I purchased a set of the new IKEA Åskväder plugs, IKEA’s new modular power brick, where you can also buy a power button to put in between, that’s Zigbee/Home Smart enabled.
I tried to add it as a normal IKEA power plug, since it acted exactly similar, but it could only be added as a Generic Zigbee Device.
Even though it is “just” a generig Zigbee device, it seems to work perfectly, and I can’t wait to put my entertainment system behind this device!
Note: I bought these in Denmark, but as readable in the link and in this topic, it’s also coming to Germany soon and the Netherlands (in April)!
Just be aware that without specific support, device support will be limited, for instance that it might only be able to switch the first socket of multiple.
I’m not sure I understand? As far as I know, those smart blocks are just on or off, nothing in between and definitely nothing that says “turn on only the 3rd plug”?
For example in this image:
The smart block (on the right) gets power (from the right), and when it’s turned on, everything after it (the two plugs + the cable leaving the box on the left, which probably leads to more plugs) is also turned on.
As far as I know, the system doesn’t support anything else than on/off, but it’d definitely be cool if it did!
Yea, that would’ve been cool. For now, my TV, receiver and consoles will be powered by the setup I have made (power cord, smart power button, one plug) and I think that’s enough, but for smaller rooms, this solution (even without the smart power button) is super nice, because you can quickly add up to 10 new plugs along the wall.
I think I misunderstood how the device works: I expected the sockets to be controllable separately, but it sounds those are “dumb” and the only controllable part is the button block. If the button block switches the rest, I guess it’s not possible to add another button block along the line, which sounds like a limit of the system.
Yep, if you have different “groups” you want to turn on and off, you’ll need a smart button for each group and then add extra plugs afterwards.
It’s not as smart as Homey-users would expect, but it’s a nice addition anyway!
It’s perhaps not the smartest block, but it’s modular in setup. It has a lego approach. You can put the controller at any place in the chain, and everything behind that controller will be managed by the controller. And every outlet before the controller will have permanent load. Might be useful in some specific use cases. All depends of the pricing I suppose. On the Swedish Ikea site the price is attractive.
That is a brilliant idea. But if a smart controller at the start of the chain does not only control the next socket but the whole chain from then on, then the chaining becomes a bit pointless. If I want my light at the start to turn off, that does not mean I also want to kill the TV plugged in at the end.
Yea, you’d have to start making different “chains” with the cables, at which point you might as well just work with single smart plugs instead of this system.
