In the smart light market the two major players are Philips Hue and LIFX. Around the time HomeKit was first released, Philips Hue offered a new hardware bridge to allow customers to control their Philips Hue bulbs with Siri. LIFX on the other hand has been telling customers that HomeKit support is on its way, but has yet to deliver.
With the announcement of iOS 10's Home app I was over waiting and started looking into ways to make LIFX bulbs HomeKit compatible. That's when I came across Homebridge, a community developed solution that acts as a bridge for non-HomeKit compliant devices, LIFX light bulbs being one of them.
I have put together this guide for other LIFX bulb users eager to take advantage of HomeKit.
In this guide I run Homebridge on a Mac mini, however you should be able to get this working on a PC or even a Raspberry Pi. Also, to be useful the machine running Homebridge will need to always be on.
Steps
Homebridge requires Node.js, download and install it.
Now install Homebridge, open Terminal (Utilities > Terminal) and type:
sudo npm install -g --unsafe-perm homebridge
If prompted, install Git and run the above command again.
Next install David Parry’s LIFX LAN Homebridge plugin:
sudo npm install -g homebridge-lifx-lan
Download my LIFX ready Homebridge configuration file:
curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Error-freeIT/Homebridge-Configuration/master/lifx-config.json --create-dirs -o ~/.homebridge/config.json
Start Homebridge by simply typing:
homebridge
Open the Home app on your iOS device, tap Get Started > Add Accessory > Homebridge > Add Anyway > Enter Code Manually > 053-73-874
The rest of the process is just tapping Next and configuring your rooms and scenes. If you're new to HomeKit I recommend reading Apple's article on the Home app.
As long as your LIFX lights are switched on you should see them in the Home app.
Once the novelty of telling Siri to control your lights starts to wear off, there's one more bit to make Homebridge automatically startup in the background. First we need to stop the current instance of Homebridge from running by pressing control + C. Then paste the following two commands into Terminal:
curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Error-freeIT/Homebridge-Configuration/master/com.github.homebridge.plist --create-dirs -o ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.github.homebridge.plist launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.github.homebridge.plist
That's it! Enjoy your fancy HomeKit enabled LIFX lighting!