IKEA Tradfri - Batteries in the remote controls are quickly discharged

[Hellis81]

I think the battery reports should be taken with a large bucket of salt.
Mine dropped from 60 or 74% to 0 in three weeks after working fine for months.

[Joachim]

Hi all, I’m having the same problem since a while. For me the problems started when I changed from a
CC2531 stick with zigbee2mqtt to a cc2652P with ZHA. I like this setup a bit better and it works easier for me and after I moved everything over to the new configuration I started noticing the batteries of my IKEA buttons discharged very quickly. At first I thought maybe there was something wrong with the new stick, or that the buttons were broken but then I found this topic and I realized what the problem was.

I tried a lot (flashing new firmware etc) but until now nothing helps. When I put in new batteries within 2 days they are empty.

I only found out one thing and I thought it might help -the smart people- on this forum to find the bug and a solution. When I create a automation with ONLY A (IKEA) ZIGBEE LAMP and ONLY A IKEA BUTTON the battery stays working for weeks. I started this test 3 weeks ago and until now it is still working. I switch on/ off the lamp multiple times a day, for testing purposes and it still works fine.

When I start adding other products to the automation, for example ZWAVE switches the battery is empty within a day or 2.

Are there other people who have the same experience? Or willing to test this with their setup? Hopefully it will help someone!

[murtoz]

Interesting. Can you confirm the specific firmware you have installed, and whether you are using ZHA or Z2M?

[Joachim]

I’m on the latest HA version (2022.2) and the latest ZHA version. The current firmware on the TRADFRI remote control is 0x23014631. Zigbee stick is a ZigStar Stick v4.

[ur7x]

@Joachim

latest ZHA version

We have documented that IKEA buttons will die if linked via ZHA. Some are having success with Zigbee2MTTQ

[Hellis81]

@ur7x

We have documented that IKEA buttons will die if linked via ZHA

Who is “we”?
I have ZHA and it works fine.

[jjross]

Which controller are you using? I thought this thread narrowed it down to the ZBBridge.

[jes1417]

I have ZHA and a zzh and I put in a brand new Duracell and it said 16% battery a few minutes later it was gone

I also put a battery in a linkind button from the same pack and that is still reporting 100% and this was over a month ago with daily use on that button.

[ur7x]

Several of us on this very thread… Including me… ZHA drains batteries. If it is working for you, you are very liucky.

[Hellis81]

@ur7x

Several of us on this very thread… Including me… ZHA drains batteries. If it is working for you, you are very liucky.

This is what I could find scrolling up to post 200.
But that means there is 200 posts left with possible good ZHA experience.

Sorry for all the quoting.

@sparkydave

Just an update on my most recently added IKEA remote. Still sitting on 100% after roughly 6 weeks.

Using ZHA and a Conbee 2 stick.

This remote below has run for months on the same battery:

@moto2000

For what it’s worth, I have a husbzb-1 using ZHA integration and my remote battery lasts a few months, with everyday usage. I also have a Tradfri repeater, which it connects to, so I’m not sure if that makes a difference.

@kafka

I got my sonoff zigbee 3.0 USB dongle 1 month ago, on the 28 of November.
I use the ZHA integration and I had to repair all my 14 devices.
So far the IKEA on/off switch is working fine and the battery is at 62%.
With the sonoff ZBBridge I had before the battery of the IKEA switch lasted 3 days max.

So it seems that for me this new coordinator fixed the issue

@Hellis81

@Hellis81

I have the same ZigBee setup but use symfonisk rotary control, one-off button and the four button remote.

All last months.

The two symfonisk are used as volume knobs to our TVs and are heavily used. I believe it was in June or July I bought them and no battery change yet.
One says 60% the other 74%.

I have an update now.
The first battery has died.
It was the remote in the living room, a Symfonisk bought in June last year so six - seven months now.
It’s used to control volume of the TV/receiver, play/pause DVD/Chromecast, fast forward/reverse Chromecast.
It’s used heavily every day.

Using ZHA and Conbee II on a RPi with 1 meter extension on the USB port

[sparkydave (🇦🇺 Dave)]

The way I read this thread is that most of the battery drain issues actually relate to the Sonoff stick

[Joachim]

I do not have a Sonoff stick and for me it works with ZHA, only when I connect a IKEA zigbee bulb. When I start connecting other stuff the battery drains fast. I do see that my stick has the same chip as the Sonoff stick, both have a CC2652P.

@ur7x

We have documented that IKEA buttons will die if linked via ZHA. Some are having success with Zigbee2MTTQ

It is clearly a bug and I was hoping that with gathering enough info someone will find it and can solve it, instead of documenting that IKEA buttons will die, that’s why I added my experience in the thread.

[murtoz]

@Joachim

both have a CC2652P

I agree. It’s not just sonoff, it’s not just ZHA and as of yet there are too many variables and not enough specific detailed info from everybody to pin down where the issue is coming from. However, I think a trend is starting to appear - the common factor seems to be CC2652P based coordinators and specific Z-stack firmware versions.

I too have a CC2652P (ZZH), Z-stack firmware 20200417. I run ZHA. I get the issue intermittently. I have 4 on/off switches and one 5-button remote. Two of the on-off switches and the 5-button remote have shown rapid battery depletion, but equally will work fine for weeks or months. My working theory is that the issue occurs with any CC2652P and is something to do with specific Z-stack firmware (fingers crossed at least) - maybe also in combination with specific Ikea firmware, and -possibly- also with how the ikea devices route to the coordinator. My issues seem to have been reduced since I routed the ikea buttons and remote via ikea bulbs instead of directly to the coordinator, but this is only a hunch really due to the infrequency of the issue for me.

Anyways, I have good hope that the latest Z-Stack firmware (20211217) for CC2652P devices fixes the issue, as it seems to have done for a few of us on here. See IKEA Tradfri - Batteries in the remote controls are quickly discharged - #253 by niemandr for details on how to upgrade.

[murtoz]

Hmm so since my previous post 27 minuts ago, my 5 button remote went from 74% battery to dead (after having worked fine since i put a new battery in about 2 weeks ago). The ikea bulb it routed to was also offline - this happened the previous time the remote lost battery too. I had to remove power from the bulb for a minute and then when I reapplied that, the bulb was back to normal.
At least this should make it easier to estaablish if the new firmware resolves the issue!

[BlinkyLights]

@murtoz

The ikea bulb it routed to was also offline - this happened the previous time the remote lost battery too.

Battery devices NEED an always powered “CLOSE” repeater device or they waste too much power trying to find the network or send signals.

The Ikea up down remote that comes with the blinds has a 10m/33ft range to a repeater, line of sight / over open air (from the manual)… Anything more than that to the next repeater will cause it to have a poor signal and drain quickly

[murtoz]

Battery devices NEED an always powered “CLOSE” repeater device or they waste too much power trying to find the network or send signals.

Yep. It was connecting via the ikea lightbulb that’s 4 foot away from it. This lightbulb is always powered, but somehow went unavailable the past two times that the remote ran out of battery. Seems related. Like the remote gets confused and sends some kind of zigbee packet storm draining its battery and knocking the bulb offline.

On that note, does anybody know if it is possible to save a herdsman debug log in ZHA? I’ve seen koenkk ask for these on his gthub but could only find instructions how to do this with Z2M - not sure if ZHA even uses herdsman but it should be possible to save a debug log and see the actual messages the devices send?

[ur7x]

I have had them drain with the Combee and the HUSBZB sticks using ZHA.

[varunsikka]

@murtoz so far it seems to be stable
I added a ikea button and a moes zb humidity sensor inky and they both are stable
Been 3 days so far.

[tenn0]

For me, ZHA and Ikea products is working. Currently around 3 weeks battery life, some sensors are down to 16% but i take it with a grain of salt. MY biggest issue right now is that both my plugs (one Ikea plug and one Osram smart+ plug) are kinda slow or even unresponsive to state changes, I think it might be down to issue with the stick itself dropping…
Its a generic CC2531 stick i got preflashed from amazon, but i might switch to a ConBe2 in the future

[ajithprabhakar (Ajith P)]

My Setup is cc2652rb_stick_-_slaesh_s_io with latest firmware as co-ordinator and I have 5 Ikea Tradfri remotes and a shortcut button. I am facing the following issues

1. Remotes are not responding to OTA updates
2. Battery is draining in 2 days from 100% to almost zero

I tried removing, re adding, re-configuring, nothing seems so work. I am on Zigbee2mqtt 1.23.0-1 version and My Ikea Remotes are on firmware version 2.3.014. Running the latest version of Home Assistant 2022.2

What should I do to reduce the battery drain? I thought the firmware upgrade should help, however besides multiple tries (including IKEA test Server) I get errors saying remote not responding to software update. I end up charging battery every other day