Ikea VARMBLIXT, recreating original functionality using HA

Configuration Matter/Thread
1

Hi all, first post here, new to HA (~1 week in!). Current setup is HA Green with ZBT-2 running as a Thread Border Router. Installation went fine, linked with various Matter and other devices and controlling those as expected.

I have an Ikea VARMBLIXT light linked to the system as a Matter device and can control it from the dashboard. The light came with a BILRESA dual button which I initially paired directly with the light and it worked well. Short presses for on/off, long presses for fade up/down, double presses for forwards/backwards through the colour presets. My kids enjoy changing the colour using the remote, so I was happy to keep it in use alongside HA for automations to control on/off at set times.

After a couple of days, the remote stopped controlling the light, as far as I could tell it wasn’t paired or had shut down. Light could still be controlled from HA. So to avoid having to reconnect the remote I added the remote to my HA network and went to recreate the original functionality using an automation. I imported this blueprint and have got single press for on/off set up. Hold for fade up/down works but is jerky as opposed to the original smooth fade. I can’t see a way to scroll through the “favourite” colours using the double clicks at all.

My quesiton - if something is not an entity associated with a device (in this case, the colour of the light), is there no way to include it in an automation? What determines those entities - is it the Ikea firmware or something I can work on myself?

Thanks for reading, and please feel free to point out if I’ve got the wrong end of the stick somewhere along the line!

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2

Hi! I ran into a very similar issue after using the VARMBLIXT Donut lamp through Home Assistant/Matter.

To my knowledge, the original BILRESA colour preset values are not exposed as separate entities. The remote seems to cycle through preset xy colour values internally / through direct control, so I ended up recovering the default colour cycle manually.

My method was:

  • pair the VARMBLIXT Donut lamp with Zigbee2MQTT
  • pair the BILRESA remote with the same Zigbee2MQTT network
  • use Touchlink while both devices were already inside the same Zigbee network
  • double-press the remote through the colour cycle
  • read the lamp xy_color state after each step

One important detail: the BILRESA remote controls group 21658. If the remote is outside the Zigbee network and Touchlink is used, it may remove the lamp from its current network. But if both the remote and lamp are already in the same Zigbee network, Touchlink adds the lamp to group 21658 without removing it.

I documented the 12 recovered default presets here:

They are not official IKEA values, just measured from my own lamp, but they should be useful for recreating the double-press colour cycle in Home Assistant.