Anyone setup HomeAssistant with IKEA Smart kit

BaronSmoggie

BaronSmoggie

Well-known member
I've just deployed Home Assistant and have it integrated with my Tado heating and my Unifi network. I'm looking to start using some of the Tradfri Ikea bulbs and smart plugs, but I don't want to use their bridge. I was looking at using the SLZB-06M coordinator PoE with Zigbee. Anyone done anything similar? Is it difficult to configure?

I'm not running HA via Docker because I'd lose the integration piece, rather I have it setup in a VM deployed on KVM. I could run a USB coordinator in the server itself, but then I have a single point of failure.

Thanks all.
 
I got into Homeassistant earlier in the year and I've replaced the majority of my light switches and my 2 main downstairs lights with Zigbee stuff (currently i have 19 zigbee devices running off a "SONOFF Universal Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus" attached to a raspberry Pi 4 using Zigbee2MQTT). Using ZHA (which is the default Zigbee app in HA) to connect Zigbee devices is simple. Its slightly more work to use Zigbee2mqtt but there are more devices supported . I started using it after I bought an environment sensor which didn't work with ZHA. I've also got a load of ESP32 devices I've been playing with... its a bit addictive!

If you can set up a VM, i don't think it'll be an issue for you!
 
Vzzzbx said:
I got into Homeassistant earlier in the year and I've replaced the majority of my light switches and my 2 main downstairs lights with Zigbee stuff (currently i have 19 zigbee devices running off a "SONOFF Universal Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus" attached to a raspberry Pi 4 using Zigbee2MQTT). Using ZHA (which is the default Zigbee app in HA) to connect Zigbee devices is simple. Its slightly more work to use Zigbee2mqtt but there are more devices supported . I started using it after I bought an environment sensor which didn't work with ZHA. I've also got a load of ESP32 devices I've been playing with... its a bit addictive!

If you can set up a VM, i don't think it'll be an issue for you!
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“Que”
 
Our entire house is home assistant and, while I don't have any Ikea stuff, I believe it's all fairly standard zigbee gear so you should be fine using your sonoff co-ordinator - ours links in with hue, aquara, sonoff and a few others, on top of WiFi and Bluetooth devices.

I run mine on a hp elitedesk mini pic with an ssd, it's a tiny thing but has enough grunt for more demanding tasks and doesn't look out of place in the office. Plus it's got plenty of usb slots for anything I want to add. Used to run it in docker but wanted the add-ons section.

One thing that is often recommended is using a sub extension cable with the co-ordinater so it doesn't get any interference with what it's plugged into

I would also agree with Zigbee2mqtt, it is additional steps but it is much better and it's not simple to switch down the line as everything needs setting up again so worth doing now.

And if not doing all your bulbs it's worth having a few other powered repeaters - smart plugs work well.
 
Rofesleg said:
Are these all real things or are you communicating in a secret language? Or in Clingon?
I think I am fairly tech savvy until I open threads like this that make me realise what a dinosaur I am.
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Home assistant is software you can use to run your house - Bluetooth, WiFi, zigbee, 433mhz, matter, thread etc

Most things that are remotely smart can be made to interact with it (cars, appliances, cctv, speakers etc) and you can write automations easily enough , create dashboards to track metrics or have custom buttons etc, link it to physical panels if you want that sort of thing.

Can do everything from using it as a multiroom media remote to telling you there is a leak under the sink.
 
ThatFragranceGuy said:
Home assistant is software you can use to run your house - Bluetooth, WiFi, zigbee, 433mhz, matter, thread etc

Most things that are remotely smart can be made to interact with it (cars, appliances, cctv, speakers etc) and you can write automations easily enough , create dashboards to track metrics or have custom buttons etc, link it to physical panels if you want that sort of thing.

Can do everything from using it as a multiroom media remote to telling you there is a leak under the sink.
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I was just typing that!

Its ace for automating things. I have lights that come on when i sit at my desk and turn off automatically when I'm not there. I've got a small battery powered button next to my bed that i can use to turn the bedroom light on or off, a "double click" turns a fan on in my room and a long press turns all the lights in the house off. I've also got a dehumidifier on a smart switch which i can automate to turn on when the humidity hits a certain level, I have temperature/humidity sensors in most rooms (Small, coin cell battery powered devices).
 
Vzzzbx said:
I was just typing that!

Its ace for automating things. I have lights that come on when i sit at my desk and turn off automatically when I'm not there. I've got a small battery powered button next to my bed that i can use to turn the bedroom light on or off, a "double click" turns a fan on in my room and a long press turns all the lights in the house off. I've also got a dehumidifier on a smart switch which i can automate to turn on when the humidity hits a certain level, I have temperature/humidity sensors in most rooms (Small, coin cell battery powered devices).
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Yeah I love it. We already had various ecosystems like the, govee, Alexa controlling some smart stuff via routines etc. HA just lets you bring it all together.

When we got the bathroom done we had the choice of fans with overrun timers, installer though said they can be a nightmare if you go to the loo at 3am, you don't want the fan staying on 10-20 minutes. We put a £10 inline switch on the fan and can control it via HA now so the automation looks at time of day, humidity and a motion sensor as part of its logic to come on or not, which is much more versatile. Some fans have humidity sensors but they don't know the humidity outside so they can come on when not needed because internal humidity spikes

Motion sensors in every room control the lights apart from bedroom and living room. Bedroom we do a concealed switch like you describe and living room lights are controlled either via the nvidia shield (lights down when something is playing, up when paused / stopped) or a HA automation that is invoked via Alexa to set it to a specific scene. The advantage of the hue motion sensors is they double as temp sensors so need far less of those as a result, shame they don't do humidity!

Works well with harmony too so if we want to watch tv it will turn on the tv, the av receiver, the stereo amp, my two subwoofers and the nvidia shield and set standard volume level and the right input, as doing that manually each time is pretty dull and uses loads of remotes.

All the plugs are energy monitoring too which is handy
 
Vzzzbx said:
I got into Homeassistant earlier in the year and I've replaced the majority of my light switches and my 2 main downstairs lights with Zigbee stuff (currently i have 19 zigbee devices running off a "SONOFF Universal Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus" attached to a raspberry Pi 4 using Zigbee2MQTT). Using ZHA (which is the default Zigbee app in HA) to connect Zigbee devices is simple. Its slightly more work to use Zigbee2mqtt but there are more devices supported . I started using it after I bought an environment sensor which didn't work with ZHA. I've also got a load of ESP32 devices I've been playing with... its a bit addictive!

If you can set up a VM, i don't think it'll be an issue for you!
Click to expand...
I think I'll go with Zigbee2mqtt (because I hate myself!). I'll start with a couple of smart plus and lightbulbs and go from there. I do like the motion sensor ideas for the rooms too. Like you say, it gets addictive.
 
Rofesleg said:
Are these all real things or are you communicating in a secret language? Or in Clingon?
I think I am fairly tech savvy until I open threads like this that make me realise what a dinosaur I am.
Click to expand...
I only got into self hosting last year when my wife told me I had left the kitchen light on and I couldn't be bothered to get up and turn it off. The engineer in me looked for a lazy solution.
 
BaronSmoggie said:
I think I'll go with Zigbee2mqtt (because I hate myself!). I'll start with a couple of smart plus and lightbulbs and go from there. I do like the motion sensor ideas for the rooms too. Like you say, it gets addictive.
Click to expand...
Try a cheap motion sensor, but I'm t experience it's worth paying for hue ones either used or about 35 new on Amazon or eBay in sales. They are rock solid, never lose connection, never give false positives, battery life is about 2 years and they have built in light & temperature sensors too.

I spent a good whack on a load of cheaper motion sensors as they initially worked great but gradually got worse, before buying the bullet on hue. Loads of videos will do the comparison on YouTube but it's quite common for false positives, battery voltage drops, needing to be paired back to the network or long waits between being triggered & hue just knocks it out of the park
 
ThatFragranceGuy said:
Try a cheap motion sensor, but I'm t experience it's worth paying for hue ones either used or about 35 new on Amazon or eBay in sales. They are rock solid, never lose connection, never give false positives, battery life is about 2 years and they have built in light & temperature sensors too.

I spent a good whack on a load of cheaper motion sensors as they initially worked great but gradually got worse, before buying the bullet on hue. Loads of videos will do the comparison on YouTube but it's quite common for false positives, battery voltage drops, needing to be paired back to the network or long waits between being triggered & hue just knocks it out of the park
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The sensor i use is a "Haozee" usb-c powered mmwave sensor from amazon. It lets you set an activation range and timeout period.

Although you could do it with an ESP32 and an LD2410 sensor if you fancied messing around with ESPHome... :)
 
Vzzzbx said:
The sensor i use is a "Haozee" usb-c powered mmwave sensor from amazon. It lets you set an activation range and timeout period.

Although you could do it with an ESP32 and an LD2410 sensor if you fancied messing around with ESPHome... :)
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I like to avoid wires where possible, so usb-c stuff would work in some rooms but don't want holes in the walls or ceilings, so the hue ones work well, whilst also having a strong magnet in the back so they can be put up without even screws in a lot of cases.
 
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