The connected home presents a multitude of advantages that can be summarized as facilitating accessibility to all the devices we have at home, even when we are away from home. We have seen what can happen when a key element such as the router fails, but there are more risks that jeopardize what we have built.
In this case it is a personal experience, but it is something that can be easily extrapolated and that can also be something that other users experience. When we depend on an application to control one or more devices and this tool disappears from the corresponding app store.
Without the app, all the fish are sold
These are the lights in question
And it is that just as the router is important to be able to access the devices that we have connected when we are not away from home, the corresponding application plays an equally important role. If it doesn’t work, it can’t be updated or it just disappears from the relevant app store, we are also sold. That’s not to mention connectivity failures.
At the time I already told how I had set up a Bluetooth recessed LED lighting system at home that allowed me to create the right atmosphere at all times. They were recessed, like the ones I use in the rest of the house, but they also had (I speak in the past tense) the possibility of adjusting with a certain color, even the ability to light up according to sound or music and create a kind of mini disco. Something that is no longer possible.
And this simply happens, because the app has disappeared from the two app stores I use at home. I can’t find it either in Play Store or App Store.
The iPhone app from previous copies cannot be used
The specific application is Laes Smart and although it continues to be promoted on the web, the truth is that not available for download in app stores. Even on iPhone, even though I have it already installed from other previous backups, it cannot be used as it requires an update that can no longer be downloaded.
The truth is that the removal of this application in the app stores is quite a setback. And it is that although I can continue using the recessed ceiling, I just turn them off and on like a normal light, without being able to use the light and color effects that motivated me to buy it. Good thing I at least automated them with this SwitchBot accessory.
The lights in question… of the colors and not a trace
When in doubt, whether the application has been replaced by another, I have contacted the manufacturer, and they have referred me to this application in the Play Store (for iPhone it seems that there is nothing). The link is from this app, but after testing It has been impossible to install it on three mobiles in which I have tested (with Android 13 and Android 12).
The message is always the same. Despite the very bad score and criticism of the application, it is impossible for me to install it because the message from the application store informs that “This app is not available on your device because it was built for an older version of Android”.
I have tried to install the application on several mobiles and the capture that you have on these lines shows that it is impossible, at least in Spain.
And although the support of the brand has offered me as an option to use the .APK file for Android that you can provide methe truth is that on the iPhone, which is my main phone, I cannot connect the lights
It is not the first case and I fear not the last either.
Image | Alvaro Garcia with Midjourney
The truth is that I was guided by the brand, which was familiar to me, trying not to fall into the mistake that in the end, cheap is expensive. I had already had problems with a bulb of a rare brand, whose application soon disappeared, leaving me stranded.
This time I tried to avoid that problem, but I have found that the same problem reoccurs. I have some connected lights whose features I cannot exploit by an application that has disappeared.
The only positive part of this affair is that, at least in my case, it is not the usual thing. at home i have other brand screw bulbs such as Xiaomi, Tapo or TP-Link that continue to work without a problem thanks, among other reasons, to the fact that its application is updated periodically.
An experience that has made me appreciate how interesting it is to buy all the bulbs, if possible, the same system and a single application so that the use is easier and we have a greater guarantee of longevity over time.
In Xataka SmartHome | This is how I have added LED lights in various areas of my house without cables or complex installations