DMXCore.Plugin.LIFX 1.1.2

DMX Core 100 — LIFX Plugin

Drives LIFX WiFi color bulbs and SuperColour / pixel fixtures from DMX Core fixture or playback data over the LIFX LAN protocol. No cloud account required.

Setup

Lights and the DMX Core must be on the same LAN (or have UDP 56700 routed between them). Give each bulb a static DHCP lease so the mapping's IP does not move.

On the Core's Outputs page, add an output of type LIFX:

1. Protocol — Color (RGB), Color + CT (RGB + color temperature), Color RGBW, Color RGBW + CT — each in 8-bit or 16-bit — or Pixel (RGB × discovered zones, 8- or 16-bit).
2. Destination Address — the device IP. Use Discover, or type a known address. Pixel devices show a zone count, e.g. Bar (192.168.1.30, LIFX SuperColour Tube, 52 px); picking one also fills the mapping's Pixels field automatically. Tick 16-bit on a Pixel mapping for six channels per pixel.
3. Start Channel — DMX start address of that device's channels.

In the fixture editor, patch bulbs with the plugin's LIFX / Color Bulb profile; its personalities match the color protocols one-to-one (RGB, RGB+CT, RGBW, RGBW+CT, and the same four as 16-bit). Pixel mappings take zones × 3 channels (zones × 6 in 16-bit) from discovery. The Mapped Device selector prefills from an existing LIFX mapping. Presets, cues, effects, and Fixture Control then drive the device through the normal lighting pipeline.

The Core rate-limits each mapping to 20 updates/second and coalesces latest-wins. Color mappings convert RGB(W) to LIFX HSBK and send SetColor with a 75 ms duration. Pixel mappings send Set64 (Tube / Luna / tiles) or SetExtendedColorZones (Beam / strips).

RGBW: LIFX bulbs have no separate white emitter, so the White channel is mixed additively into the color (it lifts red, green, and blue equally — desaturating the color and raising brightness), and the bulb renders that white portion at the mapping's color temperature (3500 K when there is no CT channel). White alone gives a full-brightness white; half red plus half white gives a pastel red.

16-bit: every function takes two adjacent channels, coarse then fine (R, R fine, G, G fine, B, B fine[, W, W fine][, CT, CT fine]), and the plugin feeds the full 16-bit value into LIFX's 16-bit HSBK, so long fades stay smooth at low levels instead of stepping through 256 values.

Requires a Core whose plugin SDK contract is 1.8 or newer (16-bit plugin fixture profiles; the 8-bit features need 1.6).

SuperColour Tube pixel count: the Tube's firmware reports a 5×11 tile (55 zones) but only 52 light — device indexes 0–1 are the two zones on top, 2–4 are dead, and 5–54 run from the top of the side down to the base (measured on hardware). The plugin exposes it as 52 pixels in order (pixel 1–2 top, 3–52 down the side) and routes around the gap; a mapping created with an older version that stored Pixels = 55 still works (the last three pixels are ignored) but should be re-picked from Discover so the fixture footprint matches.

Troubleshooting

• No lights in Discover: confirm the bulbs are powered and on the same subnet, then press Discover again. The plugin broadcasts LIFX GetService (not mDNS), then queries labels, product, and zone/tile geometry for SuperColour / strips, re-asking devices that did not answer. A device that is busy being streamed to sometimes drops a request; a scan never removes a previously seen device or forgets its geometry, so the list only ever grows (a device whose IP is taken over by another LIFX device is replaced).
• Pixel mapping has 0 channels: set the mapping's Pixels field, or run Discover on the Pixel protocol and pick the device (which fills it). Give the fixture a static DHCP lease.
• Bulb does not follow cues: check the mapping's IP, that the fixture is patched to the LIFX profile, and that the output is enabled.
• Wrong bulb: destination is the IP address. Re-run Discover after a DHCP change, or set a static lease.
• Plugin will not load: the device firmware must expose SDK 1.8+ (1.0.x of this plugin needs 1.6+).

Development

dotnet test tests/DMXCore100.LIFX.Tests
./pack.sh            # or pack.ps1 — produces artifacts/lifx-plugin.dmxplugin

pwsh ./deploy-dev.ps1     # pack and upload to localhost:8080 (prompts for PIN)

Until the SDK version this plugin needs is on nuget.org, restore it from local-feed/ (see the comment in nuget.config): pack src/PluginSdk and src/PluginSdk.Testing from the Software repo with -p:Version=1.8.0 -o <this repo>/local-feed. The .nupkg files are git-ignored.

Iterate with tools/DMXCore100.LIFX.DevHost (F5 in Visual Studio) and the unit tests — both use TestPluginHost. Core 2026.8+ hot-reloads an uploaded .dmxplugin; older firmware applies it on the next device restart.

discover
send 192.168.1.10 255 0 0
sendct 192.168.1.10 255 180 80 0
sendrgbw 192.168.1.10 128 0 0 128
sendmode LIFX_COLOR_16 192.168.1.10 0 128 0 0 0 0   # red fine byte only
sendpixel 192.168.1.30 255 0 0
r                    # shutdown + initialize again
d                    # dump registered protocols / profiles

Every push to main publishes a GitHub Release marked latest (immutable plugin-<sha> tag) carrying the packed .dmxplugin. The product build downloads it with GitHub’s “latest release” mode, not a moving latest tag.

License

MIT