Ikea LED Smart Light Bulb Test and Teardown

[@ElderPlayerChannel]

It's so refreshing to see technical reviews like this on youtube, I really appreciate your work, I've subscribed instantly. I just bougth a 4-Port desktop Spigen 120w GaN ArcDock charger, but after I found your channel I'm not so sure if I made the right call.

[@AllThingsOnePlace]

Yeah, I haven't looked at that one, it might be okay. The port arrangement is unique so it isn't just a straight clone of some of the others.

[@TommyThousandFaces]

Wasn't expecting that at all from Ikea bulbs! If they release a 1100lm version of if and it's built just as good I'll buy some for sure. Right now I'm using Hue ones with Zigbee and bluetooth and they're alright.

[@AllThingsOnePlace]

Yeah, they make the non-smart bulb that is larger. I don't know if they will continue to expand the line or not.

[@nVIDIAGPUOwner]

Smart home is a huge rabbit hole you're jumping into :)

[@AllThingsOnePlace]

hahaha, I hope so, more diverse content is one goal for 2023. I wish this video did a little better but I guess Ikea is a little bit too niche to start with for a tiny channel.

[@YukonHawk1]

Another video well done. Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family

[@AllThingsOnePlace]

Thanks!

[@MrZerofate]

Great tear down and description of what the components are. Zigbee is a standard and you can somewhat mix and match devices. I would recommend using the project zigbee2mqtt on a homeserver/rpi with a usb zigbee coordinator (sonoff do a good cheap on). I'm really interested in if these zigbee chips can be desoldered and used in other projects, like attaching it to a d1mini/Arduino. It would be a great way to recycle the chips on bulbs I've got where the leds have burned out (I've got 4 disassembled in a drawer so far!). Do you think that may be possible, or is the zigbee chip likely to have propriety firmware which makes it impossible to communicate with.

[@AllThingsOnePlace]

Yeah, the module can certainly be removed from the bulb, you would have to supply a DC voltage to the module (I am assuming something low 3.3 or 5V). I haven't checked if it supplies an analog voltage or a PWM output on the control pin. I have seen reports it is compatible with the Philips Hue system but I don't know if it is hackable/reprogrammable otherwise, I am just getting started on this stuff so I am far from the expert here.

[@TheAlkly]

I found your channel for that nerdy deep dive of a teardown! Perfect! What I would also be interested is the light quality. CRI level or something. Because I hope there are good alternatives for hue.

[@AllThingsOnePlace]

Yeah, I don't have a spectrometer but I agree that more of the light output side would be a great addition.

[@LGNilsson]

The power cord for the desktop charger is sort of a copy of the cables that old irons in Sweden used, from the likes of Electrolux and others.

[@AllThingsOnePlace]

Ah, ha. Yeah, that makes sense. They seem to have put some effort into these products, not just rebrand what someone else makes.

[@JohnDoe-ve6mf]

FyI, it's possible to connect ikea bulbs to a Philips hue hub.

[@AllThingsOnePlace]

Thanks and good to know.

[@stellarproductions8888]

Wow, you really have branched off where all things in one place have not gone before. I tell ya what, when I saw that sine wave on your graph, I could swear this puppy uses PFC. And I've never seen one of those bulbs apart before, I assumed it had an emitter tower that went out, but nope, the LED's are literally on a flat plane of existence, while the bulb dome is clearly just used as a diffuser. I also agree, if it were using a simple power supply, you wouldn't see so many pieces that make up that PCB, their was clearly more complexity going on there. Since the cost on these remote operated LED bulbs from many brands, have come down to 15 dollars a bulb, it was worth me picking up a few. Usually they can be bought in 60W or less equivalent. But when your actually trying to do work in your home, sometimes you need more light, so I secured some 85 watt equivalent bulbs. Only thing is, you and I both know, all these bulbs are made in China, and Ikea sure as heck didn't manufacture these themselves, they just put their brand name on it lol. Still, glad to see that these are quality bulbs that won't burn your house down. You just never know with Chinese made products these days.

[@AllThingsOnePlace]

China can keep the quality high if they want. These represent the top level of quality though. Actually the first video on the channel is a LED bulb (it is trash but I draw out the schematic and eventually fix the bulb). But yeah the flat pcb is very common now. The real cheap bulbs use very few leds and do tend to burn out quickly. This one uses a decent number of leds. I forgot the part examining the leds, ha.

[@RBzee112]

I know you haven't had great results with 65 watt chargers. Can you check out the Eokii 65W 3-port GaN III and/or the ONKO 67W 3 Port GaN chargers? Both are ETL listed.

[@AllThingsOnePlace]

I can check them out, still more brands I've never heard of.

[@tamask001]

I bought ten of these around 3 years ago, and two of them have already blown up, just out of the 2 year warranty. My units look almost the same as yours inside, except that the input filtering cap is not the yellow X1 safety style, but instead it looks the same as the other brown (film?) caps. It is marked N154K 400VSD, without any safety or X/Y markings, and in both failed lamps this cap blew up very spectacularly. I'm wondering if they changed the cap supplier to prevent this failure, or just to reduce the chance of a lawsuit when the lamp inevitably blows after 2 years and burn down the customer's house.

[@AllThingsOnePlace]

That is very interesting, and yes, it sounds like you are describing a normal film cap which would not be appropriate for mains filtering. So, with transients on the AC line over time the voltage goes over the cap rating and with a safety rated cap they actually self heal which I have no idea how it works but it does, a film capacitor would puncture and can fail short circuit after repeated exposure to transients. But yeah, I didn't find that issue in my lamp. It does still work even though it's a bit sketchy with the pop off lid, ha. It is likely that as part of the listing process they had to change this capacitor.

[@tamask001]

@@AllThingsOnePlace I took a closer look at my exploded specimen, which is a Eurospec model with the same LED1836G9 model designation, and the markings on it are very different from yours. It doesn't have any safety markings, but has some weird local icons instead, most of which I've never seen before. The model number of the PCB inside is identical to the one in your video, so the only difference between the EU and US model seems to be the exploding cap and the outside markings. Then I looked at one of the bulbs I purchased recently to replace the failed one, and discovered that IKEA has quietly replaced the LED1836G9 8.9W 806lm model with a new LED2103G5 5.9W 806lm variant. I don't have silly KZbin money to tear down my perfectly good lamp, but according to the FHO-LED2103G5 FCC document, the new version is very different on the inside, and as part of the redesign they decided to take off the ETL logo from the US version and propagate the exploding (I mean "planned obsolescent") design globally. So it may be worth a re-review. By the way, IKEA has a surprisingly comprehensive selection of USB-C and lightning cables identified by the LILLHULT and SITTBRUN Swedish incantations, please consider these for review as well.

[@AllThingsOnePlace]

​@@tamask001 Nice overview! I may have to use pieces of this conversation as part of that video, with permission of course. I was just in Germany, at an Ikea and looking at the lighting section, it is very impressive with the amount of options, I didn't take any photos of course. I didn't buy anything either but I will pick up some of the US ones and take a look at some point.

[@tamask001]

@@AllThingsOnePlace Looking forward to the new video, if you need some pics of my pre-exploded lamp, let me know where to send them.

[@AllThingsOnePlace]

@@tamask001 Sure, and thank you! The address is allthingsoneplace at gmail dot com. Real original right?

[@bikemmm6167]

That’s a creative idea for a video, thanks 🎉

[@AllThingsOnePlace]

Totally forgot the part where I look at the leds haha.

[@stellarproductions8888]

Well yeah, I mean crap man, one day I had this really awesome idea, suddenly my room light turned on. I thought, dang, that is weird! Then I realized afterwords that my brilliant idea was short lived, cause the lights went back off again, power outage. I was like, well, time to do this manually then, I turned on a flashlight, it was my only defense.

[@TheSaunaViking]

Looks like my next 9 minutes and 32 seconds are booked! 😅

[@AllThingsOnePlace]

Haha. That sounds like a plan.

[@burhanbudak6041]

IKEA recalled the 40W charger.

[@AllThingsOnePlace]

Yeah, I was going to do a short on that. It's not recalled in the USA. Anyway, it's the power cord that's bad, I was thinking of doing a short on that or something but does anyone want that?

[@KajTallungs]

Kind of harsh to compare it to non smart bulbs. What everyone would be eager to hear is how it compares to Philips hue's. I guess we'll see that in the future Philips video.

[@AllThingsOnePlace]

Is it? The core function is the same but yeah I need to check out some more smart bulb stuff.

[@burhanbudak6041]

With the resent energy crisis in Europe(damn you Putler), these bulbs went from A+ to E class in energy consumption. Philips Hue is still more energy friendly.

[@AllThingsOnePlace]

Yeah, that was a mess. A+++ then A++ so on. Scale was broken so badly, still isn’t very good… these shouldn’t be an E though. I wonder if it lowers it because it has idle consumption.

[@burhanbudak6041]

@@AllThingsOnePlace IDK but its regulations. Although its for common folks the A to G scale, it would be good to add the A to G scale on chargers.

[@stellarproductions8888]

Well, then somebody should go tell Europe, that the Phillips brand, is not the same company that it once was. Phillips used to make really high quality stuff back in the day, including bulbs. But these days, Phillips branded bulbs tend to last a year if your lucky, and they burn out. So, yeah, they might be winning some awards for power efficiency, but their build quality leaves much to be desired. Many other cheaper brands on the market, have higher quality made bulbs over that of Phillips. Silvania is another name brand that has also gone down in quality as well. Just seems like all these big brands get too big for their britches, and they think they can save money by building cheap. Well, reality check, China is a slowly dieing country, as their economy collapses in the next 10-years. So I suggest they bring manufacturing to America, and straighten up, and make quality products again.

[@AllThingsOnePlace]

@@burhanbudak6041 On the pqs.app page I do have a letter grade scale on everything. I think this bulb got a B grade. Most power adapters get D. I only have 6 levels though.

[@burhanbudak6041]

@@AllThingsOnePlace sorry I meant on retail stores en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_energy_label Also are the IKEA cables worth to buy? Its basically USB2.0

[@MaximumEfficiency]

but you didn't test the most important thing which is FLICKER?

[@AllThingsOnePlace]

Haha. I know. I did the wave it around in the air and didn’t see any dots so it’s flicker free enough.

[@MaximumEfficiency]

@@AllThingsOnePlace you need to test it with camera. Every dimmable let I saw has flickr so thats the main reason not to use them.

[@winnegehetoch]

You mentioned "Zigby". I assume it is Bluetooth based, and that makes me think: "Is this critter pairable and usable" with the smartphone Philips Hue app (also using Bluetooth in addition to WiFi). I use it for controlling several Philips Hue Smart Plugs on my smartphone, but this light bulb could be a nice extra for my desk workplace. Is it or isn't it parable and usable by the Philips Hue App (should be easy to test).

[@AllThingsOnePlace]

Yeah, someone else mentioned they are compatible. I will have to check it out.

[@OneContinuum]

ZigBee isn't Bluetooth. Hue bulbs support ZigBee (to connect to the bridge) and Bluetooth (direct to your phone). IKEA bulbs don't support Bluetooth at all. Neither IKEA Tradfri or Philips Hue support WiFi. You can connect third party ZigBee products to your Hue bridge (like IKEA bulbs), though.

[@winnegehetoch]

@@OneContinuum Thank you for clearing things up.