Costco Dual Socket Outdoor WiFi Smart Plugs Tear-down

Prologue:

So in the past I have had success with flashing custom firmware on the Costco outdoor smart outlets, but like I said that was the past. Over the past 2 years WiFi devices that used to have the infamous ESP8266 module on board have increasingly become replaced with other soc (System On a Chip). While I do hate this fact, I will say that it’s not entirely to thwart people from flashing it. The new chips mostly use an ARM architecture and can prove to have better abilities where security is involved. That also said, I highly doubt more security measures have been taken.

So now I digress and get to the meat of my point. The new outlets feature a bk7231tqn32 chip making it far less easy to flash with custom firmware and impossible with the current variants of Tasmota. I figured I would share some pictures below to give you an idea of what is in this device. So if you find it helpful awesome, if not, there’s the door… Also, if you have any thoughts to contribute make sure leave some more info below.

Notes:

This things has some really shitty mechanical crimps on the high voltage connections and tiny traces as well. Please make sure you don’t over load this plug.

Warning!!! Rant to ensue…

I mean honestly WTF, how much more time and cost would it be to at least add a little solder. I know we have a chip shortage, but is there also a solder shortage??? I mean I guess the only other option is a competency shortage. Yeah I like that one. I go with that.

Gut Photos

 

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