Tradfri remotes won't update and are draining batteries

[Heiko]

Hi IKEA team,

running the new Dirigera hub for 2+ months now, I have made the following observation:

I have 50 Tradfri controls (remotes, switches, sensors and shortcut buttons). 44 of them have been updated to a firmware 24.4.5, while 6 of them are still on 2.3.080, they don't update.

They are working, BUT they are draining the batteries in a very short time, i.e. within 2 days or even some hours only. It appears, that they try to update and fail all the time, which leads to a high power consumption - that's my theory at least...

I have already made many attempts to update these controls (i.e. remove from system, inserting a brand new battery and pairing them again) without success. When doing this, I have also created a kind of a laboratory environment and placed them directly besides a Tradfi bulb and assigned them to the same room/device in order to guarantee best connectivity.

So I'm wondering if I have to sort these controls out and throw them away, or if this is a known issue which can and will be fixed in the near future?

Thanks and regards, Heiko

[Kieran]

Hej @Heiko, thanks for reaching out! It sounds like you are doing the right things - replacing your battery and pairing your devices again. We've passed this information on to our DIRIGERA team to look into. In the meantime, can you confirm what type of device the 6 that are not updating (i.e.: remotes, motion sensors, etc.)?

Tack!

Kieran

[Heiko]

Hej @Kieran,

thanks for taking care!

That are 2 Tradfri remotes (S/N 588E81FFFE14144B and 680AE2FFFEBEB9FA) and 4 shortcut buttons (S/N 84FD27FFFEAAA30E, B4E3F9FFFE68147C, CC86ECFFFEF5477C and CC86ECFFFEF5494E), which are affected.

Thanks and regards, Heiko

[StephanKahl]

Hi IKEA Team, 

I have exactly the same problem. I am losing remotes on a daily basis with drained batteries which have been working flawlessly on a trader gateway before. Right now I am losing 4 (of 12) E1743 Switches, 1 (of 6) E1810 remote controls, 1 (of 4) E1745 Motion Sensors and 1 (of 1) Styrbar remote control. 

My systems consists of 46 bulbs on two floors, 2 control outlets, 4 motion sensors, 21 remote controls and switches.

My DIRGERA Hub runs with FW 2.172.1

Because I thought the batteries might have been failing I have a pile of exchanged batteries now which are all empty... 

Thanks for looking into it. 

Stephan

[StephanKahl]

Update on this.

The dead remotes all run Firmware 2.3.0XX instead of 24.X 

One remote I could update by resetting it (pressing 4 times the connect button and reassigning it to dirigera) All remaining remotes refuse to update after trying this procedure several times. 

Is there any idea how to manually push update the remote switches and controls?

Thanks in advance... 

Stephan

[OveFromSweden]

As far as I know there is no push from your side, besides having the hub and devices on/connected.

Have you tried to change the battery before factory reset? I think I read somewhere this was suggested. Might be that the update won't come through if the battery level is "too low"? So if correctly reset and with a new battery, the device should then download or receive the newest available firmware without problems. That's my assumption..

[Heiko]

yes, that's how I've done it. 

1. new battery

2. reset

3. re-connect to the hub

Meanwhile, I have replaced the affected shortcut buttons. Only 2 Tradfri remotes remaining, don't want to replace them with Styrbar remotes, because I find them better.

However, I gave them both another try two weeks ago, they still don't update, but the batteries are still full. So waiting, tea drinking...

[StephanKahl]

Same here. I have now three remotes remaining which refuse to update to the latest firmware. I used more than 40 batteries now on the way which of course is a crazy waste and eco-disaster.  : ((

[Anna-LH]

Hej  @Heiko 

Sorry for taking so long to reply here again.

Your previous answers are right.

1. Remove remote from app/system new battery

2. Exchange battery

3. Factory reset

4. Re-connect to the hub

If the problem still persists we would need to identify the device by hardware ID printed on (e.g. E1715). Some of these remotes have different FW versions depending on which system they are connected to. So for some 24.4.5 is correct, for the same device on system 1 2.3.079/2.3.080 is correct. But it depends on device type, system etc.

Take care.