Since Feit Electric purchased Lifx, they have fixed many of the long-term, frustrating bugs; especially those related to onboarding with iOS devices. That process is far more stable and reliable than it has been in several years. The ability to reset individual bulbs, within the app is also a welcome addition, especially when trying to work with bulbs in high ceilings. The one, truly frustrating issue that remains is with bulbs intermittently falling offline in the Lifx app (Lifx Cloud). These are connected to a 2.4 GHz network and, more importantly, are still reachable via local network connection, when bypassing the Lifx Cloud. (I use the Home Assistant ecosystem for local smart home control. While I frequently see several Lifx bulbs offline in the Lifx app, I can immediately switch over to the Home Assistant app, which will show the bulbs online and will allow me to control the lights, without any problems. ) Home Assistant bypasses the cloud, and connects to all devices via local IP or other wireless protocol; unfortunately, it does not give me the full spectrum of color options, effects, and “painting” that the LIFX app provides. It would be nice if the Lifx division of Feit could focus on this connectivity issue for their next round of debugging.

I’ve had mine around my desk for about 4-5 years and and nothing has changed with the UI… nothing has been changed for the most part and nothing has been added. For premium lights and very expensive lights you’d think they’d at LEAST add more features to the app keeping it fresh for ex: adding more theme presets. Govee lights app has WAY more features and presets that they constantly update and add to with even a heavy emphasis on community integration. Govee is the cheap option and their app leaves this one in the dust and it doesn’t even come close… doesn't add up. Opinions aside that’s not good at all, if these lights were just as cheap as other options with betters apps then why care but these are pricey and consider premium. No complaints tho about the product… the product works great and I’ve had no issues with them and they’ve lasted me years… but so has my Govee… in conclusion, the app could use fresh new features with more innovative UI amongst other things… I mean if y’all are struggling to find new things just go look at what y’all’s competitors are doing just for a few seconds and that’s all it will take to give you a ton of inspiration.

I know a lot of people don’t like the new UI, but it’s honestly a bit clearer, and looks much better. I only fumbled for a few days, accidentally turning my room mates lights on because of the new swiping features. Once you relearn though, it feels like it was well thought out. As far as functionality, it’s a bit wonky. To transition to a scene I want, I have to tap back and forth between two different scenes, as if I have to wake up the lights from a rest mode. Also, I’m aware tiles have been discontinued, at least for now, but the app tends to not have total control over them anymore. I have 3 connected in a straight line. Unless I use a premade scene (and even then sometimes), they will randomly switch to morph. No matter what color I set them to (aside from “off”), they always end up on morph after about 3-5 minutes of whatever I had just set it to. Sometimes while browsing colors in the color wheel, you’ll experience the whole wheel spin around incredibly quickly, as if it’s attempting to catch up. Something about this version communicates with the lights much slower than before. This is all minor though, as it only takes a few seconds to troubleshoot and fix any problem.

I expanded to 30+ outdoor spots and floodlights and the onboarding process through the app is horrible. Most lights have to be reset at least 3 times before the network configuration is accepted, and even after the app successfully controls the light during the onboarding “something’s gone wrong” appears because the settings don’t make it to the cloud properly . This requires me to reset the light AGAIN, which can take another 3 to 8 power cycles to finally make it into the app’s configuration. To make matters worse, often a light I spent 45 minutes getting configured will magically disappear from the app a day or two later. I have a total of 45 lights I intended to install on my property, but I am holding off on the last 15 because the existing lights can’t seem to stay on the network reliably. I have an ASUS mesh system and all devices besides the LIFX lights maintain a reliable connection even out past where the lights are located. The floodlights stay connected much more reliably than the spot lights, but even they require manual intervention from me nearly daily to turn them on/off as programmed. At any given time as many as 2/3 of the spot lights are unavailable from the app - they will often come back online briefly and then go dark again. I am totally fed up with this product.