I totally appreciate that most people are looking for HE-centric solutions. That being said, I too had a fair number of incompatible Ikea controllers. I have been able to get them integrated quite well using Zigbee2MQTT for pairing. This has the advantage over Smartthings that it isn't cloud dependent, but has the drawback that it requires setting up Z2M and an MQTT broker (which I have running in Docker (one more thing to run)) along with needing a device that works with Z2M. It was fiddley to set up but now that it is there it works like a champ and I really do like the way the dimmer and 5 button controllers work.
One other note, this also means that you are likely to have 2 zigbee meshes running 1 for HE and 1 for Z2M which make it just that much more likely that you could end up with weak and/or interfering meshes.
This is a possible cost effective solution. Just hope they ship to the UK!! Can you tell me, do the buttons have just one button in total? Our IKEA buttons effectively have two separate buttons (on and off) , and each respective button press can be incorporated into automations and scenes.
Wouldn't really matter if they're just one button, I'm purely curious, that's all.
My lol was partly it's been discussed everywhere and I too had 5 Ikea remotes via deconz and HA but changed them to Hue Dimmers, which work well. Can be had on amazon for £12 from time to time.
I'd second @Ranchitat with the Opple buttons if you need more than just a dimmer.
Singles day is coming up in a few days so should be able to get a decent deal.
We can always hope though I have plenty of these aswell used for IKEA blinds and some lights. I hope to be able to only have 1 and only hub in my house.
Ok so after realizing/discovering that the IKEA Motion sensors are also destined for the trash I've decided to find alternatives, and I think this option you've provided with the Iris Buttons looks like the best. It's a real shame but will probably be best in the long run. Thanks for your help
I'm in the UK and I've successfully been using Hue dimmers where just for one bulb/group and osram smart+ 4 button switches where there are a few things to control. While all the switches are on hubitat, any bulbs are on hue and it hasn't let me down yet.
I've also got a few ikea blind switches which are just sat in a box hoping one day they might just work.
Yea that's all well and good if you're just using them for controlling a few lights. We were (with Smartthings) using the buttons for all sorts of complicated automations, like we had one above the bed which if you pressed and held would start a "panic" automation, turning on all house lights, closed all blinds, closed the garage doors and gates, and turned on the bedroom Samsung TV to CCTV input.
Would be really nice if this comes to frution. I have a few that came with these smart blinds (Awesome BTW) , it came with a Zigbee repeater too, (helps a LOT!) and now I have a dozen buttons, I check from time to time to see if a driver comes out.
I hate eWaste. good for you putting up some dough to get the ball running.. heres rooting for ya.
Can anyone enlighten me? Do these buttons show up in HomeKit if you join them to an IKEA bridge? Or do they need to be joined to a bulb in the IKEA bridge? I think I tried these a long time ago, but cannot remember the result.
If they do and you're an iOS/HomeKit user, then you could map them back to HE with Homebridge and HomeKit Automations. Yeah, it also requires an Apple hub like an Apple TV 4 or a HomePod Mini, but it's a fast and reliable way to get HomeKit capable input devices back into HE. I do it for Xiaomi buttons, motion, and contact sensors that are joined to an Aqara HomeKit hub. Works great.
I think there is a way to get the buttons working on the Hubitat network but it doesn't exist right now. I think you could create a Zigbee device that the buttons are paired to. Then the firmware could update a cluster that is bound to Hubitat.
Nothing exists to do this now but I think something like the sonoff Zigbee bridge could be used. Probably the Tasmota to Zigbee firmware could be reworked . You could get back to the Hubitat over the zigbee network or over WiFi.
I have been playing with Zigbee2mqtt lately as I think the Hubitat zigbee implementation is falling behind (no inbound groups messages, no OTA updates). Also I think Zigbee2mqtt supports the join codes so I think you could have a fully zb 3.0 network if you have devices that support that for the added security (if someone wants that).
I guess it depends on what you're looking for, there's not a lot of point implementing ZigBee 3.0 stuff while the HE radio isn't ZigBee 3.0 itself.
Similarly "inbound groups messages" is something of a hack IMO ..... devices that use that are really designed for direct device-to-device communication. The fact that other hubs / software support it is nice, but it's not what it was designed for.
OTA updates would be useful ..... I've used that in deCONZ, but the reality is most manufacturers still don't officially release their firmware to third parties.
I'm sure HE will get there with some of these things eventually ..... but there's probably more important priorities on their todo list currently.
I have plenty of these aswell used for IKEA blinds and some lights. I hope to be able to only have 1 and only hub in my house.
Just Hubitat and Raspberry PI now.
