IKEA Tradfri - Batteries in the remote controls are quickly discharged

Hardware
382

So far the updated firmware has made no impact on battery, however, they are not draining as quickly as expected.
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383

Interesting.

I have a Tradfri 5 button remote that is still showing 100% battery (and works fine) after around 6 months now. I have 5 of them all having lasted that long but with various other battery levels.

Conbee2 and ZHA.

384

I managed to update the firmware (which took forever) and it seems to be a bit better now, but battery levels seem to go up and down (at least that is what the devices report). Iā€™ll have to wait and see how long they will really last. I have a 5 button dimmer, 2 Symfonisk media controllers and an on/off switch.

385

Of the Conbee2 stick or the IKEA devices?

386

Of the IKEA devices. Depending on the device it took between 2 and 6 hours. But the hardest part was to get the (battery powered) devices to start the update in the first place. My Tradfri LED driver (mains powered) did accept the update right away. I placed the remotes near the Conbee stick to eliminate any unsupportive routers but to no avail. Then I placed them near the LED driver and the update started instantly.

(Conbee II with OTA firmware update through Zigbee2MTTQ)

387

Reading this and tenths of other blogs about the draining and general binding issues with IKEA remotes (i got 3x E1810) I see that there is still no solution. I was wondering to purchase e.g. conbee II to check the firmware version and probably to upgrade, but is looks like even the latest FW does not help.

Is that correct?
if so, is there any reliable other remote known that allows flexible group binding? I am satisfied with TINT remotes (4ch) but they all send to fixed groups and are a bit clumsy to useā€¦

388

Pretty muchā€¦ Everyoneā€™s experience is a little differtent. Some have managed to get the Conbee stick to work. I could not. I did solve the battery drain issue using the latest Sonoff Zigbee stick running the latest firmware and MQTT but again there are lots here and elsewhere who could not get the Sonoff stick to work either. We see a similar challenge with people using Smartthings or Hubitate. Some are frustrated some are happyā€¦

This seems to be a feature of the IKEA buttons. Sometimes they will work fine sometimes they just eat batteries.

In my large house, I have 9 IKEA roller binds, with 9 repeaters and 9 (up down) buttonsā€¦ Since I switched to the Sonoff Zigbee stick everything as been fine and I have not replaced a battery in about 5 months. (on the blinds too)

Sadly there are lots here who claim to have followed the exact same firmware setup on both the Sonoff and the IKEA stuff who are still burning through batteries.

389
  1. I have ā€œthe IKEA remote control battery drainā€ problem (Y/N): Yes
  2. My zigbee dongle (or hub or bridge) is: Lidl SilverCrest Zigbee Gateway (TYGWZ-01) Zigbee compatibility
  3. Firmware version of the zigbee dongle: EZSP 6.7.8.0
  4. HA controller stack (zha / z2m / conbee): z2m
  5. The version of the controller stack:
  6. Name / model # of the IKEA Tradfri device: IKEA TRADFRI Wireless dimmer E1743 (Ikea article number 104.085.98)
  7. Firmware version of the IKEA Tradfri device: 2.3.079
  8. Other things to note (observations, battery drain rate, etc.):

Edit: it seems the issue disappeared if I changed the coordinator from Lidl to Sonoff Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus

390
  1. I have ā€œthe IKEA remote control battery drainā€ problem (Y/N): Yes
  2. My zigbee dongle (or hub or bridge) is: HUSBZB-1
  3. Firmware version of the zigbee dongle: ncp-uart-sw-6.7.8. (https://github.com/walthowd/husbzb-firmware)
  4. HA controller stack (zha / z2m / conbee): ZHA
  5. The version of the controller stack:
"integration_manifest": {
    "domain": "zha",
    "name": "Zigbee Home Automation",
    "config_flow": true,
    "documentation": "https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/zha",
    "requirements": [
      "bellows==0.31.1",
      "pyserial==3.5",
      "pyserial-asyncio==0.6",
      "zha-quirks==0.0.77",
      "zigpy-deconz==0.18.0",
      "zigpy==0.47.3",
      "zigpy-xbee==0.15.0",
      "zigpy-zigate==0.9.0",
      "zigpy-znp==0.8.1"
  1. Name / model # of the IKEA Tradfri device: 2 x TRADFRI 5 button remote control - E1810/ TRADFRI SHORTCUT Button - E1812
  2. Firmware version of the IKEA Tradfri device: Firmware: 0x23080631 on the TRADFRI 5 button remote control /
    Firmware: 0x23080631 on the TRADFRI SHORTCUT Button
  3. Other things to note (observations, battery drain rate, etc.): Battery drains happens after Checkin event was fired on Home Assistant log
391

I searched this thread with various variablesā€¦ and (if I am not missing anything) have not yet come across any successful story using this specific usb stick.
If I were you, I would consider removing this stick from my setup.

Well, for other users out there: if you have HUSBZB-1 and do not have the IKEA battery drain issue, please share your setup with us / with Gus.

392

The most strange thing is that setup worked well for 1 year.

Well, I have a Home Assistant Yellow on the way, so I will be moving away from this setup.

For the time being, I a trying to force the controller to pair with a close to a Zigbee repeater that is next to the controller and hope it will never decide to move to another one, as the battery drain happens when there are changes to the Zigbee mesh network. However, I am open to any other suggestions.

393

Well no luck on my end. I have 2 controls and even if I force it to pair to a node 5ft away from it or almost tape the damn thing to the HUSBZB-1 stick and pair it while there. They will still die.

It looks like I was extremely lucky when I bought it as it paired to a node and it just stayed there for 1 year.

394

Just got a SONOFF ZigBee 3.0 dongle, and updated it to this firmware: https://github.com/Koenkk/Z-Stack-firmware, and my Ikea controllers are working fine.

1 Like
395

Thanks for sharing, any news on battery life for an Ikea Tradfri Remote E1810?

thx

396

I have 2 TRADFRI 5 buttons remote control running firmware 0x23080631 and paired to HA using ZHA, and after one week, the battery for one of them, that is furthest from the Zigbee coordinator, is 87% and the other one, that is in the same room as the coordinator, is 100%.

Apparently, the controller still goes to the rerouting from hell mode, but it doesnā€™t get stuck on it when using the SONOFF ZigBee 3.0 dongle and consumes the whole battery.

397

Thanks for sharing your expirience, in this case, I will give it another try!

Thank you

398

What an amazing thread. 396 messages about batteries draining in days. And now 397 messages. Yes, my batteries also die in a day or two. Humanity has evoluted from apes having sex three times a day to poor creatures swapping batteries every other day. What a joke :slightly_smiling_face:

1 Like
399

I had the problem of batteries not lasting, I had to disable the ota settings in my configuration.yaml
Batteries are still going strong after 10 months.

400

I physically moved a Tradfri 5-button remote and it died within 24 hours suggestingā€¦:

  • Tradfri battery state is unreliable (was 87%, then dead)
  • Tradfri devices need fresh batteries (3.2V works; 2.2V doesnā€™t, but still plenty of charge for a bike light)
  • Tradfri can discharge batteries VERY quickly; so fast that they can be dead even before an overnight network heal tells the remote to use a mains router now 1.5m away!

All this with the latest firmware, Sonoff 3.0 controller, etc.

401
  1. I have ā€œthe IKEA remote control battery drainā€ problem (Y/N): Yes
  2. My zigbee dongle (or hub or bridge) is: ZB-GW03 (Tasmota 12.1.1)
  3. Firmware version of the zigbee dongle: ncp-uart-nsw_6.7.9_115200.ota.
  4. HA controller stack (zha / z2m / conbee): ZHA
  5. The version of the controller stack: (HA 2022.09.1)
  6. Name / model # of the IKEA Tradfri device: TRADFRI on/off switch
  7. Firmware version of the IKEA Tradfri device: 0x23079631

First of all, this is my guess. It may not be correctā€¦

IKEA devices send Checkin events approximately every 55 minutes. What I have noticed is that the battery drains quickly from when the Checkin event is not successful. My guess is that the IKEA device is in re-pairing mode.

So, I set the battery device offline detection timeout value to 3600 seconds in ZHAā€™s settings, and created an automation that calls ZHAā€™s service service: zha.permit when the IKEA device goes offline.

Iā€™ve been observing the situation for about a week now, but I donā€™t know the truth because itā€™s not offline at the moment. Iā€™ll see how it goes for a while and report back.

By the way, the battery drained quickly, but if I remove it from the device and leave it for a few days, the voltage will recover. In my experience, it recovers from 60% to 47% and is available again. It doesnā€™t die quickly. Batteries arenā€™t expensive, but itā€™s mentally easier.