Trouble with Tradfri Bulbs and a Hue hub.

davidod1

I have an ongoing issue with IKEA Tradfri bulbs when connected to a Philips Hue hub.

I have just over twenty Tradfri bulbs in six 'rooms'. Three of these 'rooms' have groups, one of four, one of five and one of 6 bulbs. These 'rooms' and the other individual bulbs get triggered by Hue Motion Sensors. Rarely do more than a few days go by without one or more of these bulbs not responding as it should. A bulb might only turn on at low brightness, or not turn on at all, or even occasionally loose complete connection with the hub and I need to bring it close to the hub and 'Find' it again with the app. No single bulb is at fault, it can happen to any bulb.

Most of the time, recycling the power to the bulbs with the mains light switch together with an 'on and off' through the app will get things back up and running again. But it is very annoying to have do this so frequently. Most of my Tradfri bulbs are two to three years old.

I am wondering if I was to purchase an IKEA Hub and update the firmware on the bulbs; would that help stabilise the system. I know I probably wouldn't be having this issue if I had used Hue bulbs, but the difference in cost would have prevented me from installing smart bulbs in the first place.

Any ideas or suggestions? Thanks

NewClareman

Jumping in as no one else commented...

It's worth a try using a Tradfri hub to update the bulbs. If the issue continues you could switch to Tradfri motion sensors, which are a lot cheaper than the Hue ones. Then you would have no compatibility issues.

I have a lot of GU10 bulbs, like yourself. In our main bedroom I use LIDL bulbs which work perfectly with Hue ones, in a mixed group. I picked up spare ones in a warehouse sale for half nothing. That's an option you might consider, if all else fails.

A more techie solution would be to use Home Assistant for integration. Reports on this approach are good, but it requires work and some knowledge.

There are active groups online who might be able to help more - Google is your friend.

Jonathan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120043364#Comment_120043364

Can confirm Home Assistant route works well. Zigbee2MQTT allows you to upgrade Tradfri firmware. Not sure about ZHA.

davidod1

Thanks for both comments above:

I don't have a Pi, but I wouldn't mind running HA as an app on a Windows PC if it allowed me to update the Tradfri firmware. Apart from the Hue app for lighting/sensor controls, I use Hubitat routines for other stuff.

Is it possible to run HA just as an app in Windows and perhaps carry out 'maintenance' like that?

Jonathan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120043883#Comment_120043883

You'll need a ZigBee coordinator dongle for your PC. Something like this.

Running on Windows isn't a problem. You can run HA virtualised using VirtualBox, but you'll need to pass the ZigBee dongle through to the VM so that HA can see it.

You'll also need to join any Tradfri devices to the HA ZigBee network temporarily to update the firmware.

davidod1

Thanks Jonathan. Nice succinct answer. 👍️

Jonathan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120043924#Comment_120043924

Being honest, I suspect you'll get hooked on Home Assistant and never go back. Down the rabbit hole. 😂

davidod1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120043935#Comment_120043935

You might be right. I am downloading it to the PC, just to get a start on it. I know to make full use of it, it would be belter on a Pi that could be left running 24/7.

One last question though (I think). Have you any idea, if I did get an IKEA hub with the sole purpose of using it to update the bulbs, would the bulbs lose the connection to the Hue hub and require a full re-pairing to the Hue hub, or would they revert to the Hue hub when disconnected from the IKEA hub?