For some reason, all my recent LIFX bulbs with Matter compatibility show no entry name like my many other LIFX lights.
If I click the device itself, I can see the name:
I tried loading the Matter integration for these bulbs at some point, but since the LIFX integration is probably better than the Matter one (and a lot less work), I’m using the LIFX integration instead.
Sadly, that seems to be causing problems with these newer bulbs.
I have the same bulb and it’s working fine for me.
What version of Home Assistant are you running? Can you check what version of aiolifx you have installed for it too?
Aside: I have a bunch of improvements coming for the LIFX integration coming (hopefully) soon, including support for the LIFX Ceiling, which should hopefully include the ability to control the upligtht independently from the main light.
I’m running 2024.6.4.
The two bulbs that don’t show up are the A21 and PAR38 models. I don’t have newer versions of the others.
How do I check the aiolifx version?
Download the diagnostics from the device page of any bulb that does appear.
They were missing that data for so long, but today, I went to get that data for you, and they’ve all got names now:
Whoops, I was wrong. They have device names, not entry names.
This is what I see:
Yeah, I’ve seen the lack of entry names before. It’s just an artifact of which discovery mechanism triggered the start of the configuration. It’s the one thing that isn’t corrected by the integration automatically either.
You can just delete the device and let it get rediscovered. It should then discover it with the correct name and thus create the configuration entry with the correct name too.
Is there a way we can fix the integration to update those names to what’s in the LIFX app when you haven’t configured a custom one yourself?
I don’t think so: that’s the name of the entity configuration that was used to discover the device, so the only way to change the name is to recreate the device, i.e. delete it and let it be rediscovered.
It’s very rare for me that it doesn’t discover my LIFX devices correctly, so my other piece of advice is to only add something that shows the correct name after discovery.
Is there someone or somewhere I can report this as a bug and petition a change? Re-adding that many lights and fixing scenes and configs is gonna take hours. I’d prefer to simplify that process so it doesn’t happen again. Not one of my A21 nor PAR38 have ever shown anything other than their default “LIFX” entry name.
Interesting. If you delete just one and let it be rediscovered, does it get created with the correct name? It should recreate the entities with the same name as before, so your scenes and configs should be unchanged/still working.
I deleted 2 lights which are currently unavailable because I don’t have them in use right now, and they didn’t show up again. I’ll have to plug one in to test I guess.
I’m afraid to delete existing lights. Last time I did that, I had to re-add them everywhere.
This is all sounding a bit odd: you shouldn’t have to re-add them back after being rediscovered because we actually rediscover them all the time. It’s how the integration handles IP address changes, for example.
If you could pick the one light that has the least amount of references for a test, I’d appreciate it, because I really can’t reproduce this here. Oh, and please enable debug logging before you start and leave it running throughout, whether it works or not.
Oh shoot. I swapped out 2 more lights from my phone tonight. I’ll make sure to get this next time. I’m assuming the mobile app doesn’t do debug logging right?
Both lights showed up as “()” for the name. This was happening with both Matter and Wi-Fi setups. Once connected, the lights immediately show up in Home Assistant, but I have yet to click “Complete Setup” in the LIFX app.
That’s where the issue seems to be happening. Home Assistant already captured the light without a defined label as shown in the LIFX API, so it shows up as (). But if I remove the light, it immediately shows up again with the correct name. Very strange issue.
This is the cause. The bulb doesn’t have a label until you complete the setup in the LIFX app. In this scenario, the discovery displays nothing, and when the entities are created I suspect we’ll use the discovery name if the label still hasn’t been set.
TL;DR: In order for Home Assistant to display the name and group of a bulb, you need to complete setup in the LIFX app before configuring the bulb in Home Assistant.
I always do complete the setup before adding the lights to Home Assistant.
I just happened to notice tonight because I accidentally swapped to Home Assistant instead of the LIFX app and saw it already there before I clicked “Complete Setup”.
My steps:
This same issue happened at my Dad’s house with his phone, his LIFX account, and his Home Assistant; also a Raspberry Pi 4.
Home Assistant only runs LIFX protocol discovery every 15 minutes, so if it gets discovered midway through the process (which is almost always is because of mDNS/Zeroconf), it won’t correct the name until the next protocol discovery runs.
What should happen, and what happens for me, is that Home Assistant discovers the light with the wrong/no name, but as soon as I hit configure, it makes a direct connection and reads these details from the bulb directly, so the next dialog has the name and group correct.
Are you able to create a screen recording of what happens for you?
I can depending on where I’m at. I have OBS setup on my PC. Not sure where I’d store the video. Private YouTube video? Vimeo? Imgur?
I wonder why it works for you and not for us. So, like you, it incorrectly identifies the bulb, but when I go to configure it, it only has the correct name on the entity, not on the device. That view just shows “LIFX” (like my original post) until I delete and re-add it.
I think there is some confusion about what name is used where. The first name you see is not the device name, it’s the config entry name and this is only correct if Home Assistant discovers the bulb after everything has been configured in the LIFX app. It is never corrected either.
Here are screenshots from my iPad:
However, the actual device name is only visible after you click “1 device”:
While this may be incorrect when first created, it should automatically correct itself after the next LIFX protocol discovery happens post-creation, i.e. within 15 minutes. In fact, any changes to the name of the bulb or the group done in the LIFX app should automatically propogate to Home Assistant within the same timeframe.
The only thing that is never automatically changed is the name of the config entry. You don’t have to delete everything though, you can just manually rename the config entry from that view. It has no impact on the actual name of the device or the entities.
Thanks for clarifying.
I believe the Device name and the Entity name are always correct. That’s what I saw in my original post, and I think it’s what I saw in other cases.
The issue is the Config Entry Name like you said. That’s what’s showing up as () which gets configured as “LIFX” and never changes. I remove that and re-add it to get the correct name.
I could rename it, but it’s easier to remove and re-add when the light is new. That way, I don’t have to lookup the name and make sure I spell it all correctly.
Is it possible to update the Config Entry name to match the Device name?
