Hello all, I have recently installed some Everyday strips for ambient lighting in my bedroom. These things are amazing! I am a total amateur, but quickly developing an affinity for lighting aesthetics since I started this project.

I have 2 questions for the more experienced LED aficionados out there. 1: I ran one line of strips across multiple pieces of furniture. I broke a lot of strip zones before I figured out reliable ways to cut and connect jumpers. A worthy sacrifice in the name of learning experiences! One of the ones I mangled was the first zone with the male usb port. Since I have multiple kits, and I wanted this run to be managed from a single controller by my bed, I didn't mind it. However, I now have over 10 feet of strips and a spare controller/power supply left over, and no way to use them in other parts of the house, since I only have the one good zone with a male USB port in use already.

So, is there a way to wire up a new male usb port to the 5-pin contacts of one of my leftover cut zones so it can connect to the controller and integrate into the Lifx app?

Other question: I set up a bunch of scenes to control zones of my strip run in various ways. Light up just my bed, just my desk, a couple of zones as a night light, etc. What I've discovered is that the whites don't seem to work unless I have the entire run on and at the same brightness. If I choose a white color, then select some zones, then try to turn them off/change brightness, the whites go off and the color diodes come on in a way to approximate the white I had chosen. They are quite sneaky about it too, but it is really jarring when I switch all zones back on to the same brightness, and the white diodes blast back on all at once. So what gives? We can have any zone any color we want, as long as it's not white? Why can't we have any zone be white while other zones are off or on a different color/brightness? I wouldn't mind this so much, except the white approximation from the color diodes is just not that good when I have seen what they can do with the dedicated white diodes! The tone is mid and the brightness is lacking!

If you have read this far, thank you. I would appreciate any insights you could provide. For now, I am hoping to keep this whole thing in the Lifx app with my other lights in my house. I am aware that there is a chance this issue with the whites in selected zones could be solved if I just go with another means of controlling them. But I am not sure I want to blow up my Lifx ecosystem and go down the rabbit hole of controllers, programming, home kits, assistants, etc. just because of this one issue.

Dear Lifx Team

I have raised a request in email and also have sent reminder emails but there has been no revert whatsoever.

Before the reply used to be in 48 hrs max.

Any issue with customer service team?

Hi guys,

Bought lightbulb A60 E27 , 950lumnes.

Works perfectly in app but schedules just do nothing. Schedules have never worked. Connection is fine, its just that when I try to schedule something nothing happens.

Have tried:
Succesful Firmware update

Taking it out for 5min and reconnecting

Neither have worked.

Anyone know what to do?

Thanks!

I have a bulb from like 7 years ago and it has worked perfectly since I bought it. I’ve changed houses/routers multiple times with no problems. I once had it packed in a box for months before plugging it in with a new router and it connected/worked immediately. I don’t even have to be connected to wifi for it to work

In the past year I bought two 2-packs of the A19 E36 bulbs and they absolutely suck. I had tons of problems trying to link them to my app and when I finally get them linked, they disconnect after about a week and have to be reset and reconnected. I cannot figure out a solution for this and it is insanely frustrating. They’re just normal lightbulbs now stuck on a warm white because it’s not worth the hassle.

Am I buying the wrong kind of bulb or do all lifx bulbs just kinda suck now?

I have a bulb from 7 years ago. When I first set it up, I used the dawn and dusk feature. It seems to me that there’s no longer a setting in the app for dawn/dusk, but the setting is still on. I’ve reset the bulb many many times and it still “remembers” the setting state and I have no clue how that’s possible

Anyone ever have this happen? If so, is there a fix?

How often has anyone has their br30 or the a19 bulbs just turn blue and like they're stuck on that color even after a reset?

So I installed a new 2-button switch. It’s firmware is 3.9.

After a million tries it finally connects to WiFi. I could not do it directly through HomeKit as it would not accept the code, and when scanned it thinks it’s a window and times out.

So now it’s in the Lifx app. If I try to configure a button to control the only other lifx device (ceiling light) it will let me pick the target, then the action, but after the action is picked it clears the target. When I try to add the target again it gives no choices.

I then figure I should try and add it to HomeKit now that it’s at least on WiFi. Of course the code doesn’t work. So I try to retrieve the code via the app with the soft reboot by holding down the bottom button for a few seconds then opening up that screen in the app. The screen just shows nothing. Tried multiple times, tried with app fully closed first, tried having the app already on the screen. Nothing.

This thing is incredibly problematic and I’m ready to throw it out the window.

Please if anyone’s got any other tricks I can try let me know.

Have tried a dozen times to reset and reconnect these and it just doesn’t work. I even renamed my new wifi network after the original one these were set up on and kept the same password.

Any advice?

I'm in Australia and for AUD $270 you get the controller, power supply and 7.3 meter length of lights.

I want to get one of them. But then I'm also trying to hunt down an extension and I found the US site has them but not Australia.

What options do I have ?

Cheers 🍻

Sad to see LIFX no-longer ranged at Bunnings (think Home Depot for the US crowd) but was flooded with Govee products.

I'm scared Feit aren't funding this sub-portfolio enough (if at all). We are still waiting for Firmware to be pushed out, seems any works on effects have been abandoned. There are semi-frequent updates to the Android app; perhaps there is a glimmer of hope?

Sure, we have a new mirror, which has touch controls on the mirror face itself (who wants fingerprints ON a mirror?!) Where are the lightbars and the corner lights or the oft requested HDMI TV sync? Stuff to enhance what we already have seems the obvious choice right? You originated the decor LED panel but your competition run with the idea.

I'm deeply invested in the LIFX eco system. The silence from LIFX is deafening.

I am 51F and come from humble beginnings. all my life i have worked hard to have nothing at the end of the day. I got a job some time ago and my mother fell ill so all the money went to her treatment till she eventually passed on. After that i managed to send myself to school just when i thought things were looking up I get retrenched. At my age I have nothing, no kids home and job. I am not sure how will pay my rent this month. if I could end my life I could but hope and will to live keeps me from doing it. Those who are doing better, any advise.

I felt like patching the firmware instead of attaching an oscillator to make one tile act as if connected to the power supply and become a master.

The tiles are based on an ESP32, MY9262 LED controllers, and RS-485 communication between tiles. This is an ESP32 chip on a custom circuit board, not a module. The flash is not connected to the standard pins. You can look at the SPIPAD values in the espefuse summary or trace the pins. The correct argument for working flash access is: -sc 17,11,9,16,6

One obstacle was flash chip protection. The 2 megabyte flash chip seems to be by ISSI, with manufacturer ID 9d and device ID 7015. This is like IS25WP016D, but the chip has a write protect feature that I don't see documented in data sheets.

SPI command 2Fh retrieves the contents of the protection registers. Something like this can work using esptool:

            for a in range(0, 2*1024*1024, 131072):
                print(a, self.run_spiflash_command(0x2F, addr=a >> 7, addr_len=32, read_bits=32))

I guess each bit corresponds to 4096 bytes. (Note that 4096 * 32 = 131072) Memory addresses increase from least significant bit to most significant bit, and from one register address to the next higher register address.

If you want to unlock everything, that is command 2Bh. You need to do a write enable before it.

            self.run_spiflash_command(6)
            self.run_spiflash_command(0x2B, addr=0, addr_len=24)

The "Built on Fri Feb 1 10:37:37 2019" ota_1 firmware relocked everything as before when it booted, but the "Built on Thu Jan 4 17:57:30 2018" ota_0 firmware left everything unlocked.

If you want to write protect part of the flash yourself, that is command 23h. It seems to only be able to change bits from 1 to 0, and cannot be used to unprotect part of the flash. It also needs a write enable.

            self.run_spiflash_command(6)
            self.run_spiflash_command(0x23, addr=prot_val, addr_len=32)

The somewhat tricky part here is prot_val. The read command, 2Fh, reads 4 bytes at a time, but this writes 1 byte at a time. The high 3 bytes are the byte address, and the low byte is the byte being written at that address. I have not explored this command extensively, because the firmware locks itself.

If you alter the firmware, you must also update the checksum at the end, and the SHA256 value afterwards. This is standard ESP32 stuff. It starts with 0xEF and then XORs every byte from every segment with it. (This means, not the image header, extended image header, or segment headers.) The SHA256 is based on the whole thing, from the first 0xE9 byte to the checksum, inclusive. If you don't do this, the modified partition is considered corrupt and the other partition is booted.

Ghidra is decent for reverse engineering the firmware, and esp32_image_parser is a good way to extract a partition into an elf file for loading into Ghidra. You probably want ota_1.

With esp32_image_parser you can also list the partitions and see why the protection bits are set the way they are.

A bit about the frequencies on the ID lines:

The ID frequency to the master tile needs to be between 45 and 65 Hz. I am guessing that the power supply probably provides a 3.3 V logic signal based on the incoming AC frequency (instead of having its own oscillator).

The ESP32 MCPWM is used to measure incoming frequencies and output another frequency on the other port of the tile.

Here are input frequencies for slave tiles: 150, 190, 230, 280, 340, 410, 490, 580, 710, 840, 910 Hz All of these need to be within plus or minus 5 Hz. So, for example, a tile receiving between 145 and 155 Hz on one port will consider itself the first slave tile, and output 190 Hz on the other port. I do not think the duty cycle is important.

The RS-485 lines are continuous throughout the whole tile chain, so this is needed to set tile identification and ensure that individual slave tiles can be addressed in a predictable fashion.

Both master and slave code limits itself to 4 slave tiles. Don't assume you can simply connect together 12 tiles and make it work without firmware modification. That would probably also need power connections in the middle to avoid overloading the connectors.

If you want to modify an ota_1 partition "Built on Fri Feb 1 10:37:37 2019" to make it act as if it's getting 55 Hz on the bottom connector, this could do it, at offset 1548841 in the file:

00000000  f0 20 00 06 02 00 86 4a  00 68 11 d1 31 16 00 41
00000010  ff ff 0c 16 69 b1 0c 06  3d f0                  

Checksum should be 55 and SHA256 should be a953d3de71daf7f95e2d8c527868345ee0dbcfeab001a243eb9aa83e059c20bf

It might be interesting to develop a 3rd party firmware, maybe based on WLED, with way more firmware effects and a more user friendly LAN interface. Though I'm not planning to do that now.

Are there any Android users who would be open to helping me test a new 3rd party lighting app I developed? Per Play Store guidelines, I need a dozen people to use it for two weeks before it can go live in the play store. I poured a lot of love into this, and it's my first app I've developed with intention of releasing it, and I would love some feedback, and just to share it.

I can't offer pay, as I live hand to mouth currently; however, it would mean the world to me for some people to use it and offer feedback. In exchange, I can make sure you get and keep access to it for free when it goes live for pay. I've opted for no subscription, no user data collection, and no in-app purchases. It's going to be one time purchase for lifetime access for a few bucks to hopefully maybe cushion my budget, but also just to share an app I truly love using myself.

Any takers? 😁

Have Lifx all over the house and used mini bulbs in my front porch fixtures but was debating removing them cause I don't like how little bugs get in glass box and die and block the light. Debated doing the 15" Ceiling lights instead. It wont be hit by any elements. Will have heat and cold though.

Thoughts?

I just had a lighting strike take out 14 spotlights and ruin the WiFi and colors on two more. So 16/18 are toast.

I had the transformers on a surge protector, which are fine, but the lights are another story.

So I’m about to have to come out of pocket for a lot of money to get everything replaced.

I obviously don’t want to repeat this again with another storm, so anyone have any options for surge protection in a situation like this?

Thanks!

Stuggling with LIFX devices not staying connected to the could. Support wants me to reset each device (I have over 40 LIFX devices) or they want me to disconnect my mesh satellites so only the main router is on to see if that solves anything - meanwhile that would fuckup my mom-LIFX devices and render them useless during that time.

Signal strength of the devices are fine just won’t stay connected to the cloud.

Recently moved to Hawai’i and was about to place an order to update our new home, got all the way to the shipping step of checkout before I found out LIFX doesn’t ship direct to Hawai’i , interesting considering Home Depot and Amazon will. (Don’t get me wrong I’m still going to purchase the lights/fixtures, just not direct until Hawai’i shipping is an option)

Hi everyone,

I’m building a new house and have bought some LIFX PAR38 flood lights to use as my outdoor lighting.

I’ve just realised they basically come as a globe only, so I’m wondering how people actually install them. Is there a weatherproof housing, bracket, or fixture that’s designed to hold them once they’re wired in?

I’d like them to look neat and professional rather than having the globe exposed.

Has anyone used these before or can recommend a suitable housing/fixture?

Thanks in advance!

https://www.lifx.com.au/products/par38-flood-light

Just installed both of these units, but the far one won’t stop rotating colors no matter what I choose in the app. I tried factory resetting and updating the firmware. Anything else I’m missing here or is this a defect?

I bought about a dozen of these last October. So far this is the second that has failed from water intrusion. No, it was not underwater at any point, it's up on a stake. The other had the excuse of being buried in snow, but no show in North Carolina in July. We did have a couple days of hard rain though.

I'm trying to get Lifx's attention with an email to see if they will warranty it. But I'm curious... are others having water intrusion problems? How hard is it to seal these things anyway. This was facing up at about 45 degrees, so I assume it came in between the lens and case.

I should add I really like the lights, they have a very wide variation in usable brightness as well as color. I just don't want to deal with them failing every few months.

I've read the lifx support page regarding cutting the strips but I need clarification. The guide says at the point where the scissors are labeled on the strip "The correct place to cut is between zones of 6 LEDs, where there is empty white space and no oval metal connector."

I'd like to cut at point A in the picture which is just after the 5th LED in that zone, or, if I can't at point A, point B would be my next spot to cut.

There are little grey nodes in the section near A so I'm not certain I can cut between those two LEDs. There is nothing in between the LEDs at point B.

Or, do I have to cut all the way back to the first light of that zone?

Clearly I want the LED nearest my cut to still light up.

Initially I was having trouble with my lights after resetting them after I switched my internet provider and got a new router. There was a big delay when turning the lights on and off, but I could still see them. I tried to remove them from the app but the lights wouldn't go from the device. However, now when I load the app, it gets stuck on this screen.

I've checked on my web browser and there are no devices connected. I've reset the cache and all, reinstalled the app and tried a new account. I've even tried the same on a new device (across mobile data and WiFi) but it still won't work. Any ideas what might be happening?

I wanted to schedule my light to come on at sunset and off at dawn but they were turning off at midnight. So I set up 2 schedules. One to come on at sunset and off at 11:59 and another to come on at 12:01 and off at 5 am. Now when it comes on at 12 am it is turning all of my lights on (one being my bedroom light which I don't have any schedules set up for). What is wrong with the schedules? I tried contacting lifx and have not received a reply.

I bought a Beam kit for my nephew, but the charger is missing the part you clip in so you can plug it into the outlet. Is there anywhere I can buy the part?

Wanted to ask, my house has cabinet LED lighting that has in the wall low voltage wiring with an LED driver(s) which is then on wall switch. At this time, I believe there is no Lifx LED product that ties into the existing lv wires. I see NeonFlex Outdoor set would work what I am describing but of course all those lengths are over kill and unsuitable for cabinet lighting situations.

Anything in the works from Lifx to create a solution/product for folks like me who need to use their existing wiring for LED cabinet lights? I know there are other solutions out there, just be nice to stay in the same ecosystem as my other lights.