GU10 not going to white color

[CypherMK]

Hi,

I already have multible bulbs running with this node without issues. But now I recently bought some GU10 bulbs from Lifx. But I can't set them to a white color anymore, for example 2700k white, when the bulb is in any color except white. So when the bulb is red, it's impossible to get it to white anymore with this node. Through the app it works. It also works with the Lifx2 node, but I prefer this one. I threw any command I could think off to it, but no solution.

Any clue what it could be?

[ristomatti]

I also have two GU10 lights but don't seem to have this issue. To my knowledge, they communicate using the same protocol as all the other LIFX bulbs. Can you check if you've sent both a kelvin value >=1500 and a saturation value of 0?

[CypherMK]

Also does not work. I tried hue, saturation, mired, color name (glowing for example). Nothing works.
This is one of the change nodes I use to set the kelvin to 2700k. You just connect it to the bulb you want and can use an inject node to trigger. This works with every bulb except all 4 GU10 spots:

[{"id":"c355990e.9363d8","type":"change","z":"7461c8bc.6f78c8","name":"50%","rules":[{"t":"set","p":"payload.bri","pt":"msg","to":"50","tot":"num"},{"t":"set","p":"payload.kelvin","pt":"msg","to":"2700","tot":"num"},{"t":"set","p":"payload.on","pt":"msg","to":"true","tot":"bool"},{"t":"set","p":"payload.rgb[0]","pt":"msg","to":"128","tot":"num"},{"t":"set","p":"payload.rgb[1]","pt":"msg","to":"128","tot":"num"},{"t":"set","p":"payload.rgb[2]","pt":"msg","to":"128","tot":"num"}],"action":"","property":"","from":"","to":"","reg":false,"x":2030,"y":900,"wires":[["cd820a24.10f568"]]}]

Can you try this? And what could be my issue? Firmware is 3.60

First set the bulb to a random color, and try to switch it back to white with the above node.

[CypherMK]

Even a simple inject node like this does not work with the GU10. It works with the other bulbs. Can you confirm?
[{"id":"e01a64ec8ec5cb40","type":"inject","z":"d11dfeaa.8b609","name":"","props":[{"p":"payload"}],"repeat":"","crontab":"","once":false,"onceDelay":0.1,"topic":"","payload":"{ \"on\": true, \"saturation\": 0, \"brightness\": 65, \"kelvin\": 2500 }","payloadType":"json","x":1430,"y":1860,"wires":[["91ac13ba73ad7b95","84d45e451fd0dd84","978a5463bc43ccfd","b46dadc8acc8ac90","36f9e06e.0e232"]]}]
And before you run this, set the gu10 to some random color.

[CypherMK]

No clue @ristomatti ?

[ristomatti]

Sorry forgot about this (too much work!). I just tried it now - worked with no issues, same firmware version.

[CypherMK]

Sorry forgot about this (too much work!). I just tried it now - worked with no issues, same firmware version.

Thanks for testing.

That's really strange. So you set it to a color first (red, green, blue etc) and it turned white? It's strange cause it happens to all 4 GU10 bulbs I own. And 4 more are on their way. Waiting for a new light fixture at the moment. I guess I need to go the cloud route unfortunately, if this doesn't work.

[ristomatti]

Do they work fine also with the phone app when there's no Internet (within WiFi of course)? Or have you tried if they work from some 3rd party app that supports LAN protocol? There's some for Android at least. Typically they've started with Hue lights in mind but then added LIFX support later on. The apps weren't any good but might help troubleshoot this.

I'd also try factory resetting and pairing the lights multiple times. I remember I've had to do that with many of my LIFX Mini bulbs.

[CypherMK]

Everything works, in the app, with or without internet. It also works with this node:
https://flows.nodered.org/node/node-red-contrib-lifx2
It's also LAN based if I'm not mistaken.

These HTTP nodes also work:
https://flows.nodered.org/node/node-red-contrib-lifx-api

And it also works when I use a function node with a http request node.

So basically, everything I tried works, except this node, when the bulb is on a color.

[CypherMK]

Also just tried this app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.jeisfeld.lifx.app
Also no issues.

[ristomatti]

Everything works, in the app, with or without internet. It also works with this node: https://flows.nodered.org/node/node-red-contrib-lifx2 It's also LAN based if I'm not mistaken.

Curiously it is even based on the same library as this one is/was (nowadays a further developed fork). I'll skim the code a bit if something pops up easily that could be used to make it output debug info on Node-RED's log.

[ristomatti]

Do you have Node-RED 2.x installed BTW? It has a nice feature added to the function node which allows simple use of external node modules.

I could try creating a simple wrapper around lifx-lan-client (used by this contrib node) so you could test if the problem occurs also with it. I already played around this idea a bit when testing NR 2.

The thing with node-red-contrib-node-lifx is that it adds a lot of (in my opinion unnecessary) complexity around lifx-lan-client and might be the problem here.

I want to stress out that while I'm maintaining or helping to maintain both, I'm just a contributor and quite honestly don't thoroughly understand all the inner workings. I'd love to try rewriting and reimagining this node to be more robust and easy to use but I've got little spare time and both work 99% for me so it's not very likely to happen unfortunately.

[CypherMK]

Do you have Node-RED 2.x installed BTW? It has a nice feature added to the function node which allows simple use of external node modules.

I could try creating a simple wrapper around lifx-lan-client (used by this contrib node) so you could test if the problem occurs also with it. I already played around this idea a bit when testing NR 2.

The thing with node-red-contrib-node-lifx is that it adds a lot of (in my opinion unnecessary) complexity around lifx-lan-client and might be the problem here.

I want to stress out that while I'm maintaining or helping to maintain both, I'm just a contributor and quite honestly don't thoroughly understand all the inner workings. I'd love to try rewriting and reimagining this node to be more robust and easy to use but I've got little spare time and both work 99% for me so it's not very likely to happen unfortunately.

Yes I have 2.06 installed. I'm glad to test it out.

And I'm grateful that you spend your free time on maintaining this. It's the heart of my home automation, so really important.

[ristomatti]

Yep it's where it all started for me as well and also the part that is definitely the most important.

Recently I've been looking into Zigbee based devices as it seems more reliable. But at least my first dip into this direction for lighting (IKEA filament bulbs) was quite a disappointment. I'm also very much like the LIFX app* for when I want to do fine tuning that's not easy to do with a switches/remotes so I don't think I'm switching anytime soon.

*) The original LIFX app before the hideous redesign. I'm on Android so I've backed up the APK file and have disabled Play Store from automatically updating it. 😄

[CypherMK]

If you go the ZigBee route, I can recommend to use zigbee2mqtt. Basically the living room is mostly lifx, because they got quality bulbs. And the rest of the house is full of ZigBee devices. Hue, Ikea, Xiaomi to name a few. Works really good, all controlled from a raspberry pi 3.

[ristomatti]

[CypherMK]

Do you have Node-RED 2.x installed BTW? It has a nice feature added to the function node which allows simple use of external node modules.

I could try creating a simple wrapper around lifx-lan-client (used by this contrib node) so you could test if the problem occurs also with it. I already played around this idea a bit when testing NR 2.

The thing with node-red-contrib-node-lifx is that it adds a lot of (in my opinion unnecessary) complexity around lifx-lan-client and might be the problem here.

I want to stress out that while I'm maintaining or helping to maintain both, I'm just a contributor and quite honestly don't thoroughly understand all the inner workings. I'd love to try rewriting and reimagining this node to be more robust and easy to use but I've got little spare time and both work 99% for me so it's not very likely to happen unfortunately.

Any chance you tried this 'wrapper'?

[ristomatti]

Sorry not yet, honestly got sucked into another project grabbing the whole day. The good news is that I've at least managed to upgrade my main system to Node-RED 2.x and also copied my previous wrapper code there, so it's slowly progressing.

I'm currently under somewhat heavy pressure to complete a certain task at work so most brainpower is gone when I'm done. But a notification of this sits flagged at the top of my email so i've not forgotten it!