Hi, I have been reading through the forum posts on TRÅDFRI and none of the quite answer my question which I hope you can help with.
I know you can pair a TRÅDFRI light bulb with smart things, and apparently you can pair the button too, but really I want the button to control the bulb independent of smartthings, but smart things to also control the bulb. Why, well I want to be able to have smartthings to turn off the bulb at certian times at night if I forget to turn it off before going to bed but have the button there to both turn it on and off at other times and in the middle of the night if I get up. I do not see the point in integrating the button with smartthings when it will only control the bulb and can control it if I do not use it with smartthings. Also for resilience, if smartthings fails for some reason the button is there to operate the bulb. Also my experience with smartthings and sensors is that there can be a latency between the sensor triggering and taking the programmed action.
I can give you a partial answer to this because I have managed to do this. Unfortunately, I cannot do it repeatedly. I am sure somebody will chip in with a definitive answer.
I believe you need to pair both the bulb and the button with SmartThings and then ‘touchlink’ the button with the bulb.
If the bulb is paired with SmartThings and the button is not, then ‘touchlink’ will unpair the bulb from SmartThings (in my experience).
In one case I have a Tradfri LED driver paired with SmartThings, a Tradfri Rodret dimmer paired with SmartThings, and managed to ‘touchlink’ the Rodret with the LED driver. The LED driver is controllable with either SmartThings or the Rodret, but the Rodret is no longer accessible from SmartThings (for some reason).
When I tried to repeat this with another Tradfri LED driver and another Tradfri Rodret, I failed.
I await a definitive reply to your question.
I am not an expert either but it is when you press and hold the pairing button on the Rodret (in my case) while holding it in very close proximity to (i.e., touching) the bulb (LED driver in my case) you wish to control. The bulb does its ‘paired’ brightness modulation indicating success but, all going well, is paired to both SmartThings and the button.
As I said, it worked with one of my LED drivers, but not the other. This may be related to the firmware version of the device; I bought mine at different times and SmartThings does not update Tradfri firmware.
I have also been occasionally successful with Tradfri GU10 warm white bulbs; it is just not repeatable in my case.
As with all these things, don’t give up, keep trying, and good luck.