Giving HA another try

Installation
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About six months ago I stopped using HA due to device instabaility. Devices would be become greyed out on the website, lights would soemtimes not turn off, brightness would change each time a device started.

However, I am inspired to give it another go. Since my last install I have switched phones to Apple and this seems to have made installing devices to HA much less easy.

I have tried adding my LIFX bulbs through Add Integration however my LIFX bulbs are never found. Though I dont want to use LIFX cloud it seems I have to add LIFX bulbs to the LIFX app before I can add them to HA. Every time I want to add a bulb to the LIFX app I have to go through this 15min wait out for Homekit to allow me to use the LIFX setup.

Is there a way around this?

Also, I have both TPLink and Tapo smart switches. All of my TP Link switches are now on the TAPO app which doesnt seem to have integration with HA. I have searched the forums and discussion on TAPO seems mixed, technical to unproductive.

All up I have around 15 TAP devices and about 10 LIFX bulbs, its a major part of my smart home devices and if I cant get them working with HA it looses much of its use.

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I don’t have any TPLink devices & only one LIFX light that I have given up on it, honestly (I believe the newer lights are better). So I can’t help you much with your issues unfortunately, but you appear to be inexperienced & in need of some help so I hope you don’t think I am being arrogant, but I will try & give you some advice about your problems.

Why do you want to move away from using Homekit?

Most people end up using other Home Automation platforms like Home Assistant because systems like Homekit, Alexa & Google Home, are not able to do what they want.

With that being said, systems start to get very complicated & faults become more frequent (the more complex the system), so A general rule in I.T. is limiting the points of failure &or complexity. Every extra device/element required to make a system work is an extra point of failure/complexity, so when designing your system, try to limit the number of interlinking things (hops). But new technologies like Matter are trying to fix this issue.

If you want to start using Home Assistant, I would try to link everything directly to Home Assistant. Example: Try and connect LIFX & TPLink devices directly to Home Assistant without the LIFX App, TPLink Tapo app or Homekit (if this is possible, it may require resetting the devices).

You can still use Homekit but use it as an extension of Home Assistant, so an example of this would be that your lights are directly integrated into Home Assistant, & Homekit can see/operate the lights through its link to Home Assistant.

About your Post, try to limit what you are saying to only what is relevant & make your questions more clear. “Giving HA another try” is this a Blog of your experiences, or do you require help with something in particular? I think you really have only 2 real questions.

  1. How Do I integrate my LIFX bulbs into Home Assistant?
    (What Models are they? But I suspect your problem is that they are already paired to either Homekit or Lifx App)
  2. How do I Integrate my TPLink and Tapo smart switches into Home Assistant?
    (What Model Devices do you have? & I suspect that you will need to install HACs for this)

Good luck & I hope this helps. And If nothing else, I have given your post a bump.

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