Pairing Ikea Tradfri Wireless control outlet kit and button

Devices & Integrations
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Good evening all. Today I bought the Ikea Wireless Control Outlet kit with two-button remote. Searching online how to integrate this with SmartThings I only found posts from a few months ago saying that the button counldn’t be integrated, but after a bit of playing I have managed to get the button to control up to four actions so I I have joined the forum so I can share what I found in case it benefits others.

How to use Ikea Tradfri outlet and two-button remote with SmartThings:

I bought the kit with the plug socket and two-button remote which are both Zigbee compatible. The button comes paired to the outlet, but we’ll erase that pairing and route all control via the SmartThings hub.

To pair the outlet with the SmartThings Hub, I went into the SmartThings classic app, selected ‘add a thing’, then once it began searching (and with the outlet plugged into the mains), I held the reset button in the tiny hole at the bottom with a paperclip until the flashing lights did their thing and the outlet appeared in the list of devices found. SmartThings recognises the outlet and has a device handler for it, so you complete adding it to your devices as normal. SmartThings can now control the outlet like any other outlet or switch.

To pair the Ikea button with the SmartThings hub, I pressed the little button next to the battery quickly 4 times to reset it (it flashed red four times to confirm). Then I took out the battery and left it out for about 20 seconds. Then in the SmartThings classic app I went to “add a thing” and it started searching. I put the battery back in the button and again pressed the little button next to the battery 4 times quickly. Red lights flashed four times to confirm the reset, then throbbed gently, and SmartThings found the button.

Now it appears as a main device with two child devices:
Main device: IKEA TRÅDFRI On/Off switch
Child device: IKEA TRÅDFRI On/Off switch bottom button
Child device: IKEA TRÅDFRI On/Off switch top button

I let it keep those names for now while I got to grips with things. If you look into the activity logs, you can see actions are being logged when you press the buttons.

Now if I go into the device in my list of devices in the new SmartThings app, it seems to offer me the option to assign actions to the various button presses, but if I try to do that the app crashes.

However, if I go into Automations and add a “Smart Lighting” automation, I can add an automation that does whatever I want, triggered by the Ikea button. I have found that it is best not to select the child devices - just select the master device as the trigger, then you get the option to choose button 1 or 2 (button 1 is actually the one marked “0” with a rought texture on the device, and button 2 is the one marked “I” with a smooth texture on the device). You can also choose “pressed” or “held”. And you can choose the action as a toggle if you like.

As a test I created four automations:
Press button 1 toggles on/off my kitchen light
Press button 2 toggles on/off my cabinet lights
Hold button 1 toggles on/off my patio lights
Hold button 2 toggles on/off the Ikea outlet

With the Smart Lighting automations you can do pretty much any combition of actions you would likely want with the switch, so even though it looks like the button hasn’t been properly implemented yet, it’s good enough if you don’t mind a bit of extra set up work.

The Ikea Tradfri outlet is a bargain at £10, and at £19 for the kit the extra £9 for a Zigbee button that can do four functions seems like an absolute bargain to me. The outlet (UK version) can handle a full 13A, and the European version can handle the a full 16A so what more could you want from an outlet? And the button is a great bit of design: the two sides of the button have different texture so you can feel in the dark which side you’re pressing, it’s very small and light, it has a strong magnet in the base to cling to a metal surface, and comes with a base plate to screw it to something and a couple of 3M sticky pads. I think it’s a great bit of kit for £9! I will definitely be buying more of these kits! Well done Ikea!

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Been looking for a way to get this to work as I picked up a couple tradfri on a whim. Same as you I noticed it was registering presses, unlike what I had found reported in other discussions on using these with ST. I was having the same crash issue you described.

After reading your steps above I was able to quickly get some fairly basic controls for the dimmer, temperature and on off toggle set up. So just wanted to say thanks! Fingers crossed they will be fully implemented without having to use this workaround eventually. It would be really nice to be able to have more options than just those you can attach to press and hold.

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Amazing. Thank you to the ST team. Button works flawlessly. I am in Canada and I only had one device show up (good), so no parents and child devices that I can see. I had the remote still paired from eons ago. I recommend to remove it and add it again! Enjoy your cheap and functional buttons!

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Playing with it today I found two other routes if the “Smart Lighting” automations don’t suit your purposes.

In the new SmartThings app you can add a “custom automation”. This does allow you to select the Ikea button, choose which of the two buttons on the device to use as the trigger and choose “pressed” or “held” as the trigger.

The advantage of using the custom automation is that you can combine criteria with AND or OR rules in the IF statement. For example if you press the top button during the day it could put the main bedroom light on, but if you do the same action at night it would put the side lamp on (or activate a scene with dim lights). Maybe if someone presses it while you’re out you could light the whole house up like a football pitch and send a text to your mobile!

The other useful method I have found is using “Routines” in the SmartThings classic app. I have set the Good Night routine to “run automatically” when the bottom button is held. I use the Good Night routine to turn off pretty much everything in the house so I always use it when I go to bed, and being able to run it from an Ikea button next to the bed is a lot better than having to go into the app or talk to my Google Home Mini when everyone’s in bed.

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The reason you can use it now when a few months ago people could not is because smartthings very recently added official integration for the button device. That’s why it is now showing up in smartlighting and other places. That’s not a workaround, it’s the way the buttons work. And It’s just another button controller now. :sunglasses:

Thanks for the heads up on this, and the caution that the options from the device page itself don’t work. I’m sure a lot of people will be interested.

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All setup! Thanks OP and thanks smartthings team for adding official support!

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Yes, ikea 5 button paired with standard procedure. It even shown options to assign pressed and help option for all 5 buttons (so total 10), but i think there is still a bug in update app since i try to add function to these inbuilt options he app crash.

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I don’t know that they have officially added support for the Ikea button controllers. The dimmer remote is the only one that has been added to the public device handlers. No remotes show under the Ikea brand in the app. It’s possible they are using a private device handler.

If someone can post the “Type” that is assigned to the 2 button or 5 button in the IDE we can dig into it more. Definitely glad they are somehow working though!

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I think you might be right.

I looked around in the ST GitHub public repository and can’t find the device handler that is used for the two-button remote. I also searched through all closed pull requests and didn’t find anything there either.

The device handler that’s used would have , deviceJoinName: "IKEA TRÅDFRI On/Off switch" at the end of one of the fingerprint lines.

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I have the 5-button remote. When I tried to pair it, ST found the device and it was successfully paired but no child devices were created and I only see battery level and a refresh button when I open the device in the app.

I do see it’s listed as a 5-button button in the IDE but no events are detected when I press any of the buttons. I removed the device and repeated the above steps with both the classic app and the new app but the results were the same and no buttons are shown in the IDE or either app.

Can anyone help me understand what I’m missing here. Can you pair and use the 5-button remote or just the 2-button remote? Is there a step that I missed?

TIA.

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@veeceeoh when you look at the device in the IDE, what is set for the Type entry?

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Unfortunately I don’t have the IKEA button, I was just snooping around out of curiosity. :joy:

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I think this is a “work in progress” and there are some official DTHs, but they may still be under development. Lots of conflicting reports right now.

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That’s my job :stuck_out_tongue:

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Thanks OP and ST team for official support. All setup and button works nicely with Smart Lighting automation.

Got the Tradfri control outlet kit here in Canada. Followed OP’s steps and paired the outlet first to ST. This part is a little weird. Used a paper clip to press on the reset button on the outlet and set ST to add device. Not sure if long press is needed… nothing happened on the SmartThings classic app. Was going to give up then the outlet magically appeared under “things”. Pairing the 2-button remote was easier. Pressed reset 4 times and the buttons appeared in the “add a thing” page.

To setup automation, it is important to choose the “parent device” and not the “child (specific up/down button)” device. Struggled with this for a while because if child device is chosen, only the bottom button seems to work. If the parent device is chosen, then one can select button 1 or button 2 for specific actions. Button 1 is marked as “0” and button 2 is marked as “1” on the actual remote. I’ve set button 2 to turn on outlet and button 1 to turn off outlet.

Under IDE, the outlet is marked as a “ZigBee Switch” with the following data:

  • application: 14
  • endpointId: 01
  • manufacturer: IKEA of Sweden
  • model: TRADFRI control outlet

The 2 button remote is marked as a “Ikea Button” with the following data:

  • application: 11
  • endpointId: 01
  • manufacturer: IKEA of Sweden
  • model: TRADFRI on/off switch
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interesting, that would be a private device handler then! Time to dust off my Tradfri 5 button and give it another whirl.

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Well I’ll be damned. It works! And works really well in the new app. All 5 buttons are exposed and labeled on the device screen. Each has a press and hold option. Color me impressed. Will get a quick video up showing it off.

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For those that want to see it in action

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Great result! So for the 5 button remote in the iPhone app it looks like it works 100% correctly.

I wonder if the issue that I and others have found whereby the app crashes when we try to set the actions is down to the Android app, or the fact that I was using the two-button remote.

Thanks for sharing the video.

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good question. I don’t have the 2 button remote or an android device to test :confused:

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