if statement string match

[javiopro]

You should test "==" not "is". Is should only be used when you are testing if two objects are the same instance. Below I make two bytes. They are constructed of the same bytes, but they are different objects.

x = bytes('12345', 'utf-8')
y = bytes('12345', 'utf-8')
print(x, y, id(x), id(y), x is y, x == y)

Output:
b'12345' b'12345' 2409442857008 2409442857104 False True

x and y are equivalent, but they are not the same. x is y returns False and x == y returns True.
Just in case rfm9x.receive() returns str, the same is true for them.

x = ''.join(['a', 'b', 'c'])
y = ''.join(['a', 'b', 'c'])
print(x, y, id(x), id(y), x is y, x == y)

Output:
abc abc 3078969735600 3078969723888 False True

You may wonder why I constructed the strings as I did. The reason for using join instead of a string literal is Python is clever and tries to be efficient. This code does not create two str objects.

x = 'abc'
y = 'abc'
print(x, y, id(x), id(y), x is y, x == y)

Output:
abc abc 1811113886448 1811113886448 True True

In this example not only does x == y, but x is y. Notice that the object id for x and y are the same.

thanks for the == tip
this worked for me...

onset = bytes("onset", "utf-8")
unset = bytes("unset", "utf-8")

while True:
    packet = rfm9x.receive(timeout=5)
    
    if packet is None:
        led.value = False
        print("Received nothing! Listening again...")
    elif packet == onset:
            print("its on")
    elif packet == unset:
            print("its off")
    else:
        led.value = True
        print("Received (raw bytes): {0}".format(packet))
        packet = str(packet, "ascii")