FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Support questions from customers of dozens of partner brands, grouped by symptom: a light that will not pair, colours in the wrong order, music sync that stops when the phone leaves, a dim far end, several lights that should act as one. Each answer states the cause and the setting or step that resolves it; where a paragraph is not enough, it links to the guide that covers the subject in full.

Getting connected

The app cannot find my light during setup. What should I try?

In approximate order of how often each is the cause:

1. The wrong app for the hardware. The single most common cause, and indistinguishable from a broken light: the app opens, Bluetooth is on, and the device never appears in the list. The apps are not interchangeable; each speaks one control protocol. Check which app the light needs before anything else.
2. Another phone holds the connection. Most of the controllers accept one connection at a time. Any phone that has previously paired with the light takes the connection silently whenever it is in range. Close the app on that phone, or move it out of range.
3. Bluetooth permission was denied at install. On current phone operating systems the app needs location or nearby-devices permission to scan at all, and a denied permission produces an empty device list rather than an error. Check the app's permissions in the phone settings.
4. The light is not powered. Many controllers give no visual indication until a connection is established, so the power supply should be confirmed directly.
5. Range. Pair within a few metres of the light, then move away.

Do I need an account, or an internet connection?

No account is required, and Bluetooth control needs no internet connection. The link runs directly from phone to light, so it works in a garden without signal, in a van, or during an outage.

Mesh-networked installations behave the same way for local control: grouping and scenes run between the devices themselves rather than through a server.

My light disconnects after a minute or two

Three causes account for most cases: distance and walls; a second phone competing for the connection; or the light sitting at the edge of range, where a person moving between phone and light is enough to drop it. The test is to stand next to the light. If the connection holds there, the problem is range rather than the device.

How do I reset a controller?

The procedure varies by controller: a physical button, a power-cycle sequence, or a command in the app. The exact procedure depends on the product and is supplied on request — send the product name or the brand it was sold under. Contact us.

Colours and effects

My light works but shows the wrong colours — red comes out green

The strip and the controller assign colours to the output pads in a different order. This is not a fault, and on our apps it is corrected in software rather than by rewiring: the setting is Modify Pin Sequence, located in the settings pop-up rather than on the main control screen, which is why it is so often missed.

Full procedure, including the ten-second test that confirms the diagnosis: wrong colours and the channel-order fix.

Is music sync in the app or in the hardware?

Both, and the mode in use determines what the sync can do. There are three separate modes:

• Music — the app plays a track from the phone's own library and drives the lights from the file. Tightest timing; streamed audio from Spotify or YouTube is not visible to it.
• Microphone Rhythm — the phone's microphone listens.
• External Microphone — a microphone inside the controller listens. Despite the name, nothing plugs in. This is the mode most often wanted and least often found: once set, the app can be closed and the phone taken away, and the light keeps reacting.

The three modes compared, and how a built-in microphone changes the install.

Why will my strip not do a chasing rainbow effect?

Because it is a standard RGB strip rather than an addressable one. On RGB, all the LEDs share one control signal, so the whole run is always a single colour. Colour travelling along a strip requires a control chip built into the strip itself. No app or setting can add it — the one-glance test that tells the two apart.

My chase effect stops early, or looks squashed into one section

The controller does not know how many addressable points the strip has. The Pixels setting, in the same settings pop-up as the pin sequence, sets that count. Too low, and effects compress into the first section; too high, and they run off the end and vanish.

The effect looks frantic. Can I slow it down?

Yes, and in most rooms it should be. Default speeds are set to catch the eye on a shop shelf, and the same speed reads as restless in a living space. Every projection and flow product tested in our workshop looks better one or two steps slower than shipped. No other adjustment costs less.

Brightness and power

The far end of my strip is dimmer, and slightly red

Voltage drop along the run. The remedy is to feed power in at a second point, not to buy a larger supply — a larger supply at the same single feed point changes nothing. Sizing the supply and fixing a dim far end covers where to inject and why.

My light flickers, but only sometimes

Flicker on bright content with stable behaviour on dark content indicates a power problem: current draw scales with the proportion of LEDs lit, so the fault comes and goes with the content displayed. Flicker regardless of content points first to the connection between controller and strip.

On a vehicle, flicker that appears only over bumps is a cracked solder joint or a connector working loose, and it will become permanent — why vibration kills these installs.

How much power do I need?

Watts per metre × metres, plus headroom. The limit most often overlooked is the controller rather than the supply: the controller's rating, not the adapter's, often sets the longest run that can be driven. The arithmetic, step by step.

How long can my strip be?

Two limits apply and the lower one governs: the length the controller can address, and the distance over which the voltage holds up. Beyond the second, the far end goes dim and red; beyond the first, the extra length does nothing at all.

Several lights at once

Can I control multiple lights as a group?

Yes. For a small number of Bluetooth lights, the app switches between them. For a room that should behave as one installation — several ceiling fixtures, a whole wall — mesh networking is the appropriate method, and iMeshting provides it: room grouping, group control and offline voice.

Do I need one app per light?

One app per protocol, not per light. If all the lights use the same controller family, one app runs all of them. Mixing an RGB strip and an addressable curtain light does mean two apps, because those are different control systems.

I joined several light screen panels and the picture is scrambled

The wiring is usually sound. Two conditions must hold: power fed into every panel separately rather than chained through the first, and the panel order and orientation set in the app to match the physical mounting. The pattern of the scrambling identifies which condition has failed — a table for reading it.

About the apps themselves

Which app do I need?

It depends on the controller inside the light, not the brand on the box. Three questions and a full table of all forty of our product categories.

Are your apps free?

My light came from a brand I have never heard of, and the app looks like yours

In that case the controller and the software inside the light are ours. We design the control solutions and supply white-label builds of the apps to partner brands, who ship the product under their own name; the brand on the box is our customer. More on what we make.

Do the apps work with Alexa or Google Home?

Support varies by product line. Some controllers are Bluetooth-only by design, and voice-assistant support differs across the range, so no general answer holds. iMeshting includes offline voice control, which needs no cloud account or internet connection. For a specific product, ask us; the reply covers exactly what that product supports.

General LED questions

Chip types, IP ratings, colour rendering, driver topologies and strip lifespan are general lighting subjects, covered by standard references. Where they bear on a practical decision, they are dealt with in context:

• Cutting, extending and joining strip, and when to start a second run instead — strip length and power
• Adhesive failing behind a warm television — TV backlighting
• Outdoor joints, water ingress and what fails first — firework light installation

Still stuck?

State the type of light, the app in use, the observed behaviour rather than the expected one, and attach a photograph where possible. That combination resolves most cases in a single reply. Contact us.