Ikea TRÅDFRI bulbs

[Doug Hope]

Thought I’d share my experience so people don’t make the mistakes I have.

Ikea recently announced that their TRÅDFRI bulb were compatible with Philips Hue. I went to ikea to grab some bulbs. Got home and tried to connect them only to find they need a firmware update to make the compatible. To do the firmware update you need a TRÅDFRI gateway. Another trip to IKEA to pick up a gateway. Get home, connect it all up to find you can’t connect a bulb unless you first connect a switch or motion sensor. So I’m going to have to go back again to get a switch.

In short, if you want to use ikeas bulbs with Hue either wait until someone has confirmed that they are stocking bulbs with the latest firmware. Or make sure you get a gateway and switch as well as bulbs just to update the firmware.

 

[Doug Hope]

Update on the Ikea smart bulb situation. I went to Ikea this evening to get a switch. What a pain in the arse. The system feels very half baked. First you connect the switch to the bridge. Then to connect bulbs you have to press a button on the switch for 10s whilst being within 5cm. Great when you’re doing lights in the middle of the ceiling. Once you’ve got the bulbs connected, now the fun starts in trying to get the firmware to update. I got two out of the four bulbs to do it first time. The other two didn’t. However the app kept telling me they were all up to date. After unplugging the gateway and switching the bulbs on and off a few times the all eventually updated. The fun isn’t finished though. Now to connect them to the Hue. Got to the hue app, add bulb. Nothing showing up. The bulbs literally have to be on top of the Hue bridge for them to connect (once connected they can go further away).

Anyway I’ve wasted a lot of time trying these out and if I was to do it again I’d just by more Hue bulbs. All in the setup is far easier and they are Homekit compatible. The Ikea ones are not.

 

[cynics]

Out of morbid curiosity I went to Ikea and looked at the TRÅDFRI bulb's (your first post was running through my head btw).

However they were 12 dollars. I left there and went to Home Depot and got a Hue bulb (white) for 10. This was for my back porch so I wanted to go cheap.

If you already have Hue it seems best just to stick with them.

 

[Doug Hope]

Out of morbid curiosity I went to Ikea and looked at the TRÅDFRI bulb's (your first post was running through my head btw).

However they were 12 dollars. I left there and went to Home Depot and got a Hue bulb (white) for 10. This was for my back porch so I wanted to go cheap.

If you already have Hue it seems best just to stick with them.

I got it more out of curiosity and for the GU10 bulbs. The Hue ones are £25 here vs Ikea's £7. Hue is definitely dropping in price here and I'll be sticking with them in the future.

One final thing to add. When you switch on the Ikea bulbs with the normal switch there is a noticeable delay compared to Hue