I’ve just tried to create a blinking/flashing animation for my lightbulb with the flash: short option, but it didn’t work.
It turns out, it works only for lightbulbs that support it.
Feature Request: indicate to the user when flash doesn’t work: write an error to the logs when flash is an invalid (unusable, not working) option of the service call.
If the integration did not write anything in the logs, then it could be because the bulb did not report anything back to the integration.
Maybe the bulb just ignored the command, maybe it could not fulfill the command with the given parameters or something else that prevented its success.
If you have no entry in the logs, then it is probably because the integration did not make one and then it is also unlikely that it will report that to HA core.
HA ties together a lot of different products from almost as many vendors. Some of these are not interested in helping with HAs integration and since they only deal with their own products, then they can handle the features in the code without having to send the information back and forth.
Well, I don’t exactly know what’s the underlying issue → if there’s nothing that can be done, someone could close this FR as “won’t fix”, sure.
But… according to this post → it is detectable. If it’s true that the lightbulb has to have blink effect in order for flash working, then HA could/should warn user if flash is supported or not.
Some bulbs show such a list, but the list name vary and the effect names too.
So it is hard for HA to know if the list is missing or the effect is not available and if the list is there then what is the effect for flash named, flash, blink, switch or something else.
The FR will probably not be closed, because maybe in some distant future it will be possible, so it might stay open with no reaction.
I am not HA dev, so this is more like a help to adjust expectations and maybe understand why nothing might happen.
Also remember that HA devs might read the forum (we never really know), but replying to posts really rare.
So your post might be seen, even though there is no reaction.