I am having very strange issues and really need help. Some of my Ikea Tradfri bulbs have stopped responding while some are working. Those that do not work are not responding to any commands so I can´t dim them using a virtual dimmer, routines and scences don´t work - basically they only turn on and off. This has become a major issue as my whole house is using these bulbs, so there is a lot of them.
I looked into the settings and see that ST has changed the type to “placeholder” while some are set as “ZigBee White Color Temperature Bulb”. I tried changing the type from placeholder to ZigBee White Color Temperature Bulb, but that is not doing anything.
Here you can see a list of bulbs which are all the same but one has a different setting in type.
The weirdest thing is that some rooms work fine even with the type set to placeholder.
I have tried removing the bulbs from ST and re-add them to ST, but that has not done anything. This is like cancer and is spreading around my whole house.
Could someone please help or direct me in the right direction.
The ST platform is transitioning from the legacy Groovy code implementations for drivers and SmartApps to the new Lua-based Edge drivers and Webhook SmartApps. If a device shows as a Placeholder in the legacy IDE, it has been transitioned to an Edge driver that was installed on your hub and runs locally. Changing the type in the IDE once this happens can cause issues and will not change the fact that the driver for the device is installed on your hub.
It’s likely that your devices were transitioned to a stock Edge driver from the ST driver collection. It may support basic functionality (possibly), but more advanced functionality is usually only available from community developed Edge drivers. To see some information about your devices that was formerly available in the IDE, I recommend using the API Browser+ from @TAustin. Here you will find device details such as what driver is assigned to the device and other information about your ST environment.
Here is a link that explains Edge in greater detail.
Community developer @Mariano_Colmenarejo seems to be the most knowledgeable regarding Zigbee devices and has written many drivers for multiple device types. His Edge Driver Zigbee Light Multifunction Mc may support IKEA devices, but I haven’t dug into that thread to know for sure.
I think that Ikea bulbs are using stock Edge drivers.
My Ikea bulbs are automatically migrated to Edge drivers.
My Ikea bulbs’ driver is Zigbee Switch ( Developer SmartThings ).
Can you check which driver placeholder marked bulbs are using.
In detail view open driver from top right dots.
First, thank you all. The Zigbee Light Multifunction Mc driver seems to work. Had to remove the bulbs from ST and re-add them after installing the above driver.
Now I just need to reconfigure about 100 other bulbs
What is the recommended order of actions when updating to a new driver? Should I be removing all bulbs first, set them into pairing mode and then pairing them again to set them up with the new driver OR can I do this without removing them?
As @TapioX says above they should migrate anyway to the standard Zigbee switch driver. Then you just have go to the 3 dots, driver and change to the Mc driver in each device.
If they have not migrated I believe you must delete and pair again but I am not the person to advise you on that as I bought my hub with the start of the new Edge architecture.
I agree that you should wait for them to migrate given that you have so many. Since you have installed the Zigbee Light Multifunction Mc driver, ST will prefer this driver over the stock driver during migration. Also, migration will not require you to edit your Routines to re-add a device that you manually delete and re-add to move to an Edge driver. Also, Routines that have only one device as the trigger or action will be deleted if you don’t create a virtual placeholder to replace the physical device that you delete.
Don´t think I have the luxury of waiting if it means I lose control over the lights. Done about 50% of the bulbs today.
There is though an interesting difference between the Zigbee Switch driver and the Mc driver. When you dim using the Mc driver the dimming function is “harsh” (happens in noticeable steps) but the Zigbee Switch driver does a much smoother (and better) dimming.
Regarding removing vs just repairing, then my experience is that sometimes it works to repair and sometimes it does not. So I start with pairing and if that does not fly I remove and readd. This means I have to redo all automations and routines. The only good thing about that is that I can tell the wife I am busy!
I’d mention the dimming behavior difference in the thread for the Mc driver and see what Mariano says.
You can avoid having to rebuild your routines by using a virtual device(s) as placeholders for the physical devices so that your routines don’t get deleted. Then you just add your physical device back to the routine and delete the placeholder.
