Tradfri products

I bought some IKEA Tradfri products yesterday. This will be my first time using trying these products. I did not purchase a hub.

I have a Philips Hue hub and a Smartthings hub. Which one should I connect the products to in order to get the best experience with the Tradfri products? I assume if I connect them to the Hue hub, they will push over to Smartthings since I have the two linked?

The items I purchased are:

1 dimmable white bulb
1 dimmable white and color bulb
1 5 button remote control
1 2 button remote control
2 wireless motion sensors

Additional info: I do not intend to directly integrate any of these items with my existing Hue bulbs; I only mentioned the Hue hub because I did read it offers more control over the color bulbs.

I intend to use one of the motion sensors to trigger a “routine” using other smart bulbs through smartthings.

All the other tradfri products will be used together. The 5 button remote will control the color bulb. The 2 button remote will control the white bulb, with the motion sensor tied to that one as well.

So basically this question is which hub? Hue or Smartthings or did I make a mistake not picking up the Tradfri hub as well?

Thanks!

You should connect the bulbs to hue. Im not sure if its possible to connect the remotes and motion sensor to hue.

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You can’t use both the tradfri hub and the smartthings hub, so you made the right decision there. :sunglasses:

As far as the bulbs, you can do it either way. Connect them to the hue hub or connect them to the smartthings hub. They will still show up in smartthings.

The remotes are a different issue. The hue integration does not expose any “accessories“, whether they are its own brand or a third-party brand, to smartthings. That includes handheld remotes, sensors, and the wall module. So the remotes and sensors have to be connected to the smartthings hub in order to be used with smartthings.

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Thanks to you both. I guess a concern I had regarding not buying the tradfri hub is that I’ve read if the devices do not come with the proper firmware, they will not work in ST. They are brand new so I doubt this will be a problem but it does suggest future firmware updates pushed out by Ikea could cause issues with compatibility on other hubs if I don’t have their hub to download the latest firmware.

That’s true, some people do buy a tradfri hub for that reason. But be aware that updating the firmware that way would require removing the device all together from the smartthings network, then joining it to the tradfri hub, then re-joining it to the smartthings hub.

There is a method for updating the firmware of Zigbee devices via the smartthings hub, but it can sometimes take a long time before that is made available for a specific model.

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could you please tell me more? I’ve activated everything about the Zigbee update in the IDE.
And never seem it’s updating for 3 years I have several different Tradfre devices. So either it’s happening seamlessly in the background and I always have latest version or it just does not work

It’s up to the device manufacturer to send the update files to smartthings where they can then be made available to all customers the next time Zigbee updates are done.

I don’t know which specific devices/manufacturers have participated in this, but I believe IKEA did this at least once with their original bulbs that didn’t follow the Zigbee spec. But that was a long time ago and I don’t know any details. I just know that it is possible and that, for example, in the case of the IKEA buttons that are using a batteries in a few days, smartthings engineering has said they were working with IKEA on a solution.

@posborne might know more about Zigbee firmware updates from third parties.

Just to avoid any possible ambiguity, all you have to do at the ST end is re-pair the device once you’ve updated the firmware.

However pairing to the IKEA gateway can be tedious and uncomfortable and involve relocating sensors temporarily and the firmware installs when it feels like it. It can be minutes, it can be hours. It is a miserable experience best avoided so it would certainly earn brownie points for ST if they made the firmware available.

As the gateway is only ÂŁ22 in the UK I thought it worth a punt, and I found a permanent use for it as well.

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it’s a good investment in e-waste. this piece of plastic will cover with dust after a couple of updates and end up somewhere in the landfill of a third world country

Bit of an old thread I know, but all my Tradfri motion sensors have stopped working. I set them up with SmartThings ages ago and they’ve worked fine until yesterday. Suddenly they all stopped working. I’ve tried to re-pair the one in the bathroom but if I select Ikea as the partner device it says I can’t pair this without the hub. If I scan for nearby devices it doesn’t see it, even if the sensor is next to the smartthings hub. They’re all offline and nothing will come back online. Anyone get any idea how I can get them back online again?

Start by finding out what edge driver they are using.

Go to

My.smartthings.com/advanced

And look at the device details.

the only driver I can find is a dropdown list with zigbee motion sensor selected. Is this it?

There are lots of very interesting things in this advanced section (none of which I know how to make use of :slight_smile:)

My Tradfri motion sensors run OK with the Zigbee Motion Sensor Mc driver.
They often show offline but I’ve got around to ignoring that as they always wake up if there’s movement. I like them because they don’t flash when triggered.

[quote=“Johnnybegoode, post:14, topic:234301, full:true”] I like them because they don’t flash when triggered.
[/quote]

This product will solve that problem. Comes in black, white, or silver, in various shapes and sizes. I use these all over the house. :sunglasses:

https://www.amazon.com/Dimming-Stickers-Blocking-routers-Electronics/dp/B09TWG8TP2/

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Yes, it’s been a while since I logged into smartthings so it could have been showing offline before, but they’ve all stopped working and since this one is the light in the bathroom, my wife is going to get annoyed if the boys keep peeing on the floor because they claim they can’t see :slight_smile:

Like many other Zigbee sensors, I find in 90% of these cases changing the battery is a good start. All IKEA sensors as far as I can see are a bit finicky here.

It will depending on the brand of motion sensor, on some of mine the flash emanates from the sensor itself, so putting a stick on it to block the flash would also block the sensor itself

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My problem isn’t the flashing, it’s that they won’t come online any longer. I’d love to have the flashing problem. I press the link button four times to put it in pairing mode, but the Smartthings hub just refuses to see it. It has new batteries, but still nothing. The new Smartthings that makes you choose the brand to pair rather than device type says Ikea devices need a hub so won’t allow me to do it that way. There is no QR to scan so the only option is to find nearby devices and it just doesn’t see them. Is there an alternative method where I can add a device, maybe through the advanced setup that @JDRoberts mentioned?

Then your problem is pairing. These IKEA devices can be difficult. The bulbs need pressing on-off 6 times, and that sometimes needs repeating.
Using the scan method, and I can’t remember with the motion sensor, but just recently with an IKEA button needed to press 4 times,and repeat, or even hold the button down until the pairing LED stayed almost steady or just fading; took several attempts. They just don’t have this clear flashing of the pairing LED like the Tuya /Sonoff do.
I encourage you to keep trying and try alternative methods, like pulse continually, hold down etc, because they do work.

UPDATE Just noticed that under partner devices/Ikea /Scan/No QR/can’t find your device? you get to


It then says toggle device 6 times!