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How have you found the battery life to be on your Ikea zigbee devices? Mine have been generally disappointing. In the range of 3 months on the dimmers that are

How have you found the battery life to be on your Ikea zigbee devices? Mine have been generally disappointing. In the range of 3 months on the dimmers that are maybe 10 feet from the hub. Just got a couple of their newer dimmers, hoping those will be better. The pairing experience was certainly less painful. Zigbee2mqtt is the bomb. ZHA can't hold a candle to it in terms of reliability, features and device support. The tiny increase in complexity is so worth it.

Mister_Snuggles 3y ago
I find that the battery life seems fine, but I haven't tracked it closely. I have noticed a difference between Duracell coin cells purchased at Costco and Amazon Basics coin cells. The Amazon Basics ones didn't last long at all, the Duracells seem much better. The newer dimmers (STYRBAR) use AAA cells instead of coin cells, so I'd expect them to last a lot longer.
- twisteriffic 3y ago
  I'll try switching up battery brands. The out of the box cells from Ikea were dead in weeks, the store brand ones at least gave me a few months.
  - filterfiber 3y ago
    Battery brands (or even skus in the brands) can matter a _lot_. Related, Panasonic's rechargable eneloop have worked very well for me, I'm kind of excited to see AAA be used in the IOT devices where it can fit. I have a lot less of a problem swapping batteries if I just have a few charged ones on hand and get at least many months in-between replacements.
    - joecool1029 3y ago
      >Related, Panasonic's rechargable eneloop have worked very well for me Just a heads up: IKEA's brand of rechargables are likely rebadged eneloops at about half the price, also made in japan. Though for the AAA's they only have eneloop regular equivalents not eneloop pros.
    - ssl232 3y ago
      Top tip: IKEA rechargeable batteries are probably rebadged Eneloop Pros.
sowbug 3y ago
What exactly do you mean by a "dimmer"? Everything I have in my home that dims lights is mains-powered, so battery isn't a concern. I have 45 Zigbee devices in my home, 33 of which are battery-powered. Those are door contact sensors, PIR motion sensors, climate sensors, and a few button remotes to control lighting. They're mostly from Sonoff and Aqara, with a few unbranded Aliexpress devices that identify themselves as TUYATEC, and a couple from Third Reality. In almost every case, the battery life has been extraordinarily good -- well over a year. The only exception is the Sonoff SNZB-04 contact sensor, which seems to need battery changes about every six months. Probably not coincidentally, it's the only sensor that uses CR2032 batteries, rather than AA or AAA. I would happily replace with a slightly larger sensor to get both longer battery life and less e-waste through the ability to use a standard rechargeable AA/AAA battery.
- twisteriffic 3y ago
  Ikea refers to several of their zigbee remotes as dimmers. This is the older one that I've had issues with: https://www.ikea.com/ca/en/p/tradfri-wireless-dimmer-smart-white-10408598/ https://www.ikea.com/ca/en/p/tradfri-wireless-dimmer-smart-w... This is the newer one: https://www.ikea.com/ca/en/p/rodret-wireless-dimmer-power-switch-smart-white-80559800/ https://www.ikea.com/ca/en/p/rodret-wireless-dimmer-power-sw... I have a few SmartThings motion sensors that are at 2-3 years battery life, though they use big lithium cells so that isn't surprising. A few sonoff temp/humidity sensors on coin cells seem to be heading for at least a year battery life as well. So far it's only the Ikea buttons that have issues.
  - avel 3y ago
    You probably have battery issues because you are using SmartThings as the zigbee hub and it's polling the remote way too much. I have switched to HomeAssistant with a Zigbee USB adaptor and there are no more battery issues. SmartThings are aware of the issue but do not care enough to fix it.
    - twisteriffic 3y ago
      I do use a few SmartThings branded zigbee sensors but not the hub. I'm using homeassistant with the sonoff efr32mg21 dongle. I'm well aware of how terrible SmartThings the company is. I'd suffered through their inadequacies until April 2023 when they deleted my account during a failed backup purge. After 3 months of waiting on their support to unlock my hub I gave up and went to homeassistant.
thesh4d0w 3y ago
You need to upgrade the firmware on both your devices + controllers, this is a known problem that I think is mostly resolved now.
- twisteriffic 3y ago
  I'm up to date on both the coordinator firmware and device firmware. Updating the coordinator firmware was necessary to get device updates working on the newer Ikea devices, but I haven't noticed a difference in power consumption. Adding repeaters and reconverging didn't seem to make a difference either.
Toutouxc 3y ago
My STYRBAR dimmers last for more than a year, definitely. But they’re only used like < 10 times a day.
- twisteriffic 3y ago
  I'm seeing poor life regardless of usage. I'm guessing that either something is chatty in that part of the network, or some config is set incorrectly and causing them to wake more often or more fully than they should. No idea how to troubleshoot either case, just hoping the newer aaa-powered buttons might be better.
jq-r 3y ago
I got at least a dozen on/off/dimmer switches and couple of sensors. They last months, and I would maybe say even a year. I do use those coin Duracell batteries most of the time, makes quite a difference.

Mister_Snuggles 3y ago

I find that the battery life seems fine, but I haven't tracked it closely. I have noticed a difference between Duracell coin cells purchased at Costco and Amazon Basics coin cells. The Amazon Basics ones didn't last long at all, the Duracells seem much better. The newer dimmers (STYRBAR) use AAA cells instead of coin cells, so I'd expect them to last a lot longer.

twisteriffic 3y ago
I'll try switching up battery brands. The out of the box cells from Ikea were dead in weeks, the store brand ones at least gave me a few months.
- filterfiber 3y ago
  Battery brands (or even skus in the brands) can matter a _lot_. Related, Panasonic's rechargable eneloop have worked very well for me, I'm kind of excited to see AAA be used in the IOT devices where it can fit. I have a lot less of a problem swapping batteries if I just have a few charged ones on hand and get at least many months in-between replacements.
  - joecool1029 3y ago
    >Related, Panasonic's rechargable eneloop have worked very well for me Just a heads up: IKEA's brand of rechargables are likely rebadged eneloops at about half the price, also made in japan. Though for the AAA's they only have eneloop regular equivalents not eneloop pros.
  - ssl232 3y ago
    Top tip: IKEA rechargeable batteries are probably rebadged Eneloop Pros.

sowbug 3y ago

What exactly do you mean by a "dimmer"? Everything I have in my home that dims lights is mains-powered, so battery isn't a concern. I have 45 Zigbee devices in my home, 33 of which are battery-powered. Those are door contact sensors, PIR motion sensors, climate sensors, and a few button remotes to control lighting. They're mostly from Sonoff and Aqara, with a few unbranded Aliexpress devices that identify themselves as TUYATEC, and a couple from Third Reality. In almost every case, the battery life has been extraordinarily good -- well over a year. The only exception is the Sonoff SNZB-04 contact sensor, which seems to need battery changes about every six months. Probably not coincidentally, it's the only sensor that uses CR2032 batteries, rather than AA or AAA. I would happily replace with a slightly larger sensor to get both longer battery life and less e-waste through the ability to use a standard rechargeable AA/AAA battery.

twisteriffic 3y ago
Ikea refers to several of their zigbee remotes as dimmers. This is the older one that I've had issues with: https://www.ikea.com/ca/en/p/tradfri-wireless-dimmer-smart-white-10408598/ https://www.ikea.com/ca/en/p/tradfri-wireless-dimmer-smart-w... This is the newer one: https://www.ikea.com/ca/en/p/rodret-wireless-dimmer-power-switch-smart-white-80559800/ https://www.ikea.com/ca/en/p/rodret-wireless-dimmer-power-sw... I have a few SmartThings motion sensors that are at 2-3 years battery life, though they use big lithium cells so that isn't surprising. A few sonoff temp/humidity sensors on coin cells seem to be heading for at least a year battery life as well. So far it's only the Ikea buttons that have issues.
- avel 3y ago
  You probably have battery issues because you are using SmartThings as the zigbee hub and it's polling the remote way too much. I have switched to HomeAssistant with a Zigbee USB adaptor and there are no more battery issues. SmartThings are aware of the issue but do not care enough to fix it.
  - twisteriffic 3y ago
    I do use a few SmartThings branded zigbee sensors but not the hub. I'm using homeassistant with the sonoff efr32mg21 dongle. I'm well aware of how terrible SmartThings the company is. I'd suffered through their inadequacies until April 2023 when they deleted my account during a failed backup purge. After 3 months of waiting on their support to unlock my hub I gave up and went to homeassistant.

thesh4d0w 3y ago

You need to upgrade the firmware on both your devices + controllers, this is a known problem that I think is mostly resolved now.

twisteriffic 3y ago
I'm up to date on both the coordinator firmware and device firmware. Updating the coordinator firmware was necessary to get device updates working on the newer Ikea devices, but I haven't noticed a difference in power consumption. Adding repeaters and reconverging didn't seem to make a difference either.

Toutouxc 3y ago

My STYRBAR dimmers last for more than a year, definitely. But they’re only used like < 10 times a day.

twisteriffic 3y ago
I'm seeing poor life regardless of usage. I'm guessing that either something is chatty in that part of the network, or some config is set incorrectly and causing them to wake more often or more fully than they should. No idea how to troubleshoot either case, just hoping the newer aaa-powered buttons might be better.

jq-r 3y ago

I got at least a dozen on/off/dimmer switches and couple of sensors. They last months, and I would maybe say even a year. I do use those coin Duracell batteries most of the time, makes quite a difference.