IKEA Tradfri - Batteries in the remote controls are quickly discharged

Hardware
282

Z2MQTT solved the issues for me. When I was using ZHA I found that enabling “zha.permit” for 15 minutes each night ensured the devices remained connected and kept their batteries fully so I recommend trying that unless you want to switch to Z2M.

1 Like
283

Thanks, @sdgsdg, I am using Z2MQTT only. I see the remotes with 2.3.014 firmware is having the battery drain. I had updated two remotes to 2.3.080 and testing them out, I will keep you all posted,

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284

That’s interesting. I’m not familiar with zha.permit. Does enabling it have any effects on devices already connected?

I assume something like this is what you mean.

alias: ZHA Permit Nightly
description: 'Enable zha.permit for 15 minutes at 4am'
mode: single
trigger:
  - platform: time
    at: '04:00:00'
condition: []
action:
  - service: zha.permit
    data:
      duration: 900

I’ll try it out and report back.

2 Likes
285

My Ikea remotes are still at 75-85% running for over the last 30 days since my last changes.

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286

Nice, I moved from zigbee2mqtt to ZHA (wth flashed sonoff dongle)
2 days so far, and its working fine. (With zigbee2mqtt, it was a week and things were fine too)
Only one ikea on off button remote lost power, it was on low battery in any case due to the pre flashing issue, but others seems to be fine.

Primary reason to move to ZHA - I have many philips hue switches and not sure why but Zigbee2mqtt provides very basic triggers, like on/off, and dim up and down,
ZHA on the other hand, provides more triggers - even for ikea remote, with one button press, second press etc,.

287

Zigbee2mqtt does support multiple clicks with Hue dimmer, see

Also, the Ikea remote blueprint is what does the multiple clicks for that. You can use the same logic with ZHA or Z2M

288

Could you walk me through how you got the IKEA repeaters into Zigbee2MQTT?
I have my Sonoff flashed to the newest firmware and it is configured and working well… I have linked a single IKEA button to it…This is button is still factory linked to its repeater. (neither has ever been reset) they are less than 4’ (~1m) apart and yet the Sonoff map does not report the repeater and the signal strength is only 73/256. (like the button is ignoring the repeater)

Is this normal?

289

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.

290

Thanks for the reply.

I have a bit of a battery test going right now.

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.

291

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

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292

Are you still using ZHA or switched to ZB2Mqtt ??

293

ZHA of course!

294

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.

295

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.

image
image1001×568 48.6 KB

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!).

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296

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. :frowning:

I guess I have to wait and go to a different ZHA hub (I’m using the ZBBridge)

297

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.

2 Likes
298

Time for an update.

So I have 3 Ikea buttons running on the Sonoff dongle for about a week now:

  1. Paired with its repeater reset and paired as per the Z2MQTT instructions
  2. 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)
  3. One connected direct to the Sonoff with the repeater not used and in the box.

Reported Signal Strength by Sonoff Mapping Tool:

  1. 179 (Bounced off of paired repeater)
  2. 63 (Direct)
  3. 74 (Direct)

Battery levels after one week of use…

  1. 87%
  2. 100%
  3. 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…

Thanks Again Blinky!

1 Like
299

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?

300

Sorry that was poorly worded… Let me try again.

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.

301

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 :frowning: