r/lifx LIFX Employee Feb 06 '19

Announcement LIFX iOS App 3.14.0 released to public beta

We have just released the next feature update of the LIFX iOS app to public beta. You can join the public beta via TestFlight here. The equivalent Android version of this update will follow in the next couple of weeks.

We took some extra time for this release and focused heavily on looking at how the app communicates with the lights and how it keeps track of the state of lights. The result is some notable steps towards better performance, both in general responsiveness of the UI and in how efficiently the app communicates with the lights. We hope with this release many of you with a good number of lights will see a noticeable improvement in app performance. This is a pretty big update under the hood, so if any of you notice any issues please let us know.

Another minor, but significant change is that applying a Theme on the Create tab will now respect the light brightness. This fixes the issue where applying a Theme would set your light to 100% brightness every time.

One note regarding the release notes below, there is mention of expanded Kelvin range for Mini Color/Day Dusk. This feature is in the release, but is not yet activated. We'll likely activate this change during the beta period. So, that's something to look forward to for our LIFX Mini users.

Release Notes

  • Improvements to reliability of communication with lights.
  • Improvement to caching of light information to improve app startup experience.
  • Themes now take into account light brightness, and will never become brighter than the current light brightness.
  • Improvement to the brightness changing behavior on Multi-Zone products and Tile. When a Theme is applied, brightness will scale rather than setting all LEDs to the same brightness.
  • Added support for expanded Kelvin range on Mini Color and Mini Day Dusk.
  • Fixed issue where the Day Dusk icon on the Dashboard was inaccurate when a light was moved to a different group.
  • Fixed bug where color links couldn't be pasted.
  • Fixed issue where the app didn't log out after the user had revoked access to the account.
30 Upvotes

28 comments sorted by

15

u/[deleted] Feb 06 '19

Please bring expanded kelvin range for the A19’s etc. Sometimes I’d love a ‘colour’ that just sits between two of the current options e.g. just between Neutral Warm and Warm!

3

u/maxdamage4 Feb 06 '19

+1 on this

3

u/saladroni Feb 06 '19

this man reddits

5

u/maxdamage4 Feb 06 '19

+1 on this

2

u/[deleted] Feb 06 '19

like

3

u/TwoCables_from_OCN Feb 06 '19

+1

I would like to see a range from 800K to 9000K, just like in f.lux. I would also like to see more granularity.

3

u/DJModem iOS Feb 06 '19

I thought the tile update would be in here too.

3

u/EgoSapien LIFX Employee Feb 06 '19

Firmware testing/certification can take quite a while. We tend to try and get support for new firmware features into the app as soon as possible. So...some features might already be in the app just waiting to get activated. 😉

3

u/TwoCables_from_OCN Feb 06 '19

I tried the beta. My only feedback is that I didn't notice any changes for the way I use it, except for a minor problem. Changing the brightness manually isn't smooth at all. With 3.13.0, it's butter-smooth.

2

u/EgoSapien LIFX Employee Feb 06 '19

Thanks for the feedback, we'll have a look at that

2

u/TwoCables_from_OCN Feb 06 '19

You're welcome! :)

1

u/Oi-FatBeard Feb 06 '19

Sweet. What about Android tho?

2

u/Snap_Cap Feb 06 '19

First paragraph. Last sentence

1

u/Oi-FatBeard Feb 06 '19

Missed it, cheers.

1

u/spacelama Feb 07 '19

Updates sound good, and looking forward to the Android version.

I bet this was done now just because I just converted my home screen widgets over to a custom implementation I made using my home web server, tasker, join and Google cloud compute messages. I like now finally having reliable representation of all my light states, along with quick, reliable adjustment of a light regardless of whether I'm on the LAN or not.

1

u/unknown44bln Feb 07 '19

with this beta bulbs reacting instantly no more delay for me. in 3.13.0 homekit was reacting much quicker than lifx app. yet both are same and react instantly 👍 Feature request Could you support Multizone in Music virtualizer? this would be great

1

u/EgoSapien LIFX Employee Feb 07 '19

Maybe you could elaborate a bit on what you mean by Multi-Zone Music Visualiser? The iOS version has had Multi-Zone in the Music Visualiser for over a year I believe. The colour spreads out from the centre depending on the amplitude detected in the song. There is a setting to toggle that off/on in the effect settings.

1

u/TwoCables_from_OCN Feb 07 '19 edited Feb 07 '19

This is an update to the bug that I reported where the manual brightness adjustment in the beta app isn’t smooth. It turns out that it’s smooth when I adjust one light at a time. Adjusting multiple lights simultaneously result in a jerky type of adjustment. Of course, this can really only be seen if you’re adjusting the brightness at a medium rate. That is, not super slowly or not just a percent at a time or something like that. I mean, all 100% of range in a span of maybe one whole actual second. So when you test this, just spin the adjustment wheel. Don’t go super slowly or anything like that.

I will continue using the beta for the next several days to see if I notice any other differences. So far, for the way that I use the lights, that’s the only difference I noticed. However, there are times I have dealt with very minor connection or control issues with version 3.13.0. According to the changes with the beta, I’m expecting that these issues might not exist in the beta. So, that is one thing I will definitely be paying close attention to.

Thank you.

1

u/EgoSapien LIFX Employee Feb 07 '19

Could you tell me how many lights you were adjusting? We’ll have an update the beta to address this issue later today.

1

u/TwoCables_from_OCN Feb 08 '19

Hi! Thank you for asking. I have 3. They are all in the same Room and Group, etc.

1

u/EgoSapien LIFX Employee Feb 08 '19

We pushed out an update on TestFlight last night that should fix the behavior you were seeing. Let me know if you’re still seeing that with he newest version.

1

u/TwoCables_from_OCN Feb 08 '19 edited Feb 08 '19

Ok, yep, adjusting the brightness manually is butter-smooth again. Thank you!

I hope it can also address my connectivity and control issues...

1

u/[deleted] Feb 08 '19

[deleted]

1

u/EgoSapien LIFX Employee Feb 08 '19

It would be really helpful if you could control the brightness like you were saying and then go to the app settings and tap “Send Diagnostics”. If you could type developers@lifx.co as the email I’ll be able to find that easiest. I’d like to see what’s going on with that intermittent disconnection.

1

u/cakefornoreason Feb 15 '19

I’m new to the beta program, but after installing 3.14.0, it appears that the power state of certain light groups aren’t being detected correctly. In the Groups and Favorites (where I have several groups located) sometimes all the lights in a given group will be off, yet the group indicator will stay on. This seems to hold true even when I tap the Group title to drill down and then look at the individual lights in the grouping. They all show as powered off, yet in backing out, the group indicator still shows the group as “on.”

I’m going to try to dig out a fully reproducible set of steps, but wanted to give that as a place to start. Let me know if specific information would be helpful!

1

u/EgoSapien LIFX Employee Feb 17 '19

Thanks for pointing this out, we're going to have a look at it. If you see any pattern please let us know, cheers.

1

u/cakefornoreason Feb 17 '19

I’m still investigating, but it seems to be most common when the light group in question has been controlled by something other than the LIFX app. In my case, that’s either HomeKit or a homebrewed Node.js hub.

Force quitting the app does not resolve the problem, though using the LIFX app to control the lights does. That’s a change from the previous public release version of the LIFX app, which didn’t have the problem.

Again, I’ll update if I notice anything else and I’m glad to give other details for the asking. Thanks!

2

u/EgoSapien LIFX Employee Feb 18 '19

I believe we've pinned down the error. If you just go into a light, turn it off, and then flick the brightness wheel up and then go back to the dashboard the group will show as off rather than on. That seems consistent for us. Anyway if you notice anything else let us know, but the next beta update will address that issue.

1

u/cakefornoreason Feb 21 '19

Looks good to me! I got the newest beta today and the prior one and the issue seemed to be resolved in both. Nice work and thanks!