A few days ago I got myself some IKEA Trådfri bulbs for testing. I hooked one up via zigbee2mqtt to openHAB (worked great). Another one I just put into a normal lamp fitting in my ceiling, it is switched with the normal mains wall switch like a “classic” bulb.
What bothers me, both bulbs are really slow to respond. If I flick the associated switch to ON in openHAB it takes at least half a second for the bulb to respond. Switching it OFF is almost instantaneous, so there seems to be no really noticeable delay from the zigbee network and transmission itself.
If I use the wall switch for the second bulb it also needs at least half a second to light up, just enough time to think “is it broken?”
Is this normal for IKEA bulbs or did I get a bad batch? Are Hue bulbs or other Zigbee bulbs faster?
If you are removing power from the Bulb the use case is wrong. The intent is to have the bulbs powered 100% of the time.
The reason for leaving them powered on is they will stay in contact with the zigbee network and be very fast. To answer the original question i would expect a delay going from unpowered to joining zigbee network.
The first bulb is constantly powered and joined to the Zigbee network. openHAB gets a status update from it every five minutes, even if the bulb is off. But it still takes nearly a second for it to respond to the “on” command from openHAB
The second bulb is not constantly powered, but it is also not joined to the network (yet). So there is no real reason for it to not light immediately when the wall switch is flipped, right?
I understand better your question thanks for further info.
I would suggest having a mqtt snooper running. Flip the switch in openHAB. If the mqtt topic instantly changes then the delay would be in the zigbee2mqtt software.
After doing this experiment, I would suggest posting your mqtt config also on this post so others can review. Right now From The info provided it is unclear where the delay is coming from.
Hi, I make use of the Ikea Tradfri Binding in openhab I have this running for over a year now.
When I press my push buttons or press on my phone is going on almost instantaneously!
I recommend you using the Tradfri Binding!
Hmm, I’m trying to avoid such manufacturer hubs/gateways as much as possible, so I was glad that the IKEA products work with a standard Zigbee setup. Having two Zigbee networks running in parallel does not seem to be such a good idea, I think they might “fight” for frequencies and such?
Right now I’m VERY pleased with how well the cheap Xiaomi sensors work with my Zigbee2mqtt setup. I was not able to get them to work at all with the standard openHAB Zigbee binding. I hoped to use the (constantly powered) IKEA bulbs as routers to enhance the range and link quality of the sensors. And since the Xiaomi sensors are not working with the standard Zigbee binding I did not even try that binding with the IKEA bulbs (they came later).
Well, if the Trådfri Binding with an IKEA hub is the only way to switch the bulbs in a timely fashion I will probably give it a try. The bulbs are still quite cheap and the gateway is also only 30€ here in Germany. I still can use one or two IKEA bulbs at not so important places (and outside of the then new Trådfri network) as routers for the rest of my Zigbee network.
There’s still one question for the IKEA hub and the Trådfri binding: if I group a couple of bulbs together and switch them all on simultaneously (or nearly so, since the switch commands will have to go out one after the other within a few milliseconds), will the bulbs also react simultaneously?
I would like to group 6 lights in the ceiling of my hall way and 3 lights in the ceiling of my bath. It would look quite stupid if the bulbs in each groups would not light up simultaneously
The deKonz solution with a Conbee USB stick looks interesting. The Conbee stick is not much more expensive than the Trådfri gateway and it saves me from operating two Zigbee networks since the Xiaomi sensors seem to be well supported
Switching simultaneously is great, but is there any noticeable delay after flicking the switch?
@kintrupf Flicking what switch?
I have my bulbs linked to a hue dimmer on one side the room. I have them tied to an Insteon keypad(slight Insteon delay) on the other.
In the ui I believe it is instant.
Video taken when using my Insteon keypad.
I switched to deconz to consolidate my network also. As well as use sensors from xiamoi.
Which switch? Well, either a switch item on the openHAB sitemap, a rule in openHAB, a wall mounted standard switch or one of the Trådfri remotes. All of them would switch the bulbs through openHAB. Maybe I can even get Alexa to play nice
Ultimately, I plan to place a cheap Sonoff Mini (mqtt) behind each existing standard wall switch and use is to send a command to openHAB. openHAB will then command the bulbs through Zigbee.
Of course I’ll have to check that the processing within openHAB will not add to much time overhead
@Thedannymullen, I looked more into the deconz solution. It’s not so far off from the current Zigbee2mqtt solution I’m using, so it would be no big change. I just need to setup the things and items files differently.
You said the lights are linked to a hue dimmer and there is no noticeable lag. Is this a “direct” link between the Zigbee devices or goes this link through openHAB? If so, then my lag is probably from the Zigbee2mqtt binding and deconz would be a very good solution for me
I have a similar setup - zigbee2mqtt and a bunch of xiaomi sensors and buttons, and recently I’ve installed two Ikea Tradfri bulbs hoping they would work as routers / repeaters. More or less, they work although I will return the other 2 bulbs I have because their colour temperature doesn’t get “cool” enough (5700K). I like my wifi / tuya bulbs that can go up to 6500K.
Turning them on / off via openhab (mqtt) seems fine / responsive to me. The tradfri bulbs do have a “transition” (i.e. fade in/out) effect. zigbee2mqtt allows you to specify the transition time both in the /set command or in the config file. Even when I specified transition: 0, there’s a brief fade in/out. It is quite quick though, a lot less than 1 second.
@kintrupf yes my hue dimmer is linked (bound) directly to the bulbs. Deconz can be shutdown and the dimmer still works. Try a google search on binding zigbee remote for zigbee to mqtt it may support this feature also.
There is one downside I have not fully solved with this configuration. I am not able to do some of the long press and double tap actions I would like. Well I have not been able to get it to reliably function as a scene controller. The on/off and dimming on both my tradfri and Phillips works like a champ though!
