It happened like this: my right LIFX bulb WIFI decided to go out as it thought it must have lost connection to the LIFX cloud server. Now the light decides to try and reconnect to my WiFi network and Home Assistant thought it is a new light bulb, so it creates a new entity. This is what is shown in the screenshot below:
In my “Bedroom” group, “Bedroom Lamp Right” is not working. But there’s a new entity in the “Light” section with the same name as what’s in my bedroom group. Take a closer look where I circled below and you will see that light.bedroom_lamp_right and light.bedroom_lamp_right_2 is the same bulb, yet the “2” works and the first one does not.
Once I restart Home Assistant, everything seems to be working–or maybe…? I tried my living room floor lamps to see if it’s working okay and the left LIFX light seems to go offline, so I’ve had to cut the circuit to the light and turn then back on again and now all lights are working okay.
Maybe I have too much WiFi interference? I don’t know… But since I am living temporarily with my family, Seems like I might write off my LIFX light bulbs (2 Color 1000s for my living room and 2 White 800s for my bedroom) as unreliable. Even though I have all my LIFX light bulbs in my same room, I designate them in different groups, along with my computer and home theater receiver, but I don’t want to go beyond the scope of my thread.
So is this some kind of bug in Home Assistant? That Home Assistant would treat the first entity as dead and decided to create a second entity and poll the light state?
Philips Hue is reliable, but I decided to see what LIFX is all about. I’m thinking I might go with Insteon PLM+OpenHAB setup and get OpenHAB to communicate with Home Assistant. But because my question is beyond the scope of my thread, could anyone recommend me a dimmable LED bulb that tries to mimic incandescent light bulb? Yes, incandescent is the worst when it comes to inefficiency and putting off lots of heat, but it’s still the best when it comes to dimmability and that is a very important feature for me. Again, this is beyond the scope of my thread, but I thought I might ask. In my opinion, smart light bulbs are just a gimmick and I’m planning to get rid of it.