hue

Adding Ikea Frytur shades to Apple Home

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This is a quick tutorial on how I added Ikea’s Frytur smart shades to Apple Home (p.k.a Apple HomeKit) using Homebridge.

These are the items I used to make this work:

Having a working Homebridge implementation was very helpful as I didn’t have to setup another device and could just focus on getting the shades to work.

  1. Install and setup the Ikea Frytur shades
  2. Pair the remote with the shades and make sure they work
  3. Plug in the ConBee II to the Raspberry Pi via USB
  4. Install deCONZ software on the Raspberry Pi
    1. Connect to Raspberry Pi over SSH
    2. Set user USB access rights
      sudo gpasswd -a $USER dialout
    3. Import Phoscon public key
      wget -O - http://phoscon.de/apt/deconz.pub.key | sudo apt-key add -
    4. Configure APT repo for deCONZ
      sudo sh -c "echo 'deb http://phoscon.de/apt/deconz $(lsb_release -cs) main' > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/deconz.list"
    5. Update APT package list
      sudo apt update
    6. Install deCONZ
      sudo apt install deconz
    7. Reboot
      sudo restart -r now
  5. Once the Raspberry Pi is back online, connect to it via VNC
  6. Menu > Programming > deCONZ
  7. Go to the IP address of your Raspberry Pi from a web browser to access the Phoscon web app, the default port is 80
    http://<your-ip-here>/
  8. Follow the Phoscon setup instructions until you are able to access the ConBee II gateway
  9. Go to Devices > Lights under the hamburger menu
  10. Click on Add new lights
  11. On your Ikea shades, quickly press both front button simultaneously to put them in pairing mode
  12. After a few moments they will show up and be recognized in the Phoscon web app
  13. Login to Homebridge and click on Plugins and search for “Hue”
  14. Install the plugin named Homebridge Hue
  15. Configure the plugin with a name and address of the ConBee II, use localhost if your ConBee is plugged into your Homebridge device
  16. Restart Homebridge and your blinds will show up in Apple Home

Beard Blog Review: Philips Hue

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On my previous post I talked about smart home items and how they are the next big thing. Because I don’t like being left behind, I went ahead an purchased a set of Philips Hue lights. These are internet-connected LED light bulbs that contain 3 different color LEDs inside so that they can produce thousands of different colors. As I’ll explain after the break, using the bulbs together to create a scene is a lot better than using the bulbs alone.

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My home is smarter than yours.

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“Smart Home” electronics are the current flavor of the month. Manufacturers are trying to get everything in your house to be connected to the internet. This may sound like a benefit for the consumer, but do companies of ulterior motives? Are they using the cool factor to collect usage, demographic, and personal information? I don’t really care, things products are just damn cool!

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