Ikea 5 button remote killing batteries

I have opened at ticket with samsung support too…
They have asked my to delete one of my buttons… Put a new battery in re-add it and then send them the logs in a couple of days when it dies… Is this the process they asked you to do?

Yes.

New batteries, re-pairing and it finds them and they work for a short while then vanish.
Next they get me to delete and re-add the buttons, and they work for a short while then vanish.
Then they start at the beginning again… assuming it must be a problem with the buttons, not their darned ZigBee update.

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I logged a ticket with UK support and the response was that they just needed some information that they knew was pretty much irrelevant to allow them to escalate. Mind you I’ve not heard anything since giving them the info (phone and app version which is irrelevant, and hub serial numbers which they know anyway).

Confirming this as an issue for me too. I have 8 Tradfri 2 button rocker style puck dimmers in my house. After a recent power outage they all stopped working. I thought maybe it was related to the outage and maybe something put them in a strange state that drained the batteries or maybe an update made it through after the reboot. I started replacing batteries and adding some of them back again. Luckily, the ones I added came back as if nothing happened but noticed the ones I fixed started dropping again after maybe 3 days, assuming batteries died. They’re all on the same firmware version, 22010631.

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I have absolutely no idea what the situation is, there seems to be radio silence on the subject.

I don’t really know what the relationship between IKEA and SmartThings is. However the buttons are listed as supported devices so there ought to be some interest somewhere.

I’m pretty stuffed without IKEA devices so I see it as so critical that ears must be being bent at board level, but maybe they are a total irrelevance to ST in the grand scheme of things.

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I did hear back from SmartThings Support in the UK. Engineering say they are aware of the issue and are actively working on it, which is about as much as I would expect them to say really. That seems to be a more positive message than others have received.

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The plot thickens so on a whim I bought a IKEA Gateway/Hub and plugged it in… I took one of the dead buttons and put a new battery in it (one of my last $5 ones) :roll_eyes: The new IKEA hub was happy to take it… and instantly reported that is was on version 2.2.008 and it was going to up date the firmware on the button… That firmware update has been proceeding for about 35 minutes now… with no signs of completing…

Is a Firmware update killing these buttons? So far my idea of using an IKEA Gateway to drive these buttons and integrate everything with HA is turning-out to be out a bust too.

UPDATE… As per the IKEA website the update takes 2 hours… WOW… It is done
This button is now on 2.2.010. Hmmm

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Update. Well the buttons linked to the IKEA hub hold their charge for more than 2 days :+1:
That is the good news. The bad news the IKEA hub does not expose the buttons to Home Assistant via their integration so my plan to use HA as a bridge between IKEA buttons and Smartthings was failure.

I believe so far it only shows up in Homekit and the IKEA app when connected to the IKEA gateway. And the battery issue seems to showing up when it’s connected to a number of other Zigbee hubs. :disappointed_relieved:

My one remaining On/Off Button still on a Zigbee 5.2.1 hub also holds its charge (firmware 2.2.010 as many of my buttons are). Except when it doesn’t. It was OK for a couple of weeks, lost its charge overnight, and has been OK since.

My one Shortcut Button is also still OK but eccentric with battery reporting. It loves 87% but then dropped to 16% and back up to 87%, had a brief period on 60-something and is now at 47%. So it shows signs of poor battery life but not the bonkers battery bug. That seems to be the sort of thing that some users reported several months ago.

There still seems to be a secondary issue with battery reporting even on Zigbee 2.9.0. The batteries sometimes show at 0%. Power cycling Tradfri outlets used as repeaters seems to help with that. If I had an Ikea gateway I’d probably be addressing the firmware on those.

I’m wondering what will happen if there is a firmware update required on the IKEA buttons. Will ST distribute the updates?

I am having the same issue and the affected buttons (2) are on 0x22008631.

The one that is still working is on 0x14018610.
One thing that I have noticed is that the one that is not impacted battery wise, is connected directly to the hub, whereas the one that are not working are connected to an ikea smartplug.
Hopefully a fix comes out, this is very annoying as I use the buttons in the kids room.

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Historically ST has distributed zigbee updates for “Works with smartthings“ Devices when the manufacturers sent them in.

Interestingly my Ikea buttons have been on old firmware on Smarthings for at least 4 months (before they all died) Smartthings reported (and still reports) that they were on the most up to date firmware. The one that I paired with the IKEA hub… instantly performed a firmware update. (instantly LOL took almost an hour)

Based on my experience. Do not hold your breath waiting for Smartthings to update the firmware on these buttons. YMMV

Oh I don’t expect ST to update the firmware in the normal course of events. I was just wondering if we might see it happen if that is part of the solution.

We can hope…

Also interesting. I’m still playing with my IKEA Hub before I decide if I’m going to return it…

When all of my remotes died, several of my repeaters switched to a flashing “pair” mode. Not sure if that was related. But I did pair a few of the repeaters to my IKEA Hub and they needed an update too… 2.2.005 updated to 2.3.070… takes “hours” too…

This is the latest update I got on my ticket from ST

I just wanted to reach out and let you know this is a known issue that our engineers are currently working on. There is no ETA on a fix for this, so in the meantime, you may want to configure your automations around this till we can get it fixed. Again, our apologies.

AKA you are on your own.

Interestingly enough I did a full reset to my hub and one of my buttons have lasted for 2 weeks now.

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Today all my Ikea buttons went from working to dead between morning and evening. That is 5 Symonfisk, 1 five button and 3 two button Tradfri and it is not the first time this has happened recently. It ‘seems’ to have got worse since the Zigbee v3 update too - or is this my.imagination?

Buttons had great battery life until recently and also Ikea blind batteries are needing recharging every 2 to 3 weeks now whereas previously they lasted well over 10 months - as did the buttons…

This needs fixing and soon, Ikea ‘things’ are becoming next to useless!

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It isn’t your imagination. I don’t think there is any doubt that there is correlation with the Zigbee updates. I don’t want to say the update broke anything though. More that it revealed that something was already broken somewhere.

As a followup to an earlier post of mine in this thread, the On/Off button I described there had actually only had four days on a new battery, and it again lasted two weeks and failed yesterday. The Shortcut button I mentioned in another post also failed yesterday, with the last battery report having gone back up to 60%. I had relocated it yesterday, it was working in the late afternoon, and had failed a few hours later. I checked it this morning and it had just enough battery left to flash its LEDs but not enough to pair.

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I replaced a battery in one of each device last night, all showing 100%, this morning maybe 14 hours later:

Symfonisk one click and dead with 34% battery
Two button showing 100% and still alive
5 button showing 5% and ‘just’ seeming to work

Trying to raise a ticket with ST but that is proving a task in itself as using ‘report a problem’ from the app is getting the response:

“From your inquiry, we understand that you have encountered some technical issues related to your device.
We kindly inform you that you contacted Samsung Content and Services.
Here, we can assist you if you encounter any issues related to the Samsung Account sign-in process, Galaxy Store, Find My Mobile etc.
In order for you to get the proper assistance on this matter, I would kindly advise you to contact our colleagues from Samsung Electronics.”

Useless…

I don’t seem to have a ‘report a problem’ in my app (Android UK), just a ‘Contact Us’. It used to be if you used that and guessed the one right option out of the many in ‘Ask question’ or ‘Error reports’ then your message would actually reach UK Support. If you chose the wrong one your message would end up in a Samsung support mailbox where it would languish forever, or if you were really, really, unlucky, it would get answered. Now everything seems to go through Samsung Members and I can’t find how to get support that way. It seems to be vaguely aware you were interested in something to do with SmartThings before you abandoned hope, but that is about it.

The best way to get UK Support is to e-mail support@smartthings.co.uk as you’ll get a ticket number back straight away. Recently it has been taking about two days to get a response, which is much better than the month it took when I first contacted them two or three years ago, or the two months during lockdown last year.

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