Wifi bulbs and switches not showing up - MQTT installed

Configuration
1

I had an extra Pi 4 with a 3.5" touchscreen - I’m hoping to eventually make a remote to sit next to my Google Home - really just to control lights. Something the wife was complaining about having to say “Hey Google” (first world problems!). But that isn’t my issue:

This is my first Home Assistant install, as I did some searching and found this: www.youtube.com/watch?v=XntGFVeg2eE
Accordingly I flashed the HomeAssistant image (instant!), fired up the browser, and installed two add-ons:

  • File Editor so I can directly edit my files (I appreciate that, I’m an IT data integration tester)
  • AppDaemon to create a control panel like his.
  • Mosquitto MQTT (installed this later, after digging in the forum and web - not because of his video)

I’m missing something, however - none of my lights or switches are showing up - and that’s basically all I want to set up a control panel to control.

(Devices that ARE showing up, without any real effort on my part, are my basement printer, my router, all my Google speakers and Nest hub, and both Roku’s)

From other searches and work over the past few days to try to get lights and switches to be found, I ended up ditching the specific settings that weren’t working in my configuration.yaml, to vanilla configuration straight from the Mosquitto MQTT documentation - created a user, enabled discovery… nothing (yes, I restarted it).

In the searching over the past few days I found that bulb brand matters - I figured I’d have gotten off easy with wifi bulbs, figured they must conform to the most generic of chinese-bulk-product standards, but I guess not. (Note that I’ve made no specific attempt with any of the switches yet)

  • Feit smart bulbs from Lowes, I have four or five
  • Generic wifi switches - I have one installed, and a couple others for later.
  • Generic wifi dimmers - I have two installed, and a couple others for later.

(I do have the documentation for the dimmers and switches - I’ll have to dig them out)

Starting with the bulbs, I found this and this and this and several others - but nothing seems to pan out. In fact the “configuration validator” button said those configurations were incorrect - so I’m back to a pretty clean slate without much specifically in my Configuration.yaml, although I do have MQTT set up and working - allegedly.

I appreciate any help - I suppose these questions specifically would get me un-stuck:

  • Feit bulbs - is there something specific I’ll need to configure so they can be found?
  • Wifi switches and dimmers - is there something specific I need to know about them, to find what I need to install/configure so that they can be found?
2

Do you have a specific app on your phone to control these wifi switches and dimmers ?

3

Are your Feit bulbs/switches runnng:

  • Feit firmware
  • Tuya firmware
  • Tasmota
4

Yes and no.
Technically yes - I initially set these up using:

  • Bulbs - Feit Electric app.
  • Switches - looks like I used the Smart Life app for both (dimmer and on/off switch).

But I don’t really “use” those individual apps, really. Not ever.

On an everyday basis, I just shout at one of my Google Home speakers - “Hey Google, turn off the lamp.” or “Hey Google, turn on the dining room light.” That’s what my fiance is complaining about having to do, because sometimes it doesn’t hear her. :laughing:
And to be fair, if you use the Nest Hub on her side table to try to turn off the lights, you have to first swipe down, then poke “Lights”, then there’s four lights in my living room (that’s all the bulbs) so it takes a bunch of swipes and clicks, and if you do it wrong ALL four lights come on, or turn off - it’s actually annoying.

So the end goal - trying to keep it simple for HA project numero uno - is just to make a control panel with light switches on it, to control the house lights. Would be nice if she can simply poke “Lamp 2” and turn it on from the end table next to her. It’s almost ironic that pretty much everything else (other than my thermostat) shows up, other than my lights, to be able to select for that. :crazy_face:

It’s clear there’s more sophisticated things that I can do with HA, and will be fun to explore those down the road - but for now, something basic, and it fills a need.

For what it’s worth - Google Home/Nest app didn’t balk, they do all show up there - so maybe that’s a good place to explore - the config settings per device there:

  • The living room lights, yes it shows “Connected through: Feit”
  • Dimmer switches, it shows “Connected through: Smart Life”
  • Kitchen light (on/off switch) it shows “Connected through: Smart Life”

As far as the firmware, I’m not sure how to check that. They are Feit brand bulbs. Is there a sort of scanner tool that can “read” the bulb (hopefully something virtual, via network)?

5

While I wait for another response, I may be able to solve this myself…

Following the on Smart Life and there’s apparently some direct lineage to Tuya…
I found this video on YouTube simply by searching “Home Assistant Smart Life” - by an apparently very popular “Dr Zzs” (and I actually found my way really through that Paul Hubbard video shown in the intro): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVa6Yw1gCP0

I’ll be trying the actual configuration later this evening, but it appears this could be as simple as using the UI to add Tuya - during the add-on install process I can select “Smart Life” and - at minimum would gain access right away to my switches.

However, it was also implied in the two videos that the Smart Life app (which I previously thought did look reasonably impressive) actually might just be trying to be a “Google Home” of it’s own… it sure appeared when I last touched it to have lots of possible integrations. Hopefully that’s not just “Tuya” based gear.

So before I attempt the above, I’m first going to try to add my Feit bulbs to Smart Life, on the hope that A) I can, and B) they’ll then show in Home Assistant, once I do add that Tuya/Smart Life integration add-on.

PS. About 2/3 through the video, Dr. Zzs gives a great explanation of why people used to need to flash Tasmota to reprogram their hardware like bulbs and switches - pretty interesting that it lets you avoid the web call, and also interesting that it’s only been recent that Home Assistant was capable of integrating with equipment that does require a web call via it’s native app. Must be improvements in those APIs out there.

6

For future readers - the above worked beautifully!

I ditched the Feit app, and instead added the Feit bulbs using the Smart Life app.
(note as soon as you on-off-on-off-on the bulbs, that unlinks them from whatever they were linked to)
In my case, I just used the auto-scan in the Smart Life app when I re-added them, and it worked quickly.

Once they were all (bulbs and switches, in my case) in the Smart Life app, I did what that YouTube video suggested-
I went to Configurations --> Integrations --> New Integration (button), searched for Tuya and selected it.
It asked me to log in using my Smart Life app credentials, and had a drop down to select the app that I use, which was in my case “Smart Life”.
Once I did that I restarted the server.

And my devices now all appear. It took a few minutes for them to initialize, but then they all worked as well.

Awesome.

1 Like
7

Also- I believe that means I didn’t need MQTT at all. Just as a follow-up FYI, since I mentioned it in the title of the thread.