LIFX placeholder devices

I have 10 LIFX lights. Lately, for each of them, SmartThings has started creating another device that is defined as a placeholder device in the IDE. Every time I delete them, they come back…very annoying. I’ve attached some screenshots. The third shows what happens when I tap on the gear icon. Has anyone else experienced this? Know a fix?

All cloud to cloud integrations in the new V3 app are defined as “placeholders.”

It sounds like you are connecting the LIFX two different ways. I know this can happen with Hue.

I suggest contacting support to see what’s going on. Maybe some new auto discovery thing.

https://support.smartthings.com/hc/en-us

SmartThings support thinks I need to remove all 20 (yes 10x2) devices, remove the LIFX (Connect) SmartApp and reinstall. Obviously, I’d rather not have to do that, so I’d like to know if there’s another option.

I’ve been trying with LIFX support for 2 weeks. Their bot says they’re getting to me, but I’m not holding my breath.

Has anyone else experienced this?

If you are asking about the slow reply from LIFX, then yes. I once contacted them about an issue i was having and they got back to me 3 weeks later. They kept sending me automated emails that they are on it and someone will contact me soon throughout the 3 weeks.

Anyone get answers as to what is causing the placeholder on devices?

Now my Hue bulbs are doing it as well. It’s driving me nuts. I called Samsung just now and they said they are supposed to be there (they show up as Placeholders in IDE as JDRoberts mentioned). I tried to delete them in IDE, they just come back because they are part of the “new integration” (I didn’t ask what that meant because it doesn’t really matter to me). His advice to me was to rename them so that I (and Alexa, etc) can easily tell them apart. It’s a good suggestion, but I don’t like the entire thing. It’s messy and clunky. And my Homebridge stopped working, says there are two devices using the same name. I’m going to temporarily remove Smartthings from Homebridge to see if that allows Homebridge to run again.

Any new information on this? These phantom devices are a nuisance to deal with being difficult to distinguish from the real device and they do not seem to update status properly. Also unpredictable in terms of showing up in the app.

Did you ever attempt the smartthings resolution ? I have 20 LIFX bulbs and I’m in the same situation. I renamed the place holder ones, which cause more issues with ECHO.

Yes. I did. It was a pain for sure. I added the lights back via LIFX (Connect) in the Classic App. No placeholder devices, but all of my lights are fairly slow to respond still.

More info on that here…

How did you access LIFX Connect in the classic app? It seems to have disappeared I’m mine and I can’t see any way to add it back…

Thanks. I had deleted them from the Classic app with the intention of starting again, but I’ve just successfully added them in the new app. I can see and control them in both versions now.

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I’m having the same issue when trying to remove my LIFX bulbs since I’ve replaced them. No matter how I remove them, SmartThings keeps re-adding them automatically. How do I permanently remove them?

Menu > settings > connected services and remove the lifx integration if you want all of your lifx lights removed from ST

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