No longer reponding to multicast

Developing with LIFX
#1

I had been using the OpenHab binding to interface with my LIFX bulbs for a while but about 2 weeks ago it quite working correctly so I was forced to delve into the LAN protocol myself to regain control of my lights from my HA system. After a few hours of toying around I found that I could get my lights to accept the UDP packets that I was sending them, but only if I directed them to a static address rather than through broadcast. Many of the existing modules for communication with the LIFX bulbs rely on these broadcast packets and as such I have not been able to get LIFXLan for python working. I’m at a loss on where to start with the troubleshooting.

I have about 70 bulbs on my network but despite this I can rarely capture any traffic on my VLAN for IOT devices on port 56700. My router is pfSense and the bulbs are connected to a unifi U6-LR in case there may be some config issues that I might be able to dig into in either of those systems. Any help is appreciated.

#2

Broadcast is only used for discovery. Sending packets to individual lights requires unicasting over UDP. This is how lifxlan operates and it’s how the integration for Home Assistant operates.

I’m not sure how OpenHAB handles things, but none of the Python modules I’ve used have ever relied on broadcasting for anything but discovery and even that is optional if you use static IP addresses for each bulb.

(Edited to add that I’m one of the code owners of the LIFX integration for Home Assistant and a regular contributor to both aiolifx and Photons so I do have some experience with all of this)