IKEA Smart Light Fail – Automated Home

Smart homes can be so frustrating at times, can’t they?!

A few months ago, I was a bit down after noticing that our new home has “integrated lighting” rather than traditional bulbs that you can replace as you wish. I wasn’t thrilled to discover this because it obviously means that I’m very limited in what I can do regarding smart lighting.

I’ve got sensors, I’ve got smart bulbs, I’ve got a Homey Pro, I want to have some fun with this stuff.

Having very reliable (but completely dumb) integrated lights isn’t something I want.

Anyway, David Webster kindly offered some advice and mentioned that I might be able to pickup an IKEA Jetstrom light to hang on the wall and add that into Homey.

I went to IKEA, ate the meatballs and bought the light.

Side note, but am I the only one that enjoys a trip to IKEA more than the idea of a visit to Disney Land, or am I just getting old?

Upon getting home and unboxing my prize I learned that it doesn’t come with a mains power cord. I was going to have to get an electrician to help me get it powered up.

That was the first problem.

After literally months of trying to pin my electrician down, when he came around to help me yesterday, after running mains power to the IKEA light, we tried for an hour to put the light into pairing mode and add it to Homey with no success.

A few possibilities occured to me:

1. It’s unlikely, but maybe my electrician didn’t successfully run power to the light. I think this is a long shot, but I will say that we never once saw any light flash, pulse or illuminate at all, so I guess it’s worth considering
2. One thing we didn’t try was trying to pair the light to Homey while the light was powered, in pairing mode AND within 5cm of the Homey Pro hub. That wouldn’t be easy to do, but that might work if we were able to try that
3. My most likely guess is that the IKEA light requires an IKEA hub. But that doesn’t make sense either because the light is mentioned as a compatible device in Homey.

I’m feeling really defeated by this light at the moment and am still no closer to having smart lights that will allow me to make use of my sensors and set up some fun automations.

So that’s where I’m at and I’m feeling ready to donate a brand new IKEA Jetstrom light to anyone who wants it!

Learn more about Automated Home here.