I'm wondering if anyone has some insight on this...
I have a number of these Fyrtur blinds, and on two of them the motor units have basically died. Naturally this happened shortly after the warranty period. The blinds still respond to digital commands (like Refresh or Inclusion) but they don't move the roller any more. If I take the motor unit from a working blind and swap it for a dead one then the "dead" blinds become fully operational. Btw, the motor is fairly easy to swap, it just pops off the end cap and the small cable unplugs once you depress its catch.
So, though the motor unit seems designed for easy replacement, when I call IKEA support they tell me they don't sell replacement parts for this?? That effectively makes these $150 dollar smart blinds a disposable item.
I thought a major company like this would have replacement parts. Can it be true that they just don't?
Thanks, yeah, I checked that. The few third-party motor units I found on google were perhaps physically compatible, but didn't have the same 4-wire connector. The Fyrtur TQL25 KT972 motor unit is a smart motor with various onboard sensors and a control board with serial I/O.
On a fun side note, the motor unit appears able to provide different motor speeds, with the right (custom) firmware. This would be really nice for having a totally silent set of blinds. Check out the video from a guy who did just that. Would be awesome if IKEA exposed this functionality for these blinds.
One blind started behaving erratically. I thought at first it was a battery issue, so I swapped in a fully charged one. Didn't help. Then I was ready to blame it on ZigBee, but had zero evidence to support that given that local control at the buttons didn't work either.
IKEA said the only replacement part they sell for it would be the entire package including battery, repeater and useless button. I would write them a strongly worded letter of complaint, but I doubt they'd send me as much as a meatball.
The ones that died on me just up-and-quit in the middle of moving during a normal command.
My best solution was to buy their smallest (and cheapest) blind and swap out the controller/actuator with the one in my larger non-functioning one. It was an easy swap, just a few screws and a bit of jiggling. It saved me about $30 per blind, versus buying the larger sized blind.
I did also get one blind replaced via warranty for free.
For those curious, here are what the internals look like. Per this discussion, it can probably be safely assumed that all the shades are identical except for the roller itself.
Based on the images. It would appear these can be cut down to be extremely small as all the important bits are on the left side and seems like 11-12" would probably the smallest total length for any size. What do you think?
