LIFX Color 1000

I had a LIFX Color 1000 smart bulb that was giving me problems. It would intermittently become unresponsive, and did things that made me suspect it was resetting itself after detecting some error condition. (If so, good on you LIFX for including a watchdog timer!) Intermittent problems are the worst to track down, and after months of juggling every possible option, including firmware updates, moving the bulb to different sockets, fiddling with WiFi stuff, and more, I decided it was actually the bulb and had LIFX replace it under warranty. Their support was fantastic, by the way.

LIFX Color 1000 LED PCB

Since I now had a defective bulb, I figured I’d do a teardown. So I did, and posted it on ifixit.com as well! I discovered during the teardown that the LED PCB was not fully-attached to the metal case (which acts as a heatsink). I’m re-attaching it using a good thermal epoxy. With any luck, this will cure the bulb of its intermittent connection problems and I may be able to put it back into service.

Found some fun debug headers in the bulb, too, but didn’t have time to apply the JTAGulator…

LIFX Color 1000 Hack Opportunity?

Check out the teardown guide for detailed photos.