Discovery and moving numerous new [Wiz] devices to DHCP reservations

I am adding a very large number of Wifi devices to my LAN, Philips Wiz smartbulbs. Currently, I have about 30, but when all is said and done, I will have about 200.

Here is how I’m going about this.

  1. When initially setting those bulbs with the Wiz app, they get a random IP address from my DHCP server of 192.168.101.x . For others also using Wiz, this step is actually quite long - I setup the bulbs on a test bench with plug-in sockets, use the app to set them up, let the firmware upgrade run, etc. Adding 1 or 2 at a time is the most I do. More than that and usually it fails with timeouts during discovery over Bluetooth.

  2. Home Assistant discovers new devices nearly instantly, and they show up under Settings / Devices. So far, so good.

  1. As I do for all my devices, I then add these bulbs to the DHCP server IP reservation table in pfSense. This also includes setting up a local DNS hostname and description. Reservations are either in the 192.168.100.x or, when that overflows later this week, 192.168.101.x .

  2. I use the Unifi “reconnect” feature, which kicks the new devices off Wifi, and lets them reconnect, instantly acquiring their new IP address. A simpler way to do it is to reboot all the APs, though not quicker as the mesh needs to rebuild itself and that takes a few minutes.

  3. Unfortunately, at this point, Home Assistant is still showing the discovered devices as in the screenshot in step 2, ie. with their initial dynamic IP address.

  4. Absent a re-discovery process, I have been clicking “Ignore” on every single new device.

  5. I then use the “Add a device” function, with the Philips Wiz integration, and leave the IP address blank to let it run discovery.

  6. The discovery shows a long list of new devices. I select one. It shows the manufacturer device name (wiz_xxyyzz) and the updated IP address.

  7. I select an area to add the device to. This is difficult to do given the limited information shown in step 8. I need to refer to the pfSense DHCP table to see the hostname / description and see where the new device actually lives.

  8. I go Settings / Devices & services / Devices

  9. I filter by Wiz integration

  10. I find the name from step 8 in the list.

  11. I edit the description in Home Assistant with the same one as in the pfSense DHCP table

  12. I repeat steps 7-13 for each new device.

  13. I create a light group Helper for each area.

This is a really onerous process. A fair amount of typing, manual lookup, and copy and pasting is required, and the workflow is not easily manageable on a smartphone. I need the ability to type to update the DHCP reservation table, and the virtual keyboard just doesn’t cut it . It really helps multiple browser windows open to lookup MAC, IP and device name information from the Unifi controller, Home Assistant and pfSense. So, I use my phone only for step 1, and my desktop for all subsequent steps.

Here are the issues I see, in no particular order, that I would like to see solved. There may be solutions already, but I have not found them yet. I realize it’s a lot, but even if just a few of them had solutions, it would greatly help me onboard all the new lights. I know many of the fixes likely belong in the Wiz integration and not HA itself, but it could be really useful if this was more generic.

a. Is there a way to force the discovery to run again and update the discovered device entries with the new reserved IP addresses ?

b. Is there a way to display the full IPv4 address in the discovered device entries ? As you can see in the first screenshot, only the first 2 bytes are shown. The last 2 bytes are truncated. Having even just the 3rd byte also displayed would be very helpful with the setup, so I could know which devices have stale IP addresses, and which don’t. Of course, 4 bytes would be ideal.

c. Same question as b, but for the MAC address. The Wiz device name shows the last 3 bytes of the MAC address, so it’s not needed for these bulbs, but not all device brands do that.

d. to address b & c, I would think that a table-like view would be more suitable than the icon view, like the Devices view, which is for devices already setup, not newly discovered.

However, even this view view does not have the ability to be customized to show the MAC and/or IP address at this time.

e. Would it be possible for HA to also show the local reverse DNS entry for discovered devices, in addition to the IP and MAC address ? Since I’m setting up descriptive names like “dining-led1.localdomain”, having this displayed at add time would help immensely with selecting an area.

f. Follow-up to e : this would also be the right time for HA to ask to optionally enter a device name, to avoid having to manually look it up later in a very large and obscure table to set it.

g. It should be possible to add multiple discovered devices at the same time, not just one. Probably show a list with checkboxes, rather than a radio button.

h. When adding multiple devices at the same time, they should all get added to the one selected area - not a separate area prompt for each.

i. When adding multiple devices at the same time, there should be an optional way to have HA set a meaningful device name for all the devices, eg. user_string_XXX .

j. When adding multiple devices at the same time, HA should offer the option of automatically creating a group of them, at least if they are the same type (eg: lightbulbs).