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Chihiros Magic App/ Commander 4: Alternatives

Onoma1

Onoma1

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Joined
12 Aug 2018
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Location
West Yorkshire
Does anyone know of an alternative to the Chihiros Magic App/ Commander 4? I have just bought another Chihiros WRGB, however, having experienced significant difficulties with the Commander 4 controller wondered if there was an alternative controller that I could use to control the colour/ ramp up and down/ intensity.

I love the light fitting just hate the blasted controller.

The solution needs to work out of the box, not need wiring in (I don't trust myself when it comes to water and electricity) and preferably work using a simple interface.
 
have you got the latest firmware on it? noticed somewhere Chihiros saying they fixed a few of the problems in an update or the latest versions but could well just be keeping people sweet and might still be an issue. Worth checking
 
There are quite some RGBW Wifi controllers developed lately and functioning via phone app. Wifi is a tad more stable than Bluetooth connection. As long as you still use 2.4 ghz it will yet not function on 5ghz.

First you need to figur out if your light setup is DC 12 or 24 volt constant voltage. If so (and i suspect so but don't know for sure) than it can be used. If i look the Commander 4 instruction videos i see it has a 5 pin plug that corresponds with a V+ RGBW pin.. You need to figure out which pin is what to connect it correctly.

Such as this one:
www.banggood.com/Milight-YL5-5-in-1-WIFI-LED-Controller-for-RGB-RGBW-RGB-CCT-LED-Strip-Light-Work-With-Amazon-Alexa-p-1419288.html?

https://milight.pro/manuals/YL5_EN.pdf

I do not know this specific app this device uses, but i guess they all work pretty much the same with a different layout. Ask the vendor for specifications on the app.

But i have a simple WIFI E27 light bulb and it uses the Magic Home Pro app. This app contains a timer function to set a sunrise or sunset schedule, start time - brightness / End time Brightness / Duration start to end. It also has a RGB color setting per channel. Now this is only an RGB bulb thus it has no W setting. But so far it works like a charm..

I can not figur out from the above manual if the App used on that controller has a integrated seperate W channel, since you have a RGBW light. I wouldn't be suprised if its a RGBW controller but than the App doesn't allow you to controll the W channel seperately. This is something you realy have to communicate with the vendor about, to find out before you buy.

They are launching all kinds of different wifi led controller devices on the market in a record speed.. But the software development isn't always what it appears to be. This obviously still is in its baby steps. Than they are also not realy champions in writing complete simple to understand manuals. Imho very incomplete and it all leaves to much room for questions you have to find out for yourself.

Thus ask the vendor all you want and need to know before purchasing something like this. To prevent disapointments. :thumbup: After all its not specificaly designed for aqaurium use, but home use with disco music and strobe light features and all..
 
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For everyone using these lights/controllers - Chihiros has launched a new version of the app - it''s now called My Chihiros and it seems to work a lot better than the old Chihiros magic app.
 
Nuno Gomes said:
For everyone using these lights/controllers - Chihiros has launched a new version of the app - it''s now called My Chihiros and it seems to work a lot better than the old Chihiros magic app.
Click to expand...

The major problem was not the app (although it was not perfect) but rather the Controller itself. Chihiros has quietly updated the Commander 4 electronics. See the < thread I created recently >

@Onoma1 You might want to check which one you have. Request for the new version if you have the old one.
 
Thanks @Hanuman. I have downloaded the new app on my new phone and this seems to work ok as long as you allow the app to know your location. The request pops up when you connect the device for the first time.

My view with the old app was that they didn't need this information/ permission so in the past I rejected this request. The OLF app still functioned on my old phone using the old app without permissions.
 
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