Home Automation Journal #3 - Zigbee2mqtt and IKEA TRÅDFRI (again)

This is a continuation of my first post in which I wrote about using Home Assistant together with IKEA TRÅDFRI lights and zigbee2mqtt. The CC2531 based adapter I was using turned out to be too weak to reliably handle a network with about 30 devices on it (but it did work very well with smaller networks,) so I had to move all the lights back to the TRÅDFRI gateway.

Some months ago I bought a zig-a-zig-ah!,a CC2652R based adapter, which can handle larger networks and I’ve transferred all the TRÅDFRI lights (and curtains) onto it. So far, it has been working well with no devices mysteriously dropping out like happened with the previous stick.

Here are my revised notes on how to set up TRÅDFRI lights with their remote controls with zigbee2mqtt.

Pairing lights and remotes to zigbee2mqtt

Pair the lamp by first enabling pairing in zigbee2mqtt, then toggling the lamp on and off a few times quickly. The light will start pulsing to indicate it’s in pairing mode. (Check the supported devices page for device specific instructions.)

Note: If there is more than one bulb in the fixture, unscrew the others and pair them one at a time. The process does not seem to work reliably if you try to pair more than one device at a time.

You should see something like this in the MQTT topic zigbee2mqtt/bridge/log:

{
	"type": "device_connected",
	"message": {
		"friendly_name": "0x14b457fffe9191cb"
	}
}

{
	"type": "pairing",
	"message": "interview_started",
	"meta": {
		"friendly_name": "0x14b457fffe9191cb"
	}
}


{
	"type": "device_announced",
	"message": "announce",
	"meta": {
		"friendly_name": "0x14b457fffe9191cb"
	}
}

{
	"type": "pairing",
	"message": "interview_successful",
	"meta": {
		"friendly_name": "0x14b457fffe9191cb",
		"model": "LED1732G11",
		"vendor": "IKEA",
		"description": "TRADFRI LED bulb E27 1000 lumen, dimmable, white spectrum, opal white",
		"supported": true
	}
}

That final interview_successful message indicates the pairing completed successfully.

The default friendly name (the name used as the MQTT topic for the device) is the device’s MAC address. It’s a good idea to rename it to something descriptive:

Topic: zigbee2mqtt/bridge/config/rename

Payload:
{
    "old": "0x14b457fffe9191cb",
    "new": "ceiling_light"
}

To use the light with a remote control, adding it to a group appears to be necessary.

Edit: The firmware on newer remotes has changed. It seems that they no longer support groups, but can be bound to more than one individual device.

Create a new group with:

Topic: zigbee2mqtt/bridge/config/add_group

Payload:
{
    "friendly_name": "GROUP_FRIENDLY_NAME"
}

Then add the light(s) to the group

Topic: zigbee2mqtt/bridge/group/GROUP_FRIENDLY_NAME/add

Payload:
LIGHT_FRIENDLY_NAME

Pair a remote by opening the back cover and clicking the reset button quickly four times. You should see something like this in the log topic:

{
    "type": "pairing",
    "message": "interview_successful",
    "meta": {
        "friendly_name": "0xccccccfffe6cddd7",
        "model": "E1524/E1810",
        "vendor": "IKEA",
        "description": "TRADFRI remote control",
        "supported": true
    }
}

For some reason, the remotes can be a bit tricky to pair, with the interview failing multiple times before it goes through, especially if low on battery.

Rename remote the same was as the light above. I like to attach a little name sticker to the back cover to identify them.

Edit: the following info may be obsolete. It appears that newer remotes (or ones upgraded to the latest firmware) must be bound to individual devices rather than groups.

Next, the remote must be bound to the group. The IKEA remotes are bound to a random group by by default, so we need to unbind it first for everything to work right:

Topic: zigbee2mqtt/bridge/unbind/REMOTE_FRIENDLY_NAME

Payload:
default_bind_group

Note: Click remote button just before sending this message to ensure the remote wakes up to receive it.

Now the remote can be bound the our own group:

Topic: zigbee2mqtt/bridge/bind/REMOTE_FRIENDLY_NAME

Payload:
GROUP_FRIENDLY_NAME

The remote should now be able to control the light(s), even without the coordinator!

Pairing the FYRTUR curtains (and binding its remote) is done the same way as the lights.

Light groups in Home Assistant

Edit: As of Zigbee2mqtt version 1.20, this section is obsolete. Light groups now work without any manual configuration.

A light group is a group of lights that act like a single device. Useful when you have a light fixture that holds multiple bulbs.

First of all, add this line to your HA configuration.yaml file so you can configure the lights in a separate file. This will make the configuration file cleaner if you have lots.

light: !include lights.yaml

Light groups can be defined in two different ways.

You can use the group platform to group together any light entities. This is (currently) the only way of creating light groups when using the TRÅDFRI gateway, since it only exposes individual lights:

- platform: group
  name: Ceiling light fixture
  entities:
	- light.lamp1
	- light.lamp2

However, zigbee2mqtt exposes topics for directly controlling a zigbee group. It does not publish an autodiscovery message for Home Assistant, so you will need to configure it manually (see also the official documentation) by putting something like this in your lights.yaml file:

- platform: mqtt
  schema: json
  name: "HOME ASSISTANT NAME"
  command_topic: "zigbee2mqtt/GROUP_NAME/set"
  state_topic: "zigbee2mqtt/GROUP_NAME"
  availability_topic: "zigbee2mqtt/bridge/state"
  color_temp: true
  brightness: true

The name: key will set the name with which this group will appear in Home Assistant. The group’s zigbee2mqtt friendly-name is used in the topics.

Features supported by the bulbs must be specified: color_temp, rgb and brightness.