IKEA Tradfri light bulb keeps flickering/flashing... not enough power?

I’m trying to get a ZigBee signal out to my mailbox, and the closest device is a Hue bulb in my porch light. Those only repeat for other Hue devices, and unfortunately the mailbox sensor I’m trying to reach is connected directly to SmartThings.

I thought I’d solve this by getting an IKEA bulb for the porch light, which theoretically should be a better repeater for the mailbox sensor.

However, upon installing the IKEA bulb into the porch light, it just flickers constantly. The brighter I set it, the quicker it blinks. If I set it to around 5% brightness, it stops flickering but it’s pretty dim.

After reading around a bit, it seems the IKEA bulbs (and some other LEDs… but not the Hue bulb that used to be in there) will do this when used with certain types of dimmers, and the porch light does get brighter/dimmer when it detects motion so I guess that’s probably the problem.

My question is… short of finding a new porch light or trying other brands of smart ZigBee bulbs, is there a way to fix the flickering/power/dimmer problem? Like I said, the Hue bulb had no trouble with the porch light so I’m not sure why that one works and the IKEA doesn’t.

The motion control dimmer is indeed almost certainly the problem. It’s Surprising that the Hue didn’t have the problem, it was probably just a matter of time. Typically when you have a dimmable smart bulb controlled by a dimmer switch one or both of them will burn out eventually as they confuse each other. (See the user guide for the bulb: it will tell you not to use it with a dimmer switch that controls the current to the bulb.)

But you should be able to put The IKEA in a table lamp or fixture near a clear glass window on the same side of the house as the mailbox and get almost the same range.

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