IKEA Tradfri integration --> slow response

1

Hello

running HASS 0.116.4 (in docker on RPI) with IKEA TRÅDFRI intgegration.

I noticed that lights are responding slow sometimes.

  • IKEA remote --> lights = fast
  • IKEA app --> gateway --> ligths = relative fast
  • HASS --> integration --> gateway --> lights = SLOW

Because using the native IKEA app gives a good response, I think it has something to do with the connection hass --> gateway.

Questions

  • does anybody experiences the same problems
  • is there some possibility to debug / trace messages that are sent/received to/from gateway?

kind regards,
Bart Plessers

2

To me the IKEA lights are a pain in the butt. On good days everything works super smooth, but not always.

Lights

  • Mostly work just fine
  • Ikea updates have broken the setup ones and had to reset all lights one by one

Remotes

  • Run out of battery very often, replacing the battery is not enough, have to re-pair them
  • Often very sluggish
  • Sometimes have to be re-paired for no reason

Ikea App

  • Always works, but often very sluggish and loses connection (close and re-open app works)

Home assistant integration

  • Updates have broken the integration a few times
  • Most of the time faster than remote or Ikea App, but sometimes also a bit sluggish
  • Scenes sometimes need to fire multiple times to get all lights in sync
  • Sometimes (like right now) just doesn’t work at all (statuses are wrong, control doesn’t work at all)
3

sorry to hear that.
I think the IKEA eco system is fairly good (enough). It’s cheap, but functions very well. The good part: the remotes are directly paired to the devices, so if my domotica-system is not up’n running, the most of things still work.

However, the integration with HASS gives me some headaches.

4

hmmm. Forgot to mention: the IKEA Tradfri integration works very well in DOMOTICZ… :slight_smile:

grtz

5

Hmm… Not sure how the remotes actually operate, maybe they control the lights directly like you say. Without the gateway they do for sure, but with the gateway the pairing process at least is different: 1) remote with gw, 2) remote with lights. There is a connection between the remotes and the GW (even if not to control lights), which might be the cause for poor battery life and unreliable operation.

Either way, for me the remotes are mostly less reliable compared to Ikea app and Home assistant. Ikea app has got a lot better, it used to be as bad as the remotes. When HA works (when I didn’t decide to push the update button =) it is surprisingly fast, the issue is today with reliability and working scenes with Ikea. Ikea GW and HA are ETH connected, so it should be lag free.

I have no experience from Hue or other brands, so not sure Ikea is any worse off. Ikea has competitive pricing.

Overall, wireless connectivity is for sure one of the issues in many setups. Zigbee seems to pass through walls nicely, but it’s slow and unreliable. Maybe it’s all the competing traffic in the air… Bluetooth is faster, but very sensitive to walls and distances. I have a bluetooth sensor (Ruuvitag) I just got working after half a year of trial and error to catch the culprit. Turns out, for bluetooth it can be a matter of furniture placing (or getting 2m extension cable for BT dongle).

6

Hello everyone, I have also noticed for a few weeks / months that the response of the Ikea Tradfri varies a lot from HA.

Sometimes it responds and sometimes it does not or very slowly. Indeed, the installation responds quickly via the Ikea Tradfri app.

When I restart HA it often seems to be resolved, however I have not been able to find the cause of the problem yet.

Does anyone know what the problem is and how it can be remedied?

7

Same here. I usually simply restarted HA, but lately I even had to remove and redo the integration configuration for it to work. It’s however working well when I use the pytradfri library directly :expressionless:

8

FYI:
on one of my hass instances: I just deleted the dbase:
\usr\share\homeassistant\home-assistant_v2.db

Very drastic, but very efficient.
May some corruption had taken place in the DB? I don’t know. Problem solved for me right now, but I will keep an eye on it.

regards,
B