You kind of have to ignore the IKEA procedures as they have decided to use a remote follower feature that zigbee2mqtt does not use. By resetting the remote and joining it to the controller it is no longer linked to the repeater.
If you reset the repeater with a paper clip and put your controller in join mode, the repeater should join.
I would suggest joining your repeaters first, they will then show up and also have individual join mode options in the dropdown in zigbee2mqtt, then join devices close to the repeater to force them to use the shortest path.
One I have paired exactly as you described.
One I paired the button directly to the Sonoff without resetting the “factory” repeater (which is plugged in close to the button)
And a third is running without its repeater.
The first two are within 4’ (with direct line-of-sight) of their “linked” repeater
The third is about 20’ from the hub through at least two drywall walls.
I have 9 of these… at least 7 of which I want to use to drive non-IKEA devices.
I have tried both a HUSBZB and Conbee II and both drained the IKEA batteries in less than a week… As did the Smartthings hub. (which was/is my main ZWave and Zigbee hub)
I really like the Zigbee2MQTT integration… Very slick… Even offers to update the firmware on the buttons and the repeaters. And does the firmware update about 50X faster then the IKEA hub.
Me too. I was having the problem of battery drain in hours using ZHA and sonoff usb dongle 3 out of the box.
After upgrading the sonoff dongle to latest firmware and recreating the zigbee network again ( yes you will loose network) everythin fine since a month and a half and no drain battery anymore
Note: using one ikea remote and 5 ikea on/off switches all of them with correct indication of battery and working
I have shortcut buttons and the on/off/dimmer buttons and they are behaving extremely well using zigbee2mqtt with a CC2652P coordinator (Smartlight, zStack3x0, 20210319 Egony).
The 5-button remote on the other hand, has gone through two CR2032 batteries in two days and I’ve now removed it from my setup.
Thank you for your 2 informative posts. I had ZHA and moved the Tradfri remotes from Hue bridge to ZHA on Friday. On Saturday, the batteries were crazy low/drained.
Thanks to your posts, I flashed the Sonoff USB and moved to Zigbee2MQTT, plus I’m upgrading the firmwares (I had 2017-2019 firmwares from when I bought all the bulbs & remotes and Hue bridge doesn’t upgrade them). Batteries look promising (although it was only yesterday, but no more 1-day drains at least).
Here’s a graph. The drops are the firmware upgrades, and then they mostly recover.
PS: I was scared of Zigbee2MQTT since ZHA is so native and simple. It took mere minutes watching the recent Mark Watt video on the Sonoff USB and it’s amazing, so many more options than ZHA (options, upgrade firmware manually, etc.) (not bashing ZHA, I love it too!).
Well I decided to set mine back up today using ZHA but I added the remote directly to a Peanut plug that I’m using as a repeater (hoping that would help) and it made no difference. The remote was dead in a day.
I guess I have to wait and go to a different ZHA hub (I’m using the ZBBridge)
Just want to chime in with another success story. Switched from ZHA on a Husbzb-1 to Zigbee2MQTT on an upgraded Sonoff 3.0 stick and my Ikea battery problems are gone. Thank you to all that posted here.
So I have 3 Ikea buttons running on the Sonoff dongle for about a week now:
Paired with its repeater reset and paired as per the Z2MQTT instructions
Factory paired to its repeater (which was not paired to the Sonoff, if that makes sense) Button Paired to repeater and to the Sonoff. (the repeater not reported by Sonoff)
One connected direct to the Sonoff with the repeater not used and in the box.
Reported Signal Strength by Sonoff Mapping Tool:
179 (Bounced off of paired repeater)
63 (Direct)
74 (Direct)
Battery levels after one week of use…
87%
100%
91%
Ironically, so far, the one that was paired in the most “un-recommend” way seems to be performing the best.
All three buttons are about the same distance to the Sonoff dongle. None have line of sight to the hub.
Regardless These are working way better than they were with ZHA under either HUSBZB or the Conbee. In my house if I used ZHA the would be dead within a week… Using SmartThings and they would be dead in less than 48 hrs…
Slightly confused by your wording and order… Do your repeaters show up on your map AND do they show the remote connected to the repeater then the repeater connected to the controller?
So the first button… Yes, it and its repeater are on the map and they are both connected to each other and the repeater to the hub: Button → Repeater → Mesh/Hub. That one was set up as per your (and the Z2MQTT) instructions. It has the strongest signal.
The second button was not reset from the factory paring to it repeater and I did not pair the repeater, just the button… On the map, there is just the button . Button → Hub. The repeater is powered… But not on the map. (doing nothing I would guess) it reports the weakest signal
The third button has no repeater and like the second the map shows a direct link to the hub. (middle strength signal)
All three buttons are in the same room on the other side of the house, about 20’ through a couple of drywall walls to the Sonoff.
Since I posted my update… The first and second buttons are now both at 87% and are holding there. The third is still at 91% and is holding there.
IKEA documentation suggests that these should last well over a year with normal use (2 or 3 presses per day) I would be happy with 6 months.
I gave up with my tradfri 5 buttons remote.
Tired of wasting money for batteries that don’t last more than a day or 2.
I had 3 coordinators all with Zigbee2MQTT.
First sonoff ZBBridge with custom firmware, same problem and totally unstable with IKEA driver.
Usb dongle cc2351 all good, battery level didn’t change for weeks, network very stable.
Then I switched back to more powerful sonoff usb dongle 3 (with latest firmware), same problem.
So the problem for me is between sonoff devices and IKEA devices.
I’m now using a sonoff snzb-01 wireless switch, no problem at all.
Sadly Tradfri remote button is now on my drawer, I spent probably more for batteries than the device
Is there a trick to get the Sonoff to firmware update the buttons?
A couple of days ago it managed to update Button #2 (the one with the unpaired repeater )
But so far the button with the “properly” paired repeater (#1) is refusing to firmware update the button from OTA.
Also interesting that since Button #2 did its update it now uses button #1’s repeater to get back to the hub (as per the map)
I originally updated them on the ikea hub before moving them to the sonoff. However, battery devices don’t do much unless you wake them up. I would suggest selecting the upgrade option and then pressing the button to wake it up a few times. It should happen naturally within a few hours otherwise.
Note that firmware updates WILL drain the battery a fair bit.
Jus to be clear to do a firmware update on Ikea devices in ZHA you need to enable it in the config file and in Zigbee2mqtt it is on one of the web interface screens.
I upgraded all of this through Z2M OTA, no problem (with the Sonoff dongle).
As BlinkyLights says, click the button right before the Check for updates to wake it up. If the button still refuses the OTA, take its battery out 10 seconds, try again.
I also put the remote upgrading right next to the dongle, to give it max signal.
It takes 2-3 hour per remote, and ~25 minutes for bulbs.
If the repeater causes issues, I would pair them directly, OTA, then re-pair them however you like (through repeater) - but I understand Zigbee will eventually find its best path automatically?
In my case i needed to ask to do the update and then quickly press the button a few times and BANG… it took…
I find that the Sonoff is way faster than the IKEA hub doing updates… Button updates on the IKEA hub were about 6hrs long… The Sonoff is about an hour… To update my binds on the IKEA hub was over 12 hrs in some cases.
I am very pleased with the Sonoff and Zigbee2MQTT (so far) I will give it a couple of more weeks and if all is well I will turn off the Zigbee radio on my SmartThings hub and move everything over to HA!
