I am constantly fighting with my Bilresa two button remote. It will work great, and then it will stop registering button presses. It’ll fix itself if I just leave it alone, but then is so unreliable it’s unusable.
I’m new to Home Assistant so I am expecting I am doing something wrong, but I’ve set up other devices mainly without issue.
For now, just checking if this is a notoriously flaky device. If it’s generally okay, I’ll provide more details and ask for specific help. I’d appreciate a quick note if you’ve got one of these.
Hi, Thank you. I tried two popular community blueprints and also manually (new automation). I’m triggering with the state change to button pressed once. Wasn’t clear if I should use to or from, but I landed on to. I’m doing this for on and off and double presses for different brightness.
I had hoped for functionality like with the IKEA app, but of course, the IKEA app is too limited and I am hoping to stay on one platform with one technology. That would be Home Assistant with Matter over Thread.
If it matters, I created the Thread network with the Nest Hub. I did that because I have an existing Google Home ecosystem with speakers and cameras and the Nest Hub is a bully with the Thread network and doesn’t seem to like to not be the primary hub. I have the IKEA Dirigera at the other end of the house. It happily joined the Nest network so these two are just there as border routers. I have very few “routers” in my thread network which I know is not ideal. May contribute, but the remote and the bulb are feet away so… I don’t think a hub needs to be involved.
Anyway, I’ll stop rambling. Just trying to give the whole picture.
I noticed on my Bilresa buttons and scrollwheel that they are showing as unavailable in Matter, but still register a button press in the Automation blueprint… the trace shows the automation checks if they are unavailable and won’t react to a button press…
Something weird is going on with Matter and these devices, the other matter devices I have are more stable… the buttons only seem to work before sleeping after a home assistant reboot… the scroll wheel is even stranger…
I am running on a HA Green with a usb hub and a:
Sonoff_Zigbee_3.0_USB_Dongle_Plus_V2_7 - flashed as a open thread border router
@pmcgarr I have the same issue, same nest router and Bilresa 2 button remote. I was having issues last night. I pressed the button several times and it didn’t register, however about 10 minutes later the light turned on and off several times, as if it’s finally catching up.
I have no solution, but I thought I’d confirm your sanity.
I’ve found IKEA’s new Matter devices to be quite flaky. The Bilresa remotes are OK, but they go idle a lot. However, you can switch them to Zigbee mode (search for threads about this - it’s easy) and it works much better.
FYI - this is for the two-button remote. I don’t know if the scroll-wheel remote can be changed to Zigbee, I don’t have one.
Thanks for the responses. It’s actually refreshing to find that it’s not just me. I don’t mind fighting a device, or even deciding that its garbage, but being new to just about all of this, I waste a lot of time thinking its something I’m doing wrong.
Quick update on my situation with this remote… Initially I planned to keep everything on HA, and all Matter over Thread. But, because I have an IKEA Dirigera hub doing nothing but acting as a border router, I figured I would share the light and remote to the Dirigera and disable the relevant automations in HA. Now I let the Dirigera hub manage the remote / light interactions and it’s dead reliable and even the dimming is very smooth.
Starting to appreciate the Thread network. I believe this is a case of Multi-Admin, and I think I can even remove the remote device from HA, and nothing will break. Perhaps I will stop using IKEA devices, but for now I will hang in there because this makes it clear it’s a software issue. In time, it will get sorted out. For now, I will embrace these super inexpensive remotes and just share them to the Dirigera for control. Waiting for the new line of Matter over Thread bulbs to be launched in the US.