Setting up
A fresh Luma just needs three things from you: your Wi-Fi, a name, and a decision about whether to set a PIN. There are three ways to hand those over — pick whichever suits the moment.
Path one: the app (recommended)
Plug the Luma in. For its first few minutes it broadcasts over Bluetooth as Luma-Setup-XXXX, where XXXXcomes from the device’s hardware address — it’s printed nowhere else, so this is also how you tell two fresh devices apart.
- Open the app and choose Pair a New Luma. Nearby devices appear with signal strength; tap Identify and the matching device flashes cyan for five seconds.
- Enter your Wi-Fi name and password. iPhones can’t scan networks on behalf of other devices, so the app offers your phone’s current network plus manual entry. If you type a different name than the one your phone is on, the app warns you before sending — a mistyped network is the most common failed setup.
- Give it a display name(what you’ll see in the app and on reminders) and a system name (a shared label all your Lumas will use; letters, numbers, and hyphens). The app checks the network and warns you if the system name or nickname is already taken.
- Choose a PIN, or skip it. See PIN & sharing for what it protects. Minimum four characters.
The app then narrates the handover — sending setup, joining Wi-Fi, finalising — and finishes on “your Luma is online.”Your phone’s timezone is passed along automatically so schedules fire on local time.
Path two: no app — the Wi-Fi portal
If the Bluetooth window passes unused (or you don’t have an iPhone), the device opens its own temporary Wi-Fi network named Luma Setup XXXX for about three minutes, then cycles back to Bluetooth and repeats.
- Join that network from any phone or laptop. A setup page opens by itself (or visit
192.168.4.1). - The page walks the same steps in one screen: role, your Wi-Fi (with a network picker), system name, nickname, and optional PIN.
- The device joins your Wi-Fi while you watch progress. Nothing is saved until the join succeeds — a wrong password lands you back at the form, not in a half-configured state.
- On success the ring pulses green briefly and the device restarts onto your network. If your phone wandered off the setup network mid-flow, don’t worry: once the join succeeded, the device finishes and restarts on its own within a minute.
Path three: browser, on your network
A device that already has Wi-Fi but never finished setup (say, an interrupted first attempt) serves its setup wizard at http://luma-setup.local until setup completes. Same questions, same result.
Names, and what they’re for
| Name | What it does |
|---|---|
| Display name | How this one device shows up in the app, on reminders, and in device lists. Required, unique within your system. |
| System name | The label your whole household of Lumas shares. Satellites find their Main by it, and it becomes part of the device’s web address. Lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens. |
If setup goes sideways
- Wrong Wi-Fi password: the device reports the failed join and returns to setup. Nothing was saved; try again.
- Power cut mid-setup: harmless. Configuration is committed only at the end, so the device comes back either fully set up or fresh.
- Device already set up:if a PIN is set, re-running setup asks for it (or for the app’s stored pairing) — a housemate can’t accidentally re-provision your Luma. Without a PIN, setup stays open by choice. To start truly fresh either way, use factory reset: hold the button while plugging in and keep holding through the five-second countdown.
- 2.4 GHz only:Luma’s radio joins 2.4 GHz networks. If your router splits bands under one name it works fine; a 5 GHz-only network won’t be joinable.
Once you’re online, the next thing worth knowing is how to find the device again — its addresses are stable and worth bookmarking. And if the device is properly bricked before it ever set up, the USB recovery installer (BOOT + RESET) reflashes it from a desktop browser.