In a never ending journey of building a smart home that has a high Wife Approval Factor you have to take some risks! One of them was fixing a power outlet on my own and the second one – an Ikea light bulb with Matter over Thread support. The last update was about not that fancy nor usable motion sensors. This time it’s way more practical. Let’s begin.
More Zigbee!
It wouldn’t be a fair smart home update, if we did not add more Zigbee devices. First of them is Parasoll, an Ikea door/window sensor. Our little daughter has learned how to open the front door lock and now she’s doing that on random. We’re not following her all the time, so it’s good to know she’s up to something.
The sensor construction is simple. A bar with electronics, another one with magnet. Keep them close – door closed, separate them – open. No surprises there. Pairing was also a breeze.
Unfortunately, I’m not entirely sure if I’m happy with it. It works great while it stays connected. But sometimes it stops working and I have to reset it by taking out the battery (takes AAA kind). I’m yet to still look into it, but it wasn’t at least anything expensive and can be easily replaced if needed.
Second thing is the “smart” replacement of the last light switch in the apartment. I did drag my feet with it, because the socket in the double was wired incorrectly and in my own unique style I did nothing with it. Until I did. I did manage to rewire the socket and that has allowed me to finally close the deal on the last normal light switch.
The combo consists of an in-wall module (an example, can get it everywhere, there are many versions) paired with a momentary switch, a power metering outlet with USB type C and type A sockets and matching double frame.
I’ve had some issues putting it all together due to the short cables and I’ve managed to electrocute myself and trip the fuses twice, interrupting my Wife’s work meetings. For my own safety, I’ve decided it was not my day and left it for tomorrow. I have also ordered a new in-wall module, which actually worked normally (the first one made the light flicker when on).
Another big and somewhat more complicated job was to replace two triple sockets over the kitchen worktop. One set was just daisy-chained with really tight space and short cables and the other one was on 2 separate circuits and it took some time to find the correct breaker to kill without disrupting my wife’s work.
In effect they’ve replaced standard sockets with Ikea’s Inspelning plugs sticking out of them. It’s now much tidier and the bonus is there are now USB ports built in because my Wife sometimes likes to charge devices there.
These sockets are also BSeed with the same kind of frame as before.
I have properly cut the power to do the work and this time it went just fine. Devices have paired with no issues and I am very happy with the results.
The lists ends with 3 Ikea Styrbar remotes. I was lucky they are still selling them, because I didn’t really like the new Matter remotes. One of them was for our home office room, because it is a walk through space and has two sets of doors, with a switch only by one of them. Remaining two went to our boys desks, because one already had a smart bulb in the desk lamp and no way to control it and for the second one along with an additional smart bulb.
To my demise, they no longer offer Zigbee bulbs at Ikea, so I had to get a Matter over Thread one, which leads us to…
A Matter over Thread device I didn’t really want…
I was reluctant to get a Matter bulb, because I’ve already had a mediocre experience with others. Eve Energy does like to lose data, setting the counter back by 100kWh on random or claiming it has lost the connection but it is still reporting the data. We now use it in a place of very little significance. Shame, for such an expensive device.
Tapo’s L535 light bulb is Matter over WiFi and in general it does work consistently, but there are times when my Wife can accidentally factory-reset it. The process is way to simple and to easy to trigger.
Tapo’s P110M socket also does work over WiFi (which is not a problem), but has the same issues as Eve Energy. It has lost some data and I just stopped using it in general.
Now, the bulb that we’ve got is Ikea KAJPLATS E27 CWS globe 1055lm. Just like everyone else, we had IPv6 related issues to connect it. In the end, I’ve managed to set it up after a few tries and it does work as advertised and I even paired it in Home Assistant with a Zigbee remote. No problems there.
The consequences of the problematic pairing led me to finally setup IPv6 scopes correctly for my VLANs and our supported devices now have valid and routable addresses assigned. We should be now future-proof and ready for more devices, which we will inevitably get, since Ikea stopped producing Zigbee things.
Next Steps…
Funnily, when I’ve read the last sentence out loud to my Wife, she was surprised that we will get more devices, but she’s kind of right. We’ve done all the obvious and easy things, like sockets and switches. There are some more complicated jobs to be done, like power metering for the induction hobs or the oven, but that sounds like a job for an electrician.
There are also some things I’d call first world problem solutions, like motion activated under the bed LED strips or light control based on the time of the day and a proper presence sensors or maybe not that smart, old generation bluetooth thermostats to replace.
For now, though, I’m happy with over 60 smart devices that have been working with no big disruptions for years in some cases. Fingers crossed it stays this way.
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