Unable to control lights via ikea remote & HA

Hardware
1

When I added my kitchen lights into HA somehow I was still able to control them using the Ikea remote control as well as using HA. However after having updated the remotes firmware, I can only either pair lights so they work in HA or the remote but not both

Does anyone know what I’m doing wrong?

After pairing the device to HA I tried the following to pair with the remote, but it then stops its working in HA…

  1. Keep the remote within 5cm (2 inches) of the light source and press the pairing button for 10 seconds (located under the remote control lid).
  2. A red light will shine on the remote control and, when it’s successfully paired, the light source will dim and flash once.

TRADFRI remote control (E1524/E1810) by IKEA
2 x TRADFRI driver for wireless control (30 watt) (ICPSHC24-30EU-IL-1)
zigbee2mqtt & Mosquitto broker & CC2531

2

Don’t pair the remote to your light. Pair your remote to your coordinator (=cc2531) . Then you can use both in HA.

3

I was hoping to use these independently just in case HA is down I could still control the lights.

So if I wanted to take that route, how do ‘link’ the remote to the two lights in HA?

4

You create a group in zigbee2mqtt

Zigbee2mqtt configuration.yaml :

groups:
  '1':
    friendly_name: group_1
    retain: false
    transition: 2
    optimistic: true
    devices:
      - '0xec1bbdfffea8defb'

Then you bind your remote to that group.

Zigbee has support for binding which makes it possible that devices can directly control each other without the intervention of zigbee2mqtt or any home automation software.

When to use this #

A use case for this is e.g. the TRADFRI wireless dimmer. Binding the dimmer directly to a bulb or group has the following advantages:

  • Smoothness; this will greatly improve the dimming feedback as the dimmer directly dims the bulb and thus does not have to make the MQTT/home automation software roundtrip.
  • It will work even when home automation software, zigbee2mqtt or the coordinator is down.
5

Thank you. So I had a separate file for groups in the zigbee2mqtt folder, so I added:-

 '1':
    friendly_name: kitchen_lights
    retain: false
    transition: 2
    optimistic: true
    devices:
      - '0x000b57fffea899a0'
      - '0x90fd9ffffe1f3680'

Then to bind tried - zigbee2mqtt/bridge/bind/Kitchen_Remote with payload kitchen_lights

but get:-

zigbee2mqtt:error 2020-07-24 20:17:18: Failed to bind cluster 'genOnOff' from 'Kitchen_Remote' to 'kitchen_lights' (Error: Bind 0xd0cf5efffec08c3b/1 genOnOff from '1' failed (Error: AREQ - ZDO - bindRsp after 10000ms))
zigbee2mqtt:info  2020-07-24 20:17:18: MQTT publish: topic 'zigbee2mqtt/bridge/log', payload '{"type":"device_bind_failed","message":{"from":"Kitchen_Remote","to":"kitchen_lights","cluster":"genOnOff"}}'

Any ideas what im doing wrong?

6

Reading through this https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/devices/E1524_E1810.html & checking my firmware version, look like I had an older version. So used the workaround to get it sorted. Thanks for your help

7

You did not try to update your firmware ? Although it can take a very long time, on my E1743 almost 2 hours :frowning:

8

Speaking of firmware updates for the CC2531. I have the CC2531+antenna that came preflash with the latest firmware as of today. How often does the CC2531 gets a firmware update? Is it critical to have it update to latest when there is one? I do not have the components to update myself is why I am asking.

9

stupid question: how did you get to know the firmware version?