I have some xiaomi bulbs that used to work until I needed to re-pair them to a new wifi and (unofficial) integration kept asking me for pairing code - which is nowhere to be found. I probably got rid of the boxes where it's supposed to be located. Wonder if there's a workaround for that.
I think WiFi IoT stuff has a reputation for being janky pretty much across the board, the recommendation is usually to use Zigbee stuff instead wherever possible. That also has the security advantage of keeping the devices on their own little network that can't access your LAN or the internet directly.
I've gone with Zwave instead - older house and hoping to keep wifi bands uncongested. It's about $30 per device, with Zooz as a big brand. It's been quite solid and the spousal-acceptance-factor is high.
Not familiar with xiaomi bulbs, do they have QR codes on the base?
A few years ago Xiaomi started enforcing region locks to reduce gray market sales, so a bunch of products stopped pairing when app set to wrong region, without indication why. I had to repair my vacuum, air purifier, security cameras on profile with PRC region, and other stuff on profile with Singapore region. Very annoying.
