Frequently asked question
What is maximum concurrent effects reached ?
Thorlight does have a limit of 3 animations active on three different group. For example It is possible to start strobe on bedroom, sky in living room and a flow on bathroom. If a new animation is started on a group where an animation is already running, it will stop the previously running one. It is also possible that rapidly starting an animation might cause this behaviour if previous animation didn’t completely stopped in the background. If you are experiencing problem you can always stop all running animations by selecting “All lights” from the top selection menu then touch the “Stop” button in the right option panel. To access the right option panel you can either touch the upper right icon or swipe finger from right to left.
Animation stop while in the background, why ?
Thorlight does rely on the “kindness” of the IOS operating system on every device to stay in background doing animation. That mean that Thorlight request the IOS device to stay in the background and continuously send command to the Philips Hue bridge and other smart lights. However there is many things out of my control that can remove the background right of Thorlight like a low battery, incoming phone call, skype or facetime call, VPN, Video playback or any other application requesting priority on audio service. To make sure IOS accept to run Thorlight for long period I would suggest to plug the device, use a device that won’t receive call and force quit (https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201330) all other application running on the device. That will raise the chance that Thorlight doesn’t get interrupted. In the end, if IOS doesn’t stop Thorlight it would run forever.
How to exclude a light from animation ?
Thorlight come with a default group “All light” that include all light on the bridge. That group or any user created group can be hidden in the left configuration menu under “Group” section. Simply touch any group and the option “Hide / Unhide” will be available. Hidden group will not be available by default in the top group selection menu. I would suggest to create a new “All light” that doesn’t include the specific light. However I would properly set that light within proper band, rooms and link it to the nearest light. You will need to create a group with only that light in and make sure to check that group as a valid “Room”. That would clear up any configuration warning.
There is a lot of white light in color cycle, why ?
Thorlight come with an option named "Color Matching" which is activated by default. Not all smart lights are made equal within their ecosystem. Light like the Lightstrip, Lightstrip Plus, Hue Go, Hue Bloom can produce deeper green and cyan color while Philips Hue white and color A19 and GU10 are better producing white light. The color matching option will match any lights to the colors of the generic Philips Hue white and color A19 light bulb. If you only have lights that can produce deep green and cyan colors you might feel that Thorlight effect are much whiter than other apps and deactivating "Color matching" option in the right panel will restore all the color capacity of your lights.
Are you planning to have per effect in-app purchase ?
There is no plan to have individual in-app purchase of effects. Currently purchase are made for the 5 dynamics section as package. I feel it is better in the end since I can add effect as gift for user that unlocked the section already and as a temptation for users still waiting to jump in. In the end I don't plan to add or raise the overall combined price of in-app purchases within Thorlight. I might add a Nature section since a lot of effects ideas don't fit well in the actual sections.
Do you have an option where I could buy all the animations ?
Unfortunately that was not intended to be created at first in Thorlight and that caused me moral problem after. Since some users already bought some sections but not all, there is no way I could offer a rebate on a new “Unlock all animations” option if I suddenly add it. All in-app purchase are tightly controlled by Apple on their server and I can’t interfere with it and Apple does regulate in-app purchase very seriously. Now imagine a user that purchase 80% of in-app-purchase and see an new “Unlock all animations” appear for nearly the same amount of his already bough in-app-purchase. I'm sure I would receive lot of complains and I could not do anything about it.
To be honest I really don’t intent to add more in-app purchase except for potentially new animations section. And since the last 9 months, I do have ideas for only one new section I would call “Nature”. If that section even come out, I’m sure I will do at low price because my goal here is not to get more money from my supporting user but to make the application better and have more users to increase income. And for same reason I never lowered price and im not planning to do it, simply to respect user that purchased a section a given price. I prefer to add more animations inside a section to finally have a user buy it because it feel that the contained animation now worth it for him.
To be honest I really don’t intent to add more in-app purchase except for potentially new animations section. And since the last 9 months, I do have ideas for only one new section I would call “Nature”. If that section even come out, I’m sure I will do at low price because my goal here is not to get more money from my supporting user but to make the application better and have more users to increase income. And for same reason I never lowered price and im not planning to do it, simply to respect user that purchased a section a given price. I prefer to add more animations inside a section to finally have a user buy it because it feel that the contained animation now worth it for him.
Can you make dynamic stroboscope effects faster ?
Thorlight need to send command to the Philips Hue bridge for each light changes when running a dynamic effect. Unfortunately there is maximum of roughly 10 commands per seconds Thorlight can send to the bridge. In a stroboscope effect turning on then off a light could as two light and result in a maximum of 5 light flash per seconds. Running effect on smaller group is the most effective way to make effect run faster. The second generation bridge is also faster to respond at commands. In the other hand most Wifi smart lights could accept faster animation speed but would not stay in sync with slower one.