Home Automation

Tell it every half hour to turn off... except the times it is supposed to be on.

Give you neighbor a scene switch connected to your Alexa that can control your light.

Simplest solution (which I have also used in the past) is to schedule a turn off event at say 4am and 6am.

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If it's already off, then there will no difference.

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Don't over engineer the solution, unless you really have to :)

There are lots of good points here about preventing the annoyance to start with: better fixture/bulb/aiming, timer. Are you willing to cede control at a time when you may be expecting someone or put it on briefly so you can see?

I recommendcthese other approaches first. Why make your neighbor do something to remedy the problem?

Kasa switches can be set to turn off automatically X minutes after being turned on.

The neighbor could log in under your kasa account but would then have control over all devices in there. I wouldn't have a problem with this. I share my account with my father. We randomly turn each others lights on and off. It's fun

Lots of other solutions provided, but to answer your question, yes, you can give them your kasa (or tapo) account log in information which would let them control all of your kasa/tapo stuff (including cameras if you have them).

You could create a separate kasa account, then reset your porch light kasa switch and join it to the new account. Then just share that account with your neighbour, she'll be able to control it from her home wifi via remote access. You won't be able to integrate the porch light with alexa or any other kasa devices on your main account once it's separate.

I highly recommend not giving your neighbor, however nice they may be now, control or the illusion of control in this situation. Situations change, either relationship-wise or otherwise. It’s best to resolve the actual issue, and not make a problem worse by fixing the annoyance to your neighbor, and/or fixing your automation to better suit both of your needs.

Attach a shade on the side of the light which directly effects your neighbor. Large plant/statue/tree to reduce/eliminate problem. You can also add another schedule as others suggested to turn off after it's been on for a specified amount of minutes. Still I would rather see if I can block the light to my neighbor so that I can use my smart light whenever and however I want :)

Giving access for your smart switch to your neighbor is no-no for me.

Use webhooks. In Alexa, add a webhook as a trigger and a routine to turn off the lamp, and your neighbor just needs to go to this specific url and turn off the light. Simple and fast.

https://trigger.esp8266-server.de/

https://www.amazon.com/Michael-Dworkin-Webhook-Routine-Trigger/dp/B09RGPYHLL

I'm sorry, I couldn't resist posting this here

She doesn't have curtains?

If your porch light is annoying your neighbour then you need to fix the LIGHT (ie: its throw) so it doesn't shine (or reflect) into their windows before playing with any automation or remote controls

"Light Trespass" is a major issue and the kind of thing that local authorities (councils) tend to take seriously

A Google search on that term will underscore that message

ie: deal with the problem "at root cause" rather than trying to patch a poor setup by adding complexity

From your descriptions, I have the same Kasa switch set up (with bulbs that are three stories high thanks to a walkout basement). I have them set to go off 15 min after turning on so as to 1) not waste the bulb and 2) not cause issues for neighbors. So the dog can go outside and all is good without me having to worry.

This is a 30 second solution.

Under no circumstances would I give access to my smart devices to a neighbor.

i use the same setup. create a guest account on kasa and share access to that specific switch with your neighbor. that way they can control just the porch light without affecting the rest of your setup.

I have my front outside on from sunset to sunrise, but at a low power setting. I want to say I keep it around 10-20% power.

You could also add a motion sensor outside that when triggerd could switch the lights to 100% for 5 minutes, resetting the timer as long as there is motion detected.

I am using Casetta light switches where ever I want diming.

Add an automation for Alexa to scream all over the house when left on outside the schedule. It’ll reeducate everyone to turn the lights off when done 😉

Now seriously: you could use another automation to turn it off after some time. Or improve it with presence/motion sensors to turn it off when no-one’s around.

Finally, if you really want to let her control the lights, I guess you could expose those to a “new virtual” house and invite her to that house. I’m not sure how it could be done in Alexa, though.

Honestly you need to go low-tech here. Make it an IR bulb and give the neighbor a cheap IR remote to turn it off.

I also agree with /u/stoatwblr in make sure there's a cut off for the light.

If your smart home has wireless devices (eg Zigbee) and your homes are fairly close, buy a wireless switch, set it up to turn the light off and give it to them?

Get a wireless wall switch and program it to turn off that light?

Buy a motion detector

"Alexa turn off the porch light" before you head to bed. Or set up an IFTT timer to check it at 1am everyday and turn it off.

While there are a lot of good suggestions tangential to your request, I think Kasa lights are tied to a cloud account. So, I think you could setup a cloud account for just that light. Put the app on her phone under that account. Tie just that one switch to that account. On your phone you would need to switch accounts to manage that device. I don't know if you can tie multiple Kasa accounts to an Alexa, so you might lose that integration. Should take about 15 minutes of poking around to get it all to work, or prove it is a bad idea.

Simple automation is your friend.
Trigger, light turns on for x minutes
Condition, between the hours of x & y
Action, turn the damn light off.

You should make a secondary turn off time or max on time, I wouldn't give access.

The only way to let her into your wifi switches is to let her into your wifi. Its too complicated to get them to learn it. Id say you rather just create 2-3 extra scheduled turn off times, so if it ever misses one turn off command, it will catch the next one.

Either add another schedule to sweep it off later at night or add a motion sensor for after hours.

Have an Alexa routinue that runs at midnight or 10pm or whatever and just turns everything off just in case. I have a few of those routinues set up to turn off my kids room lights, turn off their music, etc. etc. I have a bathroom light routinue that runs every hour all night to turn the lights off in case they get up in the night, use the bathroom and leave the light on.

If time between X:XX PM and Y:YY AM and light has been on for more than 15m —> turn light off.