Good but not perfect
Would be great if you could set the max brightness of the lights. Occassionally buggy but that's standard from LiFX
Take all of my money.
I will buy your light apps again and again and again. Thunderstorms is CHOICE. the firestorm app still needs a certain Juno se quoi BUT. Just lovely all around. Bravo Sir. Ps. Thank you for allowing me to darken the sky and keep the flashes bright. 🤍🤍🤍
Pretty cool app
Works well. Thanks for the cool app. The wife likes this and she’s so sick of all my smart home devices. Request from wife - Can we have a light rain effect too?
Response from developer
Thank you! Please contact support@thunderstorm.scottdodson.dev and let me know what you'd like to see as a light rain effect.
Excellent App
Having used LIFX for the past three years, I’ve seen a lot of issues come and go. From lights not syncing to firmware problems, etc. I know it’s far from perfect but the developers of LIFX have strived to make it better.
With that said, this app is phenomenal. It does exactly what it says it does and it does it WELL. I understand some folks may have had issues with it, but before you blame this app I’d take a look and see if your LIFX bulbs are really working the way they should. With my current setup (30+ bulbs) this app makes the whole house feel like a thunderstorm. Paired with a solid audio system and it’s the next best thing to having a real storm.
Kudos to the developer for such a nice piece of software. Give it a try!
With that said, this app is phenomenal. It does exactly what it says it does and it does it WELL. I understand some folks may have had issues with it, but before you blame this app I’d take a look and see if your LIFX bulbs are really working the way they should. With my current setup (30+ bulbs) this app makes the whole house feel like a thunderstorm. Paired with a solid audio system and it’s the next best thing to having a real storm.
Kudos to the developer for such a nice piece of software. Give it a try!
Show less
Response from developer
Thank you so much!
Hue version works, but no dice with LIFX
I have recessed lighting by Hue and the version of the app for that works fine. My normal lamp bulbs are LIFX and while I’m glad there’s an app that exists for LIFX (because they are superior to Hue in almost every way!), the app just doesn’t find my lights. I’ve tried everything including resetting both of my LIFX bulbs but it just doesn’t find them so this app is totally useless, along with the firestorm one because I bought the bundle. I emailed support a while back but haven’t received a response.
I’d be willing to change my review if the developer actually offered some support but until then, 1 star.
I’d be willing to change my review if the developer actually offered some support but until then, 1 star.
Show less
Response from developer
Please make sure you connected your lights to your LIFX cloud account in the LIFX app: https://lifx.typeform.com/to/Milop4. Next, in Thunderstorm for LIFX, refresh the Lights/Groups tab by pulling down on the list. The text "Pull to refresh..." will appear and the arrow icon will spin. After you do this, tap on the light/group to update the selected light(s). I believe I responded to you on June 14 and July 10 (I can't verify your email address here). Please check your spam folder if you haven't received these emails. You can also try my email scottdodsondev@gmail.com. I'm happy to help!
Good, but not $6 good.
It’s an ok app.
links with LIFX well enough, but stops working if you tab out of the app sometimes.
The features it has are ok, but not enough to justify $6. There are only 4 options per app. This one has storm levels 1-4.
Don’t know why all functions aren’t in the same app. Why separate the fire and storm features? Why not have one app with all functions?
Imo. Overall, not worth the money. But I’ve bought it already and might as well use it.
links with LIFX well enough, but stops working if you tab out of the app sometimes.
The features it has are ok, but not enough to justify $6. There are only 4 options per app. This one has storm levels 1-4.
Don’t know why all functions aren’t in the same app. Why separate the fire and storm features? Why not have one app with all functions?
Imo. Overall, not worth the money. But I’ve bought it already and might as well use it.
Show less
Too confusing and just not that good.
I’ve had the app for Hue ( different developer ) for a long time and couldn’t be happier with the simplicity and experience of the app. Friends all love it when I crank the stereo and put the storm on. I bought two LIFX bulbs for my room and downloaded this app, and instantly wish i hadn’t. It’s only 3 bucks I know but plain and simple I just won’t use it because it just doesn’t meet the standard of my other app for HUE. If you’d like a cool experience I recommend buying HUE lights and download “Hue Thunderstorm”
Show less
Response from developer
Sorry to hear you don't like the app. Thunderstorm for LIFX works very similarly to Thunderstorm for Hue. There are many customization options to create the perfect storm for you but you can use the default settings and just tap one of the thunderstorms to start. Please contact me at support@thunderstorm.scottdodson.dev and let me know how the app can improve.
Fantastic, but would love some added functionality
The app looks and sounds brilliant, and the effect it creates with my lighting system makes for a great atmosphere. However I find whenever I play music, the rain audio cuts out and vice-versa. I was hoping to use this for D&D, so if a feature could be added to allow both audio sources to play at once that would be fantastic
Show less
Good start, but needs some work
In general, the app produces a pretty cool effect.
There's some issues with it, though. The biggest is using the cloud API instead of the LAN API. The LIFX app uses the latter if the device is on the same network as the bulbs, which is why it responds so fast. For those of us with a lot of LIFX bulbs, this thunderstorm app causes a lot of "too many requests" errors, which could be remedied by just keeping it all local.
Second, it's not terribly clear how to use groups, and even once I got that figured out, setting up colors caused some unusual responses in bulbs in the rest of the house anyway - such as the app thinking my white bulbs were set to a color. While it limited the changing effects to the specified groups, it still changed colors of all lights in my house (where possible). I confirmed that I had selected the same group in all sections of the settings.
Third, the thunder sound seems a bit canned. It lacks a lot of the sonic depth a real thunder roll or lightning strike would produce. It would really put the overall storm effect to great lengths if higher end sound clips were used that had a lot of deep bass (especially for those with a sonic shaker). At present, there's very little bass.
I can see that the creator went to good lengths elsewhere striving for a realistic soundscape, like placing the thunder at varying distances, or delaying the sound relative to the lightning like you'd experience in a real storm.
Overall, I think the app is a great start, but could use a bit of polishing.
There's some issues with it, though. The biggest is using the cloud API instead of the LAN API. The LIFX app uses the latter if the device is on the same network as the bulbs, which is why it responds so fast. For those of us with a lot of LIFX bulbs, this thunderstorm app causes a lot of "too many requests" errors, which could be remedied by just keeping it all local.
Second, it's not terribly clear how to use groups, and even once I got that figured out, setting up colors caused some unusual responses in bulbs in the rest of the house anyway - such as the app thinking my white bulbs were set to a color. While it limited the changing effects to the specified groups, it still changed colors of all lights in my house (where possible). I confirmed that I had selected the same group in all sections of the settings.
Third, the thunder sound seems a bit canned. It lacks a lot of the sonic depth a real thunder roll or lightning strike would produce. It would really put the overall storm effect to great lengths if higher end sound clips were used that had a lot of deep bass (especially for those with a sonic shaker). At present, there's very little bass.
I can see that the creator went to good lengths elsewhere striving for a realistic soundscape, like placing the thunder at varying distances, or delaying the sound relative to the lightning like you'd experience in a real storm.
Overall, I think the app is a great start, but could use a bit of polishing.
Show less
