LIFX Cloud and BT Broadband Issue – Solved
I’ve had LIFX Wifi bulbs since they first appeared on Kickstarter. They are great when they work, but when they don’t you enter the world of Wifi networking and connection issues which is NOT A FUN PLACE.
Thankfully the good people at LIFX Support know their stuff, but as I don’t see this nugget of info on their website, I thought I’d share it here.
Solution
If you have LIFX bulbs and BT Broadband, with a BT Homehub router, check that BT Web Protect (aka BT Smart Protect) is turned off.
You can check this by logging in to bt.com and looking at the settings there. You don’t need to make any changes on the router settings themselves.
Notes
As far as I can figure out; Sometimes BT push a firmware update to the router which will reset some settings. I’m guessing this happened to me recently and resulted in BT Net Protect being re-enabled on the router which then blocks LIFX bulbs connection to the LIFX Cloud.
Your LIFX bulbs will work fine using the LIFX app but it means IFTTT, Alexa, Yonomi and other services can’t interact with the bulbs (those are the three I use I’m presuming others will be affected too).
Frustrating but, thankfully, an easy and quick fix. Thanks to the LIFX Support team for their help.