with that documented mistake.
Essentially what it is is one of the pins on the chip needs to be pulled up or floating to kind of make a setting um setting for the the external clock that that um manages the timing of the ethernet uh packets and things like that it was set incorrectly in the hardware because this pin was floating instead of pulled up where it should have been. But apparently it didn’t matter for a long time until uh unbeknownst to us the Chinese chip manufacturer of the RTL8201 made a change and all of a sudden it started enforcing a different default and that is why the ethernet just stopped working on our most recent batch.
So we were able to finally correlate with a date code on on these chips and and notice that ones manufactured the date codes that starts with M and previous we’re working fine despite the design flaw and “N” and later we’re not – So the question is how do we fix it? Well the the standard answer would be we got to fix that that circuit and pull that pin high instead of keep it floating. But, there’s a better way! Or there’s another way way we can fix it in firmware!
Because these settings can also be set in software in what’s called a register on the um ethernet controller chip and I have just finished patching that in the ESP home firmware and that has been submitted and merged upstream to ESPHome and voila – flash the new firmware and the previously not working ethernet all of a sudden works perfectly!
So that’s the crazy convoluted ironic ending to this story is that these hundreds of Alarm Panel boards that we thought were a lost cause – and we had started liquidating them turns out with a simple firmware update can be fully functional on ethernet again!
So, here’s what we’re going to do. Where we are now is we have – you know – a quite a few backorders. A lot of of you are waiting for a functional ethernet Alarm Panel Pro. Some of you have already bought one of our liquidation panels for Wi-Fi only – which as soon as I finish the firmware updates and roll that out is going to magically work on ethernet now and it’s going to be working fine!
So if you purchased one of the liquidation alarm panel Pros for Wi-Fi only --congratulations you got a steal on a fantastic product at a bargain price! And with a firmware update, ethernet is going to work!
If you were one of the ones who are waiting for an Alarm Panel Pro that’s functional on ethernet and you got one of the Wi-Fi only ones we’re going to reach out to you and ask you if you want to just update the firmware on that one and keep it. And what we’ll do is – we issued you guys a $79 promotional credit which you used to purchase that Wi-Fi only board – and we’ll refill your credit and then consider your order fulfilled so you could use that credit to buy something else and you still have your ethernet Alarm Panel Pro!
For those of you who have been issued the credit but haven’t used it yet you get to keep that credit. We’re going to send you the alarm panel Pro. It’s going to take us a little bit to reflash all of these and update the firmware and repackage them and get them out the door but hopefully that will happen in the next week. For those of you who are waiting for a warranty replacement because ethernet wasn’t working and you and you paid full price for an Ethernet version uh we will reach out to you directly to make sure you can update the firmware and get back up and running and we probably don’t need to actually physically send you a new Alarm Panel.
Man … I have learned a lot in this experience. My background is in software. so before I started Konnected I really had very minimal experience in hardware aside from tinkering with stuff around the house. I’ve learned a lot from lots of people I’m a little bit shocked that – you know – myself and my team weren’t able to figure this out on our own s I hired consultants and Macrofab was looking at this problem a lot. It’s it’s a very minute detail that we seem to have missed, which is unfortunate, but you know in the end it’s a better outcome than it could have been, right? Because I thought that these boxes of Alarm Panel Pros over here were essentially worthless but now all of a sudden we have them in stock!
We’ve stopped selling the liquidation Alarm Panel Pros because, in fact, they all work fine and um we’ve stopped issuing new $79 gift card credits. If you already have one we’re not taking anything away – you got it, use it for whatever you want.
We’re going to start reaching out to people who are waiting for Alarm Panel Pros to make sure, um either you get a new one or are able to update the firmware and get back up and running so that will take some time. Then we will begin reflashing, repackaging, and shipping new Alarm Panel Pros to you and to Amazon and we’ll be back in stock in no time!
Man … uh quite a journey thank you guys for your patience and understanding on this. If you have any questions you know where to find me on the forums, by email. It’s been a an interesting year so far for Konnected but I have a feeling that this is the turning point into a great 2024!
So … surprise! We figured it out in the end! Have a great weekend and you will be getting back up and running soon.
I will post more information about the firmware updates, etc in the community and we’ll probably have a support page for it so it should be clear sooner or later how to how to make that update happen!
All right, thanks again! Have a great weekend! talk to you guys soon!
3 Likes
This is great new. I’m looking forward to updating mine and switching over to ethernet.
1 Like
As a hardware guy - it is always software fault 
Vladi
3 Likes
Great news, can’t wait to update mine. Really appreciate the transparency here.
1 Like
The firmware fix is now available in ESPHome firmware for those of you using our newest firmware platform for the Alarm Panel Pro. At this time, the ESPHome-based firmware is recommended for Home Assistant users.
Our original firmware platform will also be updated, but it’s not yet. Hang tight!
For those of you excited to update and get Ethernet working, the fix is included in ESPHome version 2024.5.0b3 and newer.
There are few ways to update:
-
Physically flash (with USB cable) the Made for ESPHome build from install.konnected.io
-
Use the Konnected app to customize the firmware settings using our hosted build service, and over-the-air update your device from the Konnected app.
-
Use ESPHome dashboard or ESPHome command line to compile and install alarm-panel-pro-v1.8-ethernet.yaml (or your customized derivative of). Must install ESPHome pre-release
pip3 install --upgrade esphome=2024.5.0b3
1 Like
Updated and working fine. Thanks Nate. Well done
Same here, I had done something that changed the entity I’d but I was able to fix that in HA.
Great news - congrats!
Can you please clarify option 3? In Home Assistant I’ve installed ESPHome Dashboard. Can you detail the steps needed from there to install the update? Including what does the sentence about “ESPHome pre-release” mean?
Home Assistant > Settings > Add-ons > ESPhome. At the top it should show the current ESPhome version. The Ethernet fix is included in ESPHome 2024.5.0 which has not been officially released yet. I don’t know if it’s possible to install a pre-release of ESPHome using the HA addon. You may have to either wait a week or so for 2024.5.0 to be officially released or use one of the other update methods.
Thanks. I found and installed the ESPHome (beta), and successfully ran the update to firmware 2024.5.0b3. However, the device info still says “alarm-panel-pro-wifi”, and is still connecting via wifi even though I have the ethernet plugged in (and supplying power over POE.) How do I change to use the ethernet version?
Change the external package name in your YAML config to alarm-panel-pro-v1.8-ethernet.yaml
Sorry but still having issues here. Likely user related!
I finally installed the ethernet version (1.8) via serial (USB) cable. I am getting POE power to the device, but no blinking lights on the ethernet connector and no connectivity, either ethernet or wifi. I’ve confirmed the cable is good - plugging it into my laptop give me a good hardwired connection. Any suggestions or things to try?
Related - what version should I be installing if I want ethernet connectivity when present, but automatic fallback to wifi when necessary?
Thanks for your ongoing help! (Feel free to move this to a different thread if appropriate.)