/r/lifx
A community space for discussion about all things LIFX.
Rule #1 Rude Behavior Simple. Just be excellent to each other. Don't get too heated, don't start tossing ad hominem attacks at people. Focus on the subject, not the person making the point. And if someone is legitimately trying to help you but you're not getting the answer you want, please don't lash out at people, including the LIFX team. We're all trying to help to the best of our abilities.
Rule #2 Negative or Does Not Promote Conversation If you need help, please ask! If you're going to complain, make it a constructive complaint. We are all here to help. Posts that are made to bash LIFX will be removed. Posts that are purely negative and/or do not promote further conversation will be removed. Constructive criticism about LIFX is perfectly acceptable, but hate, memes, and pure bashing is not.
Rule #3 Unrelated to LIFX The purpose of this subreddit is to discuss all things LIFX. Try and focus on that when you make your post. Non-LIFX posts are allowed if the goal is a discussion about LIFX. Direct links to other carrier's advertisements or press releases will likely be removed.
Rule #4 Spamming and Referral Links Our aim is to keep things tidy, a useful resource for others and utilise the flair system. Blatant spamming or links to referral pages where a user could gain will be removed. Creating multiple posts relating to the same topic from the same user is frowned upon and will also be removed - keep a topic hot and at the top by promoting conversation and engaging with other users.
Rule #5 Selling LIFX Products Reddit is not intended to be used as a marketplace and it's not something we can safely monitor so we ask that you use the proper websites around the internets. This also means we won't allow you to share your link on the sub either sorry.
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/r/lifx
Hi all, just wanted to properly announce that in app update 4.52.1 we'll be introducing two new Music Visualisers. First is an updated version of the old Visualiser and the second is a new 'EQ Visualiser' specifically for Polychrome lights.
These effects both still use the built in microphone to capture audio data, but they have been built from the ground up to provide better performance and audio analysis.
The standard Visualiser can be run on any LIFX light and will change brightness in sync with parts of the song. If you have multiple lights, the Ensemble setting will assign different lights distinct parts of the audio spectrum so you'll get a lot more diversity. (e.g. some lights will be reflecting the bass, while others the mids).
The EQ Visualiser divides up the parts of the frequency graph to different zones on your light.
With both effects you can select different themes to control what colours are applied to your lights.
The app update has been released on iOS and is just in review on Google Play at the moment. Keen to hear your feedback!
First, I was so hopeful for these products. As a coder, I looked forward to writing cool sequences for the product. Really, I was chomping at the bit.
Over $300 bucks in product going back to the store for refund. Why? Stupid software design decisions.
I managed to set up one set of (2 connected) string lights. In attempting to set up the second set of two, and finding it impossible, I was advised to clear the app (the lifx app) cache. I did. It erased the first successfully set up light.
Cache - a term used nearly universally to mean temporary or ephemeral data not important stuff like already installed hardware. That's one.
Two, no warning that this will erase previously defined groups, homes, etc.
Three, no feed back that the cache had been cleared. One might sit for a lifetime clicking on clear cache wondering if it did so.
Three fails on one feature. Hopefully a manager signed off on this feature. Fire them. A software team implemented this feature. Fire them.
Second, onboarding is in general a major fail. Apparently, you can onboard two different ways. Directly or with Home Kit. You are forced into Home Kit. But are you? If you wait 15 minutes (no explanation given), you can, in theory, onboard in the app.
Oh, and for that first successfully onboarded string light? It never actually worked in Home Kit.
For the second device I tried two different network controllers (the little black box - credit Roger Waters) both of which presented 2.4 GHz networks which I joined. Neither of them worked for onboarding - communication errors - when trying manually. No devices found when trying automatically.
I was about to have these permanently strung in tree limbs. I am glad I was able to cancel the electricians.
I would say these products are not ready for prime time but they're not new. The same problems I found appear in youtube reviews stretching back years.
These products are going back to Home Depot for refund. I wouldn't recommend any lifx product to anyone for any reason for any use for any purpose. None. Never.
Hi all,
We have some new downlights launching in 2025 and would love to get some users to test them out.
If you have the ability to install 4" canless or 4" retrofits and want to help, sign-up here.
If chosen, we will send you 2 units to test out (and keep). All you need to do is answer some questions and help us make sure the products are ready for prime time.
Thanks in advance.
https://reddit.com/link/1gdnipc/video/yjug1ubondxd1/player
I have a new apartment (that I won't be moving into for a few days) where the permanent network isn't set up yet. I have four brand-new LIFX tubes that I got from Home Depot. Three lit up fine and stayed lit up. The fourth lit up, but then started turning on and off randomly. It also started rebooting repeatedly as shown in the video. To be clear, none of them are connected to a Wi-Fi network or configured.
I opened a ticket, but the first request wasn't encouraging because the tech asked me to try a different lamp (which I've already done because this isn't my first rodeo) and to send the logs from the app (which makes no sense because the bulbs aren't on a network yet.) Can I send my ticket number to someone for some help, please?
Thanks in advance!
Hello everyone,
I just posted a small review of my experience with LIFX for the past 6 years, going through some use-cases and showcasing how we solved different problems.
Hope someone can find some value in the video, and would also appreciate any feedback from more experienced LIFX users as well! I would also appreciate it a lot of you guys would give it some love on YouTube so I hopefully get some more reach for my small channel! Ultimate Smart Lighting Setup! 165 Feet of LIFX Lights with Homey, Google & Custom API Controls!
I have also been looking a bit on the new outdoor series that looks super nice, and I have been considering purchasing some spotlights, path lights and strips to replace our Hue and Twinkly lights. Considering maybe then also doing a review of the outdoor products with some side by side comparison with Hue Lily spotlights, their GU10 spots and Twinkly Festoons against LIFX´s product range. Any feedback on the idea, and maybe things you would like me to research more, test out, or feedback from my previous video that I should take into account for the new video?
Thanks in advance!
ForeverFlow
Saw new options for visualizer fx yesterday, one for normal lights and one for polychrome lights, but they have since disappeared. It was night time so I couldn't test them out and was planning to when I woke up, by which time they were gone.
Did anyone notice this?
Hi all, I will soon be setting up a new Eero router in a new apartment with new Lifx bulbs. Is there anything specifically about the Eero configuration that I should know? I'm not sure if you can create a separate IoT network on an Eero. Thanks in advance for any advice!
Got a couple two packs from Home Depot 4ish months ago, what info do I need to get a warranty replacement? I saved some of the paperwork but is there a serial number on the bulb housing? Or in app? It was paired and working and just stopped turning on at all under any circumstances. Thanks in advance for any tips! It’s an A19 1100 lumen bulb. Other three continue to work flawlessly.
Standard question…when Australia? :)
I have always had issues with getting the lights to updates. From making sure that my phone is on the right network to repeated failed attempts. These are the only cloud connected devices that I can think of that will not update on their own. Does anyone know why can't this be fixed so that they automatically update?
Recently bought the LIFX light beam bars and just wanted to know if the app or HomeKit was more reliable
The light is dope af and would love to keep it but i cant deal with the buzzing sound coming from the light. Does anybody know what could be causing the buzzing sound and if there's a diy fix? Since lifx is constantly trying to gas light everybody like their is not a buzzing sound it dont look like its getting fixed anytime soon so im trying to diy fix it.
If a lifx employee sees this atleast tell me what component is causing the buzzing....yall cant seriously tell me yall have tested this light and dont hear a buzzing sound coming from it no other led light i have does this
I posted a similar thing on r/Govee with no responses yet, but I'm just looking for some advice before I pull the trigger. I bought 2x 2m 1st gen LIFX Z strips back in 2017 and at the time I made my decision based on the fact the LIFX Z strips were brighter and more accurate and Philips Hue which was its main competitor. These two 2m kits have been fine for my current setup, but I'm moving house and going to be placing them horizontally on a wall with a 5m width which means I need 10meters in total and I'd need to upgrade.
For whatever reason LIFX are really hard to find in the UK but I already have an A19 bulb alongside the 2 Z strips so I face a dilemma of sticking with LIFX despite the astronomical price of £95 a meter or moving to an entirely new ecosystem ditching LIFX altogether.
I love the features of LIFX but to be honest the light connectivity issues are ass and I'm convinced its app related. I've followed the reccomended setup steps to isolate them onto their own 2.4GHz network but even so they drop out on the app all too frequently. And I'm convinced its the app simply because even when they drop out from the app I can still control them through the Google Home app. So frustrated with these issues I started to look elsewhere and found Govee.
On the surface they looked like the average Chinesium knockoff brand but looking deeper at their product stack I found the Govee Strip Light 2 Pro and watching a review of it I'm really impressed and seems to have the majority of features that LIFX offer and at £80 for a 5m kit it seems perfect for what I'm after. Does anyone have any experience with Govee and do you think its worth switching over? Or does anyone reccomend any alternatives?
No idea if this has ever been brought up but I’m going to ask about it anyway. Has there ever been any thought to adding functionality to the app to program “soft buttons” on a switch to allow triggering a bulb at a set brightness percentage? As an example, switch with bulbs in a restroom. In the middle of the night nobody wants to turn the light on full intensity. Why can’t we set one of the switch buttons to control the light with a specific brightness value? I’ve got several switches in my home already and this added functionality would be awesome.
I know I'm not the only one who has had this issue - and LIFX no longer supply the power supply as a standalone part. Trying to source one secondhand costs as much as replacing the whole lightstrip setup, so I wanted to know if there was a different way.
The main issue that makes replacing a burnt-out LIFX power supply difficult is that it only has a male DC plug. Most DC power supplies will use a male DC head - so this necessitates the use of the female-female barrel to connect them together
The below solution should work for LIFX and LIFX Z (as they both have the same power requirements).
LIFX: LC3C1IN
LIFX Z: LZCTLDC2INT
(Quick picture of the culprit 😡)
See: my burnt-out power supply that shorted my house twice and smells of burnt plastic :(
Was a real hassle to do the maths & sizing, but here is what works. You will need both of these:
Female to Female DC Adapter barrel 5.5mmx2.1mm
www.ebay.com.au/itm/272581121806
24V DC Power Supply 1.25A
https://www.jaycar.com.au/24v-dc-1-25a-power-supply-7dc-plugs/p/MP3494
(the blue-tipped DC head is the right size - 5.0mm outer diameter (OD) x 2.1mm inner diameter (ID))
See: DC Adaptor, Female-female barrel and the LIFX power input
Notes on the DC Power Supply:
Mine came with 7 heads - the blue-tip one is what works for me.
I put all of this together after heaps of research about the LIFX power supply & reading other threads here on this subreddit :) thankfully it works like a charm for me - but after the first burn-out, I always unplug my LIFX from the wall when I am sleeping or away from home. (Australian links, as I am Australian-based).
This still adds up in $$$ (this solution cost me $5 AUD + $48 AUD), but I'm trying to be conscious about electrical waste and didn't want to throw away my perfectly good lightstrip just cause the powersupply needed replacing.
I welcome any feedback from folks that know more about electronics & power than me!
So I have spent six months in the past making sure I disable all features on a separate IOT 2.4 network and providing a blanket of APs on 1,6, 11 channels, fixed IPs etc through my apartment to keep my 65+ LIFX (mainly the older downlight, some newer down-lights and Z strips) online. I got it to a nice consistent point where nothing would drop off unless I was silly enough to try doing some crazy light show using an app with fast changing light colours. (You can overwhelm the LIFX downlights).
Recently I noticed some lights start shows as offline in the LIFX app, but if I go into my UniFi app, they are still showing as fully connected, however the traffic shows 0kbps. You cannot issue any commands to them from that point not even a reset command and you cannot communicate with them, even via HomeKit, et cetera. These lights arent always ones with less than perfect connections…. One specific recurring one is 1.5metres from its AP!
This was after I changed one access point from my usual U6 pro’s to a U7 Pro. I tried swapping one to see if it provided even stronger connectivity because LIFX lights really need good connections to be reliable.
Mysteriously - there is one simple way to bring the light back into communication (without powering it off of course). Whilst it shows as connected in your Unifi app if you click the reconnect button under the setting screen for that particular device then a few seconds later it starts communicating again and it appears back online in the LIFX app.
I’m pretty sure it has only occurred with the LIFX lights that have been connecting to the new U7 pro AP, not the U6 Pro. This makes me suspect that even though nothing shows in the log for the device going dormant that it could be the Unifi end that has decided that it’s not worth talking to this device for some reason? Different code for the radios in the U7 pros?
What Does “reconnect” actually do on the APs?
Not sure if this is an LIFX question or a Unifi one so apologies that I will be posting it in both, any thoughts on how to debug this would be appreciated as well. Otherwise I’m starting to wonder if I could create a Home Assistant script to spot LIF Ex lights that I’ve had zero throughput for a long time and press the Unifi reconnect button but that would be a rather complex little script at best.
I'm a bit out of touch since lifx left uk and europe but still using and sourcing where I can,
Recently got a new PC and had to reach out to a plug in developer who used to have a lifx plug in to control via Web app which he sent me,
However can anyone tell me if there is an app on android that offers LAN control rather than through the cloud. Ideally not home assistant
I noticed that my Flic twist stopped adjusting the brightness of my lights when using the twist action.
As part of my own diagnosis I discovered that any actions using 'LIFX local network' were failing but those using the 'LIFX cloud' were working as expected.
As further troubleshooting I tried removing all my lights from the LIFX local network list in the Flic app, however when I click the button in the Flic app to 'reload LIFX bulbs' nothing is found.
I have not had any infrastructure changes in terms of network hardware or software.
Is this something anyone else has experienced or have any potential solutions?
Thank you in advance.
I would like to use the LIFX strip in a situation where it isn’t as bright as I would like.
Anyone knowing the technology behind this, the four wires were presumably two of them data the other two power et cetera …
If I got my electrician to modify so that the controller went straight to 2 sets of LIFX strips (and obviously I would only be allowed to go to half the maximum length in terms of powering them from the one controller)…. Would they work then in parallel even if doing things like animation on the strips?
I think the fact that you see it chase a light to the end when it’s trying to calculate the number of strips tells me that it must be getting some feedback and this wouldn’t work .
I obviously don’t want to run the strip to the end and back as that would cause any lighting movement patterns just to seem doubly bizarre.
(And before LIFX reply: fully aware this would void any warranty, not be recommended and get me smackky bottoms)
The FX are some of the best parts of the products that support the blended light zones. I see some older posts on this subreddit that they were coming "soon". Any updates I missed?
Are there any plans in the works for a directional bulb? I have 9 of the Par38 bulbs that I’m using for holiday lighting. The colors are fantastic, but I need something that’s a bit more focused. Shadows are just as important as light, and there’s no shadows. (And I hate the spillover light on the grass)
I’m a long time LIFX user and have a bunch of switches installed throughout my home. I find the switches can be really useful for all sorts of automations and multi switching.
I really like how the switch buttons illuminate brighter when the relays are switched on for dumb lights, however I really wish it were possible to manually control the brightness/on/off state of the button lights themselves for LIFX lights or other automations to give an indication on the status of the lights and what lights they may be controlling.
In the photo attached, the first button controls some dumb lights that are on, and the second controls a set of LIFX lights that are… also on. It would be great to be able to show this through the switch.
First off, lemme say that it's a great idea. Having the ability to control 2-4 separate nodes remotely, even if they aren't smart-friendly, is great; but there's a huge problem that blocks this product from being customer-friendly: The 2-button switch sits in a 1-gang box, and the 4-button switch ALSO sits in a 1-gang box.
In the case of the two button, the issue isn't as glaring as the 4-button, but I would still consider the implementation to be incorrect. LIFX offers a switch-plate so that you can easily install this 2 button switch into a 1-gang box. A 1 gang box holds 1 switch, so it's pretty obvious what the first button is used for - but what about the second button? If I only own one smart light, and it's on this switch, then the second button is both misleading, and wasted.
The second, and more egregious issue is the hassle it is when you want to put this 2/4-button smart-switch into a 2/4-gang switchbox. I consider this to be a bigger issue because it's where a user is more likely going to think that their shiny new switch belongs. One button for the light, one button for the fan. Well, only after you build a custom switchplate, or open up your wall to rebuild the gangbox.. This issue is doubled for the 4 button switch: The use-case for this item is so small because there's just not room in a 1-gang box for 4 sets of wires, and the likelyhood of a person needing to control 4 nodes from a control panel built for 1 node is slim.
LIFX should absolutely offer a 4-to-1 and 2-to-1 converter switchplates to give this product more value.
Hello,
I purchased some LIFX downlights, one to replace a current fixture and one to be installed new in the ceiling.
However, our contractor discovered that there is no can in the existing one. It sounds like the Downlights require a can to retrofit to.
My question: is there a relatively reliable and/or cost-effective way to install these lights without a can and bulb fixture? Or are we out of luck for using them?
I’ve read some posts that imply additional firmware effects are coming to some products. Is it possible to get an idea of what is coming?
I’m specifically interested in what effects are coming to light strips as it seems like “move” is the only effect right now.
Ideally I want to be able to call more effects via scenes or API to add some variety.
Thanks!
Is there a way I can control my lights with my Mac laptop? I can't seem to find the official app and I am hesitant of purchasing one without making sure it works as advertised. Thanks!
Could we have an option to scrubbing (like navigating along a video timeline) along a routine to speed up its progress. There are routines like evening relaxation that I want to end sooner some nights.
Or this could be set time option that compacts the existing routine, to that new finish time?
Thanks!
I just bought a handful of 2 button switches to put around my house. I got them all instaled and set up pretty easily. The problem is, when I open the LIFX app to make changes, my switches don’t show up in my device list. I’ll restart the app, and see them all, but when I select one, make a change and back out to the main device view, they are all gone again. Sometimes I have to restart the app several times to make the switches show up but they always disappear after I make changes to one switch. Has anyone experienced this and know how to fix this issue?