I’m thinking about adding some IKEA Tradfri devices to my openhab setup. I’ve already got Zigbee, Z-Wave, BluetoothLE, and WiFi devices. I have some questions:
I know there is the Tradfri gateway. Given that Tradfri devices use Zigbee, do I need the gateway or can I discover and use the devices directly?
If I need to use the gateway, can anyone comment on how good the binding and performance are? Is there a lot of latency, etc?
Thanks.
I have a gateway and everything works great. As far as delays, what do you consider a delay?
I don’t see noticeable lag turning on/off the lights.
On whether you need the gateway. This may depend. One of the most recent bulbs I bought still had a really old firmware. I was trying to use the bulb with Phillips hue so it did not work. When I hooked to ikea gateway I realized why, the firmware was old. I know in the future this will not be a problem as all bulbs will have the later firmware. So bottom line if you zigbee network requires later firmware then what the bulbs has installed then it could be a problem. My understanding is the only way to update is with their gateway.
One thing I forgot. On the binding. The one that is going to be released with 2.4 has the ability to reconnect after certain network/power outages. The 2.3 binding does not. This is not a problem for me as I have a battery backup. But it is a known issue. If you run 2.3 openHAB you can manually install the latest binding though.
I have been using the zigbee2mqtt with a CC2531 USB stick for a month or so with no issues. It supports many of the IKEA devices and has the ability to add new devices. Check the link here and scroll to the bottom and click supported devices. It’s easy to setup and I haven’t noticed any issues with latency.
I have 2 ‘rail’ lamps with 5 GU10 Trådfri on each and when I send ON or OFF to those 10 lights as a group they take up to 5-6s for all to settle.
Because of this I have tried out Conbee/deconz from Dresden and their groups turn ON and OFF simultaneously.
It also support all button events from the Ikea remotes.
Downside is that deconz loses lights over a week period, but they are working on that.
Thanks. I’m running the 2.4.0-SNAPSHOT stuff, so I should be good there.
So these devices are not supported directly by the openhab Zigbee binding? You need to use either the Tradfri bridge + binding or something like zigbee2mqtt?
That I don’t know, you’ll need to check the binding doc’s. Zigbee2mqtt does not use a binding, I mentioned it only as an option.
The binding readme lists Tradfri bulbs and motion sensors as having been tested with the Zigbee binding. I am pretty sure that the list of devices in the readme are not exhaustive, just those that are known to work.
You need a zigbee radio that your pi can communicate with and issue commands to devices. If you use a tradfri hub for example then this device would be that radio. If you usb a usb zigbee device then this would be your radio.
Depending on what hardware you use will determine what software needed to control it. For example if you used the TRÅDFRI gateway then the tradfri binding would be used to control it.
If you want to use zigbee to mqtt then you need one of the usb dongles.
Ok, thanks.