IKEA Tradfri smart light system after 3 years - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: TheBigT1
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: October 14, 2023, 11:46:30 am
content: Hi Everyone!I've bough into the Tradfri ecosystem about 3 years ago, and I thought I would share my experiences for those contemplating the switch (pun intended)...I had some corridors where the light switches were inconveniently located, and I also wanted to add automatic lighting to my driveway, so I decided to enter the Tradfri world. I got 10 pieces of 806lm basic Tradfi LED lights as well as two light fixtures, and 5 simple switches to control them.I also bought a movement sensor, but I returned it because it had too many limitations and I couldn't get it working for my use case.The two fixtures were the old square-style, which IKEA doesn't seem to sell anymore. But in any case, they worked just fine so far.We used 4 of switches as intended, but I cannibalized one for controlling the driveway lights. I had an ESP32 that sends notifications to my phone if the garage door is left open. I enhanced it with the feature of turning on the lights if the sun is down when the garage door opens. I hardwired the IKEA switch to the ESP32 to achieve this, routing the 3.3V from the ESP to the Tradfri switch battery contacts, and two of the GPIO pins to its microswitches. This worked perfectly and controls the driveway lights as expected.From the four switches we use normally, two are in relatively heavy use, we push them once or twice a day. One died completely after about 2 years (just out of warranty), and the other one developed an issue where it eats though a fresh battery in a few weeks. (Normally the batteries should last around a year with regular use, and longer with occasional use.)Additional issues with these switches:- In the first few months I had to redo the pairing between the switches and bulbs, because they lost their config. This was seemingly resolved with a firmware update at some point.- The switches really struggle to stay in their cradle. The lip of the cradle is too shallow and the magnet is very weak, so they frequently move, turn or drop when you try to operate them. Falling on the tiles regularly probably doesn't help to improve their already questionable reliability.- They use CR2032 batteries, which are not rechargeable. Speaking of which, the battery is a major pain in the butt to replace, as the back is secured with a tiny Phillips screw (interestingly enough it is a captive screw with a threaded insert, so they spared no expense to make this experience horrible).IKEA has tried to resolve some of these issues with the new Rodret switch; with varying success. The cradle holds the Rodret switch much better, and the switch takes a rechargeable AAA battery, but the back is still super-hard to remove (they switched to the worst snap-on/snap-off design that I have seen in my life, even considering the wide variety of cheap children's toys and AV remotes I have to regularly replace batteries in). So don't buy the original switches, get a Rodret. The Styrbar is also an option, but it is super heavy, so mounting it reliably may be a pain.The lightbulbs also have a higher-than-average failure rate, two of them have blown up right out of the warranty (I tried to get them replaced anyway, but IKEA takes their warranty expiration super seriously, probably because replacing all the failing units would bankrupt them).The autopsy of the bulbs showed that both have a non-safety film-looking capacitor directly across the input of the bulb (presumably for noise filtering?), marked N154K 400VSD. This cap blew up very spectacularly in both of my bulbs, taking the fuse with them (see the graphic illustration attached). I haven't tried, but I wouldn't be shocked if replacing the fuse and removing the carcass of the cap would bring the lights back to life.I wonder if my experiences are typical, or this is the typical reliability one can expect from "smart" home devices. It feels much, much worse than even "smart" phones.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 14, 2023, 12:24:07 pm
content: I looked at the Ikea lighting stuff a few months ago and steered clear for one specific reason. They have an old system and a new system. The two are not compatible. They seem embarrassed about this, so they don't clearly explain what the two systems really are. and why you would choose one over the other. It takes time to find out. I bothered to read up, as I was intrigued how they could end up in that position when both systems say they use zigbee. Without that incentive I would have just walked away the moment their offerings looked confusing. They've generated that mess in a fairly short time. The chances of things working well in the longer term, as I need to adapt my installation to changing circumstances and the failure of parts, seems low. There is a more general issue with LED lights here. If I buy 4 wall lights these days they will probably have integrated LEDs, which you can't replace. Most LED lights aren't very reliable, so within a couple of years at least one of those 4 will probably fail. The designs available will almost certainly have changed. Now if I want a nice matching set I have to replace all 4.