It’s a lightbulb moment: Ikea has finally got round to make its Tradfri smart lights work with Amazon Alexa. So how do you make the magic happen?
Control Ikea smart lights from Alexa
The first thing you need to do is make sure you’re running the latest version of the Tradfri app on your smartphone.
Once it’s updated, it will display a little wizard introducing the Apple HomeKit and Amazon Alexa integrations. If for some reason you’ve previously skipped through that, open the app, click the settings cog in the top right-hand corner and select Integrations.
The Tradfri app will ask you to Enable Amazon Alexa, which requires you to log in to your Amazon account. Once that’s done, you’ll need to switch the lights on so that the Alexa app can discover them. After a minute or two’s worth of progress-bar watching, your Ikea lights should appear under the Devices section of the Alexa app, ready to be controlled by your voice.
If you’ve got more than one Ikea bulb in the same room, you might want to create a Group for them in the Alexa app, so that you can switch multiple bulbs off with the same voice command. Click on the Groups tab, click Add Group, and give the group an easy-to-say name, such as “lights” or “living room”. Pick the relevant Ikea lightbulbs from the list and then click Save. Now you can simply tell Alexa to “turn the lights on” and all the bulbs in that group should switch on.
Which Alexa voice commands can I use with Ikea smart lights?
Here’s the list of Alexa voice commands you can use with the Ikea lights. You may need to change the name of ‘lights’ to whatever the device or group is called in Alexa’s device settings.
- Â Alexa, turn on the lights
- Alexa, turn off the lights
- Alexa, dim the lights
- Alexa, dim the lights to 25%
- Alexa, make the lights softer
- Alexa, brighten the lights
- Alexa, brighten the lights to 75%
- Alexa, make the lights warmer
Now click here: How do I make Amazon Alexa voice calls?
I did all this and it worked really well until Alexa and Tradfri stopped speaking. Alexa thinks she has operated the lights but nothing happens. Tradfri app works fine.
I deleted the skill and re-installed but the old settings were recalled and still failed to work.
Shame because while it worked it was very effective.
I get that occasionally. Make sure both apps are updated. Switching the hub on and off normally restores things to working order for me.
Do you need the gateway to make this work? Trying to find out which bits of the kit are actually necessary.
Do you need the tradfri hub in order to be able to connect the Tradfri Lights to Echo Plus?
Yes, I believe so.
FYI…and anyone else who is wondering. 😉
I bought some Tradfri LED GU10 bulbs today (this kind https://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/60365266/), and they can be connected to a Echo Plus without the Tradfri Hub, or any other Hub. Therefor it uses the build in Zigbee hub on the Alexa Plus. 🙂 Just plug them in the lightsocket, ask Alexa to find devices, and then turn them on so Alexa can find them. Alexa will not find them if they are already turned on. Then you can also voicecontrol them via Alexa to dim then bulb to a percentage f.i. 10%, 20% etc.
Before i forget…with an Alexa Echo Plus you also don’t need to add the Ikea Tradfri Skill to Alexa, as you cannot add it to the Tradfri App because of not having to use the Tradfri Hub.
Yvonne- So are you saying with the Echo + you don’t need the Hub to operate Tradfi lights? Alexa will just recognize and control them?
Hi Barry, it seems like it. The 3 GU10 bulbs i bought to test it out were recognize by my Echo Plus when i added them one at a time in my 3 light ceilinglight. I gave them a seperate name under smart home -> Devices then grouped them, and now i can voicecontrol them seperatly or by group. The light switch itself needs to be on to be able to control them offcourse, but that is the case with every light you want to control via Alexa.
If it wouldn’t have worked, i would have returned the bulbs. So the first test was done with one bulb to make sure it would work.
The same gooes for the Philips Hue lights. If you have an Alexa Echo Plus you don’t need the Philips Hue Bridge as Alexa Zigbee hub will recognize them.
If this also works with RGB bulbs? I don’t know. I only have white/warm white bulbs. Fortunatly the Ikea bulbs aren’t that expensive, so easy to use for testing and play around with. 😉
Other option for GU10 bulbs are these (white to warmwhite)
https://nl.aliexpress.com/item/GLEDOPTO-zigbee-ww-cw-dimmer-GU10-bulu-LED-spotlight-5-w-ZLL-smart-APP-controll-AC100/32894864409.html
or these in RGB
https://nl.aliexpress.com/item/Rgb-gu10-spot-light-rgbw-rgb-cct-gu10-spotlight-zigbee-zll-5-w-AC100-240V-led/32894856218.html
They have a build-in Wifi module which can communicate with the Alexa Echo Plus Zigbee hub. I have 4 of these as well as i bought them before trying the Ikea Tradfri GU10 bulbs.
Hi, I did ask this question in Ikea at the weekend, a manager told me ” they have been told to say you have to use the Ikea Hub”, She wouldn’t say answer the question “would it work with Alex Echo + ” even after I suggested it might work.
i’ve already got some Philips blubs and they work a treat with the Echo Plus, I fancy the colour changing version and it looks like the Ikea version is the cheapest, and was also told they will be selling the blub on it’s own. Currently it’s £35 with a remote