IKEA Home Smart Fyrtur Blinds: Now with Apple Homekit!

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If you're looking for a more detailed review on the IKEA Home Smart Fyrtur Smart blinds please look here • IKEA Smart Blinds: Fir...
For those of us in the Homekit camp, this is starting to be an pattern we expect with IKEA. New product is released. But no homekit support. They first did it with the plugs, then they did it again with the blinds. Although this can be frustrating at times as we use projects like Home Assistant or Homebridge to fill the gap while we wait, I actually appreciate the slow but steady approach that IKEA has been taking to their market.
True to form, IKEA finally released the new IKEA bridge firmware that exposes the IKEA smart blinds to Homekit last week. Although this was already released in the US, for those of us outside the US we're starting to see the update roll out. Already we've seen this popping up in Canada as well Europe and should be widely available by the time this video posts.
Have you seen the new IKEA Gateway firmware in your region? Let me know in the comments below!
#IKEA #Homekit #Update

[@Homekitgeek]

If you're looking for more IKEA Home Smart (Tradfri) videos, check out my playlist here kzbin.info/aero/PLIdK6RdGwb3TcQMRCPifmobE1v4qyp8Qc

[@myHomeKithome]

It's been such a long time coming, but I'm glad it's finally here!

[@Homekitgeek]

Totally understand what you mean. This seems to be a pattern with IKEA though. I'm starting to see a pattern here though. On the bright side, it seems like we're able to trust them when they say that a product will support Homekit in the future, they do deliver.

[@myHomeKithome]

@@Homekitgeek Agreed. They are definitely aware of their shortcomings and are working on improving it. The Verge did a great interview about it. kzbin.info/www/bejne/gmOWe4OZbs1mpMU

[@Homekitgeek]

Thanks for sharing the link! There's also been a couple of interviews with the head of the division on the IoT Podcast ( Stacey and Kevin ) that have been interesting. Offers a bit of insight into their process. I'm still a huge believer that IKEA is going to really move this market with slow steady deliberate moves.

[@CaptainSugarFree]

Thanks again for the information and all the content man!

[@Homekitgeek]

Thanks for all the support! And the brick! ;)

[@smarthomesolo9520]

Hey Chris, how the HK support been over the last year. Any issues with the blinds? Depending on your experience you may be able to make an update video!

[@Homekitgeek]

hey SHS! Great question and probably needs a general IKEA 2021 update video TBH. The blinds, especially for the price have been great. I’ve got 7 sets in the house and generally really happy. Occasionally I have network issues where the IKEA bridge loses its mind and disconnects from HomeKit but a quick power cycle has always brought it back. It definitely doesn’t have the reliability and rocksolidness of a Lutron solution, but it also doesn’t have the price tag of the Serena blinds. :).

[@rodrigosilvamartinez5938]

Hey Chris! How can you make an automation using the amount of light using the philips hue motion sensor in homekit?

[@Homekitgeek]

Definitely agree. The LUX sensor isn’t available as a trigger in the Apple Home app. You’d have to use something like the Eve, Home 4+, or Controller for HomeKit app for this. This is definitely something on my list of things to figure out. Will post once I get a working solution.

[@rodrigosilvamartinez5938]

11 11 Hey thanks for the advice! It will be very helpful. Already download the eve app and see all the option for automations.

[@PsychoBoyJack99]

So ... Stateside .... I can order my blinds now and they should be HomeKit ready now? I’ve been holding out for what feels like forever to get these. I have a 4-panel sliding door to my backyard and I’ve figured this is the o lot viable smart solution.

[@Homekitgeek]

Yup. You’ll have to just make sure your IKEA Gateway is updated to latest and it should expose the blinds. I’m about to pick up a few more as well. I’ve been really happy with them so far. I’m holding off for the Kadrilj blinds which are the translucent ones for my sliding doors. That’s the only thing that may delay your purchase. The Fyrtur are full blackouts and, in my case, I didn’t want to block all the light. Just enough for privacy and to dull the glare of the evening sun.

[@pw-gamer2903]

To use the IKEA blind homekit, it works and syncs with ikea tradfri or can i use it without tradfri???

[@Homekitgeek]

Simple answer is “Yes - you need the Tradfri gateway” IKEA blinds are first paired to the IKEA Tradfri gateway if you want to use it with HomeKit or Amazon/Google the easy and supported way. The more complicated answer is They are zigbee so it’s possible that you could connect them to something like Home Assistant but that might be a Si Jefe product and results may or may not be what you’re expecting.

[@scottpater]

Hey Chris, we have 5 bedrooms on the 2nd floor, I'm planning on using the Fyrtur blinds for the kids rooms. Would 1 Tradri gateway do the job? Thanks!

[@Homekitgeek]

Hey Scott! Definitely you should not need more than one gateway. Just looked and I’ve got 33 devices, including 6 sets of blinds across the house.

[@scottpater]

@@Homekitgeek Thanks for the quick reply. Does the gateway need to be on the 2nd floor, or can i put it with my networking gear in the basement? Thanks again!

[@Homekitgeek]

There’s always a bit of art based on the building materials of the house and the way they can block wireless signals, but you SHOULD Abe able to place it in the basement. Especially with the blinds as they all ship with a zigbee repeater who’s job it is to improve the connectivity between the zigbee devices and the gateway. I’d try it in the basement and see how things go. Also you may be tempted to install the furthest first to test it out, but I’d recommend putting all the blinds in first as they will help to hop the commands from the gateway to the far point. If you attempt to go straight to the far point with nothing in between to help it might have some issues. Again - all depends on the size, layout, and materials in the house. Hope this helps!

[@scottpater]

@@Homekitgeek It Does. Thanks a ton. I do have some Ethernet drops on the 2nd floor, so if I have to, I'll place the hub there. One last question. Would it also make sense to consider Smartthings or Hubitat hub instead?

[@Homekitgeek]

Ooooo the last one is a really tough question. I’ve never run Hubitat and my smartthings has been powered off for years. So take my thoughts with a grain of salt. I suspect you’ll still need the IKEA gateway for any firmware updates for all the blinds/bulbs/plugs. So you might need both. As for smartthings and hubitat; it really depends on what you’re automation requirements are. I personally use HomeKit as my main automation system, Home Assistant for things I can’t do in HomeKit. I still have some things hanging in Alexa and Google but trying to centralize as much as possible in HomeKit. Look at your use cases and see what you like is really the bottom line. :)

[@dishsoap1]

When will these be available in the U.S.?

[@Homekitgeek]

Oooooooo that’s the $1M dollar question. They ARE available in the US, but from what I understand they are never in stock at any of the IKEA stores. Seems they are so popular that IKEA can’t keep them in stock.

[@dishsoap1]

Chris Young I’ll have too be more aggressive with my searching for them. I’m excited too see HomeKit compatibility now.

[@Homekitgeek]

I know it doesn’t make it feel any better... but you’re not the only one. Best of luck and Happy Hunting!

[@homesmartmesh7468]

These blinds are great not only for Homekit fans but also for DIY fans as they can run on open software, example in this video how they interact with other home sensors kzbin.info/www/bejne/r4CufpJ4q5qKmaM

[@Homekitgeek]

Interesting automation! This can be accomplished within Homekit as well by simply creating a conditional automation which checks to see if the open/closed state of the window contact sensor is open or closed before the blinds are coming down. If the blinds change state AND the sensor is OPEN then open the blinds immediately. No need for MQTT or node.js to get this working. It's awesome that we can do that, but not necessary if you only want to achieve the use-case.

[@homesmartmesh7468]

@@Homekitgeek That's cool, I'm really happy to see different options accessible to everyone especially without wasting time on programming :) One day Siri might understand itself without telling her that blinds should not unroll with an open window. What I did (raspi github repo) is more a framework for hobbyist that are inspired with plenty of ideas and like to experiment. A tiny detail, as example, is that in case the window is open, the command is not silently ignored otherwise the user might not realize the reason why, or wonder if the his button press command got received at all, rather a slight down up sign shows that the system got it in check. By the way, thanks for your videos I've seen many of cool ones.