I love having smart lights in my home and keep adding more. I like the Trådfri system from IKEA which takes a different approach from that of the Philips Hue and Apple HomeKit compatible devices which use codes to add things to your system. With the Trådfri gateway you have to use a “steering device”, usually a wireless remote, to add things to the system by holding down a button. The light blinks a few times and the device is added to the system and the remote. That’s how I set up all of the lights I got from IKEA.
I just have one remote which I use in the kitchen to turn on the counter lights and ceiling light. I recently added a control outlet so I could plug in a string of lights and control them with my phone or Siri. I added it to the system, but it added it to the remote I use for the kitchen, so the string of lights in two room would come on when I turned on the lights with the switch in the kitchen. I searched and couldn’t figure out how to disconnect one device from the remote.
As I was talking with IKEA support on the phone and was waiting, I figured it out. You have to disconnect the remote from the system and then reconnect the remote to the room or lights that you want it to control. After you use the remote to add something to your gateway it will stay there whether the remote is connected or not. It’s not very intuitive, but in figuring it out it did make me realize more of how their system with remotes work.
With the smart lighting and switches from IKEA you don’t need to have a gateway if you have a remote. So you can control the lights with only a remote control. So if you want two or three lights to be controlled by the same remote you just hold the remote close to the device and press the pairing button until the light blinks and it’s paired. If you have a more complex system with a gateway as I do, the better way to pair the remote with multiple lights is to connect it to a room. So with the remote I use in the kitchen I connected the remote to the kitchen instead of the three separate lights in that room. Before I was connecting the remote to each of the lights until I had all three connected. But using the app and connecting devices that way can simplify the setup of a complicated system.
