LIFX device onboarding on iPhone
Posted on Sun, Aug 17, 2025 at 10:11 by Hubertus A. Haniel
I have several of these LIFX bulbs around my house and they are pretty cool and reliable most of the time but sometimes one of them will drop of the network and refuses to reconnect to the WiFi. This happens only on very rare occasions hence I am writing this note as when it happens it takes me hours trying to figure out how to get it removed and on boarded again searching the web for documentation.
The standard way of first on boarding it into HomeKit does not seem to always work for me as my phone does not seem to find the light or the light ends up on the wrong WiFi because I have multiple WiFi in the house that serve different use cases and I am trying to separate stuff for security reasons.
Before you start you should ensure your iPhone is not connected to any VPN etc but your proper WiFi network - I have Wire Guard configured to come on when I am not connected to my normal WiFi to enable me to connect back into my network when I am out and about.
So first I remove the light from HomeKit and the LIFX app completely and reset it by turning on and back of 5 times. On the 5th time it should cycle through all the colors meaning it is reset and in pairing mode.
Then I use the manual way so I wait for 15 minutes for it to come out of "HomeKit mode" so the device in my WiFi selection of the iPhone will not be in the "Set up new device" but it will show in "Other Networks". - If it shows under "My Networks" because you have done this before, you should forget the device from your settings as you will not be able to tell what mode it is in. When it is in "Other Networks " you can connect to it and then use the LIFX app to manually add it to the WiFi you want.
Now this is the part which always gets me - How do you get it to show up in home kit as well now? - When you go into your Light Settings in the LIFX for that bulb in the HomeKit section it will just say not in HomeKit and you used to be able to pair it to HomeKit from there. - To enable that step you have to physically turn the light off for a couple of minutes and turn it back on. If you now got back into the settings it should present you with a button to pair to HomeKit and you just follow those steps to get it fully up and running.
Hope this helps!
Posted in Toys and Gadgets (RSS)
