IKEA Trådfri

Short answer, no.

Long answer, maybe, if you have the Dresden device and Deconz, but the firmware update files have not been released so essentially you’d be jailbreaking the IKEA device and have to write your own files for it. Which is why the short answer is no. :wink:

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Seriously, has anyone been able to get the round dimmer to work? It will pair with ST, but doesn’t seem to work no matter what I try.

Yep, you need to pair it with each bulb also.

I find the dimmer had poor operation- when I dim my lights it’s very laggy and sometimes turns all my lights on when I place it down.
Anyone else have any feedback on using the dimmer wheel?

I’m heading over to IKEA later today to pick up some GU10’s and a 5 button remote. I was going to then have a look at creating the ST device type for the remote, but now I’m thinking about it, I’m not really sure what it would tell ST to do. I guess you’d need to be able to assign what each of the button presses did? I’ve never paired a switch/remote with ST before so I’m not sure what is expected of one.

Thanks for the answer, and sorry for the inconvenience. I’ve looked through the thread without being able to figure out whether your guide also applies to the 5 button IKEA remote.

Switches vs Remotes

A switch is completely different from a remote because the switch has “state.” That is, a switch by itself can be either “on” or “off.” So if you press a switch, it turns on, and it tells the hub that it turned on. Or, the hub can just send a message to the switch to turn on.

A remote, which SmartThings Will usually call a “button controller,” has no state of its own. It’s neither on nor off. When you press a button, nothing happens on the remote itself – – it just sends out a message to another device that its button was pressed. Ideally, we want the hub to receive that message. If the hub can receive a message from the remote, and the message is specific to which button was pressed, then we have a device that can integrate fully with SmartThings. :sunglasses:

What will happen is that there will be an automation/smart app set up so that when the hub receives the button press notification, The automation can treat that as a trigger and have something else happen.

Remotes that don’t notify the hub of a button press

Some remotes, however, never send a notification to the hub when the button is pressed. They just think they are supposed to talk to some other device directly.

Some people still use these as a parallel means of control. You press a button, and a lamp comes on, and eventually SmartThings knows that the lamp came on. But SmartThings never knows the button was pressed.

As long as the remote doesn’t steal the lamp away from SmartThings, so the Lamp ( not the remote, just the lamp itself) can still be controlled by either the remote or the hub, the remote can still be useful. It’s just not as useful as a full “button controller” that sends notification of button presses to the hub.

The worst case

The worst case is if the remote only works with the lamp by stealing the lamp away from SmartThings so that the hub can no longer send commands to the lamp directly. So we hope that won’t happen.

An example of a remote that can be used as either a button controller or a parallel means of control – – you decide

The Osram/Sylvania Lightify Smart Dimmer is an interesting example, because it is a zigbee device that can be used as either a button controller (sending a notification of each button press to the hub) or as a parallel means of control (sending instructions directly to some specific bulbs, but not stealing those bulbs from the hub). It just depends on which device type handler you use.

Many people like it as a button controller, because then they can have it trigger anything that SmartThings controls, including Z wave devices, because the dimmer sends the button press notification to the hub, and then the hub sends the commands to the other devices.

But some people set it up as a parallel means of control because then it is very very fast. But it will only be able to control a few nearby Zigbee bulbs.

Here for reference are the two alternative device type handler’s for the Lightify device. You have to use one or the other, and they work very differently.

As a button controller ( notifies the hub of each button press)

As A parallel means of control (does not notify the hub of the button presses, but instead speaks to the bulbs directly)

But again, this particular lightify dimmer is unusual in that it is up to the user which DTH to use and how to set it up to communicate with a Bulb – – either through the hub or directly.

Most remotes will need to be set up as one or the other, because they just won’t work in both ways. But I wanted to put both DTH links here since first of all, we don’t really yet know which of the two ways the IKEA remote would be able to use. (Or of course if it’s going to end up being one of the worst case devices, meaning it can be paired to SmartThings but it can’t be used because it always steals the lamps away from the hub. :disappointed_relieved: ). And it’s important to understand the differences when you get ready to start writing a device type handler.

Writing the DTH

The following thread is my favorite example for how someone who had never done much coding set out to write a DTH for a new zigbee remote, in that case A three button Key fob. It was a device that was eventually able to be set up as a full button controller, sending a notification of each button to the SmartThings hub. In the thread, you can see exactly the steps the person went through to get the information needed to write the DTH.

Because the IKEA Remote is intended to control zigbee lights, I think you may be able, as has already been suggested in this thread, to start with the appropriate lightify DTH and then modify that. Who knows, the IKEA remotely may even end up being able to use either control method, like the lightify, and you will end up with two different DTH is that users can choose between. But regardless, you need to get some information from the IKEA device itself, and the thread I just posted will show you how that process works.

Good luck!

how to organize the code discussions

I suggest that, just as was done with the lightify device, you start a new topic for each DTH project under, well, “projects.” In that thread you can discuss what you’re trying to do, get help from other people, brainstorm any problem if you run into. This will be your development thread.

https://community.smartthings.com/c/projects-stories

Then when you have a completed DTH ready for beta testing, start a brand-new thread under community – created device types and put the link to the github where the code is in the very first post of that thread. But wait to post in this section until you have a working device type handler at least ready for beta testing.

That way in the future when people are just looking for the DTH, they will be to find it quickly. But during the development process you will be able to get help and feedback from other community members in the development thread. And you will keep this thread, which really should be for discussion of the devices themselves, from getting flooded with code discussions. :wink:

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Great post, but just like to add that we do know it can control the bulbs directly without stealing them away from the hub. It can allready do that.

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Thanks for this i was struggling to pair this until i read your post to reset it.
just got to figure out if i can get the Tradfri motion sensor i bought in the kit not even sure if its compatible

In the end, I’ve used @SmartHomePrimer’s instructions coupled with the information in your post to conclude that while I can get the 5 button remote to work to turn off/on the lights, I’m unlikely to get it to operate with the hub directly.

I’ve now got my bathroom set up with 6 tradfri GU10s controlled by an ST motion sensor, and the remote paired as a secondary. It means that the button can be used if you’re in the bath or such, as the motion sensor is on a 5 mins and turn it off set up.

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hey,
can anyone help?

i found the ikea bulb and paired it, renamed it, but now it says please wait.
its been like this for 10 min. i tryed to restart the app but nothing happens.

any ideas?

What bulb specifically did you get? Have you tried either changing the device type to “ZLL Dimmer Bulb” if it’s the 1000watt bulb or added the dth that users have created for the other bulbs? Sounds like you haven’t done either one, depending on what one it is.

i used the “edvaldeysteinsson : IKEA-Tradfri” DH.
its the 1000 bulb i paired.

So it’s not working with that DH? I personally use the ZLL Dimmer Bulb, it’s been working for me.

That bulb doesn’t use that device handler.
I have it working on mine you need to change it but can’t remember the exact one now.
Think it’s wemo soft white I’ll check if you can’t find it

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i got i to work, i just needed to do change the name in the device name from “thing” to “ZLL Dimmer Bulb”.

i also got the dimmer to partly work,

I currently have 2 Tradfi colour temperature bulbs and 2 which are 3500K only. I am having a problem with one of the colour temperature bulbs and one standard bulb. I am using @Edvald 's device type for the colour temperature version and Zigbee Dimmer device type for the standard one. Below is my issue.

The 2 bulbs respond to all the on off commands appropriately, but the changes doesn’t get reflected in the app. I could see the changes in app only if I triggered the on/off from the app. The recent tab also doesn’t show most of the commands it has received.

I checked the events for these 2 devices on the IDE and find the “displayed” tab not reflecting all the events. I see all the events in “from device” tab though. Any ideas on how to fix this? Anyone else with this issue?

Im not sure i understand the issue, do you have a wall switch connected with ST that then triggers ST to do X with the bulbs and that isn’t reflected in the app UI?

No, my lights are usually triggered by motion or Alexa. The issue is that all these triggers work, but the updates are not reflected in the smartthing app.

For example I entered a room and the light turned on. I want to manually turn it off. I will have to press on and then off again in the smartthings app as it doesn’t show the on status. This only happens for 2 lights. Rest of them work fine.

ok, yes i have noticed that to some times with all of my devices, i just figured that the app is polling data and sometimes it took longer due to the event occurring right after the app polled data.

It might also be incorrectly implemented DTH but i’m leaning towards the first case since some of them are written by ST themselves and i don’t think they would write them incorrectly.

Thanks for your response @Edvald. I don’t think it is an issue with the DTH. This used to work correctly may be a month ago. Also the issue only happens with 2 of my lights. The problem is not that the this gets missed some times. It is missed always. Please see the below screenshot. It shows that one of my light was turned on and off today, but the events before that only occured 4 days ago. Something seems to be definitely wrong. I will try to reset my hub once to see if that makes any difference.