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Light Not Showing in the App (Network Visibility Issues)

Updated

If your LIFX light is powered on but not appearing in the LIFX app, the issue is usually related to local network discovery. Try the steps below to help your phone and light find each other again.

1. Restart discovery for both your phone and the light

These steps resolve most temporary visibility issues.

  • Turn the light off and on once

  • Close and reopen the LIFX app

  • Make sure your phone stays on Wi-Fi only (turn off mobile data temporarily)

  • Wait 10–20 seconds for the light to announce itself on the network

If the light still doesn’t appear, continue below.

2. Make sure your phone and light are on the same network

The light and your phone must be on the same 2.4 GHz network to appear locally.

Check that:

  • Your router hasn’t switched the 2.4 GHz network name

  • The phone is not on Guest Wi-Fi

  • If you use a mesh system, make sure your phone stays connected to the same 2.4 GHz network the light is joining. Mesh Wi-Fi can move your phone to a 5 GHz node during setup.
     

3. Restart your router or mesh system

A simple restart clears:

  • stalled multicast

  • noisy client steering

  • bad DHCP leases

  • blocked discovery packets

  • mesh hand-off loops

Wait 1–2 minutes after the reboot, then reopen the LIFX app.

4. Disable router features that interfere with discovery (temporarily)

These features can block device visibility:

  • Airtime Fairness

  • WMM / Wi-Fi Multimedia

  • QoS / traffic shaping

  • 802.11ax-only (Wi-Fi 6) mode

  • Band steering / “Smart Connect”

  • AP/Client isolation

  • IGMP snooping (if misconfigured)

They can be turned back on after visibility is restored.

5. Confirm the light didn’t join the wrong network

If your home Wi-Fi recently changed:

  • new SSID

  • new password

  • new router

  • merged/split SSIDs

  • ISP-replaced modem/router

Then the light may still be trying to use the old credentials and won’t show up.

If this happens, perform a hardware reset and add the light again.

6. Check if the light needs a firmware update

Old firmware can cause unpredictable visibility behaviour.
Once the light appears, update it under Settings → Firmware.

If the update fails, see Firmware Update Failed.

Still not showing up?

See: