Tips on reducing battery drain for IKEA Fyrtur Blinds paired with HE?

🛎️ Get Help Devices
, ,
1

I installed a single IKEA Fyrtur Blind in my office which was powered by the included rechargeable battery. I used it as-is (not pairing it with Hubitat) for about 6 months until the battery was too weak to run the blind.

Last week, I decided to pair the IKEA blind to my Hubitat C7 Hub which I did successfully using the custom driver by ryan780. I noticed that the reported battery level now seems to be dropping about 3% per day. If the battery level continues to drop linearly, then that means I have about 33 days per full charge. The blind is located physically about 15 feet away from my Hubitat Hub.

What could be causing the faster drop in battery level? Could it be polling intervals from the driver? If so, is there any tweaks I can do to preserve battery life? Maybe remove the battery or other capability for the driver?

Thanks.

2

I suspect you might should give it more time to see how the battery life is. Mine go about 6 months between recharges with typically one up and down per day.

Try this driver to see how it goes ...

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/a4refillpad/hubitat-IKEA-window-blinds/master/IKEA-window-blind-driver-code

1 Like
3

Dang. My TREDANSENs get no where near that. I'd say probably a month at most. That's with one half up/down per day, Monday-Friday.

4

Thanks, HAL9000. I'll give that driver a go and will continue to monitor the battery life.

5

I use the ‘IKEA Window Blinds’ driver. Shades open to 55% at sunrise, 33% an hour before sunset, and close fully at sunset. This is for all 12 shades, every day. Batteries last about a month or more.
Try switching the driver.

6

So, I've been using the IKEA Fyrtur Blind driver (a4refillpad) by Wayne Man for that last 2 weeks and the blind's battery level has dropped from 83% to 15% in just 14 days. Before I paired the IKEA blind to my HE Hub, the battery was lasting 3-4 months. Big difference.

I'm guessing HE must be pinging the blind for open & close level status and/or battery level frequently and that is contributing to the battery drain. Is there a way to adjust the driver so that I can increase the time intervals when it pings the blind?

Thanks.

7

That is unusual indeed. I installed a new shade 23 days ago and it shows 63% today. This is using the same driver you are. I don't think the battery drop indicated is linear, since I'm used to getting several months out of them (one up and one down a day).

8

The battery drain definitely started after I paired the blind to my HE hub. My blind is about 15 feet away from the hub, so it can't be a distance issue. I also raise and lower the blind just once a day. Again, all I can think of is that HE is polling the blind several times for window position and battery level and that may be draining the battery.

9

What do your device events look like while the shades are at rest for hours at the time. I see checkins about every 10 minutes, but the only battery and position events are when the shades are active.

image
image475×1219 88.8 KB

10

Here's my events log for the IKEA Blind. Looks like an event happens every 10 mins and it also notifies Google Home that there was a state change. I can try to remove the Google Home link to the blinds to see if that has an effect.

image
image1538×1181 187 KB

1 Like
11

From my last posting it was clear that the window blind driver that I was using was forcing the IKEA blind to send window level status and battery percentage data to the Hubitat Hub every 10 minutes. This resulted in severe battery drain for the IKEA blind. Over a 13 day period I recorded the battery percentage and have plotted it here:

image

So, I'm estimating the battery life for a fully charged battery would last about 16 days. After doing some investigating and getting feedback from this forum, I've made some small changes to the driver to stop the frequent reporting of data.

This is a line in the original driver coding under the configure routine that sets the IKEA blind device to report data every 10 minutes:

cmds = zigbee.configureReporting(CLUSTER_WINDOW_COVERING, ATTRIBUTE_POSITION_LIFT, DataType.UINT8, 3, 600, 0x01) + zigbee.configureReporting(CLUSTER_BATTERY_LEVEL, 0x0021, DataType.UINT8, 600, 21600, 0x01)

and here is the same line of code that I modified:

cmds = zigbee.configureReporting(CLUSTER_WINDOW_COVERING, ATTRIBUTE_POSITION_LIFT, DataType.UINT8, 90, 86400, 0x01) + zigbee.configureReporting(CLUSTER_BATTERY_LEVEL, 0x0021, DataType.UINT8, 43200, 86400, 0x01)

What my change does is configure the zigbee device (IKEA Blind) to send the level position every 10 secs when the level is changing, and every 24 hours regardless of blind changing or not. The battery percentage is sent every 12 hours if it drops 1%, and every 24 hours regardless of how much the battery level has changed.

  86400 secs = 24 hours,   43200 secs = 12 hours

So now, the IKEA blind is not pinging the Hubitat hub every 10 minutes with data and using up battery power. With this change, the battery percentage has dropped only 1% over the last 5 days. I normally open and close these blinds once every day. So, I think this small change has fixed my battery drain issue. Just wanted to post this information for others who may be experiencing the same situation. Thanks to everyone who helped to point me in the right direction for a solution!

1 Like
12

I think the changes you made to the driver make a lot of sense and it would be great to have those (or similar) incorporated in the @a4refillpad version if appropriate.

That said, I still will report that my battery usage is not like what you are experiencing. The battery with 63% 6 days ago is now at 61%, and this is with one up and down a day.

image
image1396×507 111 KB

13

I have 12 IKEA blinds/shades that open to 55% at sunrise, close to 33% an hour before sunset, and close completely at sunset. The batteries last a good month before they need to be recharged. The driver I am using is from @a4refillpad. Try switching to that driver.

14

Per his comments at the start of the thread when I suggested it, that's the driver he is using.

15

That is the same driver that I have been using for the last two weeks that drained the battery of the IKEA blinds, and the same driver that I modified. I'm hoping that my modification to that driver will increase the battery life to 6 months or more.

16

You have a data point that shows drain but I'm using the same driver and do not have the problem. I don't think blaming the driver is justified yet.

If you only have a single blind, this is probably not going to be practical, but I'd try a different battery.

17

I'm only sharing my experience with using the IKEA FYRTUR Blind when I paired it to my Hubitat C7 Hub. I understand that others may have different experiences. Before I paired the blind to HE, I was getting about 6 months of battery life. After I paired it to HE, I was getting a few weeks. So you're right, I'm offering just one data point, however, it may help someone else in the future who has a similar issue as I did.

18

Sure. Understood. That's why we are all here. I'm just pointing out that it is premature to conclude the driver is at fault. I actually have six data points that are contraindicative of a driver issue draining the battery.

I may be able to come up with a test case where there is zero motor activity, and I can see how a fully charged battery drains in that scenario. Related: See my post in this thread showing the guts of the shade .

19

I had my glasses on upside down.

20

I've not seen battery drain described here with my original settings, I wonder if there's different firmwares involved which is preventing the device from sleeping.