The TRÅDFRI uses the COAP protocol to communicate between an app and the gateway. It makes it easy for an application to communicate with Zigbee Light Link appliances in your house.
A remote can directly communicate with a light or it can do it paired to a gateway as well. The nice thing is that when the gateway is down, the remotes still work locally :-D. The official RFC7252 for CoAP can be found here.
Printing on the device
How does the gateway look like? At the bottom it says:
Type: E1526
TRADFRI GATEWAY
INPUT: 5V – 1A
MAC NR ETHERNET:
dcdcdcdcdcdc
Serial number:
dc-dc-dc-dc-dc-dc
Security Code :
D1dY0uRea11yTh1nkIW0uldTell
(16 characters, case sensitive)
The QR-code reveils the serial (MAC address) followed by the SecurityCode separated with a comma.
Major components on the gateway
Type 1GC SS7605019
IS25CQ032 BLE 1712 P15474L1 (32M-BIT 3V- QUAD SERIAL FLASH MEMORY WITH MULTI-I/O SPI),
413 3959 1702 (8 pin smd)
BEA7T 5 pin smd
BCM5241 A1KMLG HD1721 Q22-00 1 W (Broadcom Single-Port MII Copper/Fiber Fast Ethernet Transceiver)
EFR32 MG1P132G1 1723C00H6V (Blue Gecko Bluetooth® Low Energy SoCs) accompanied by a T384 MEEA (crystal)
3 status leds (Network, Internet, Power)
MicroUSB connector
Ethernet connector
There are twp antenna’s on the PCB. The strange thing is that they are not connected to the same component. One goes to the “Type 1GC” and the other goes to EFR32. I did not see that coming. Probably it supports WiFi as well.
Some words about Zigbee. This is a network which has different kind of nodes.
- End device, which cannot route any traffic,
- Router, does route traffic,
- Coordinator, in addition to routing is responsible for forming the network. Every network should have one and only one coordinator.
Some experience till now
Having this said, how is the range of the nodes to the gateway? Not always that good. If you have a multi-level building, you could have problems having a rugged communication. I also experienced this. Sometimes the light does not directly respond or it does not respond at all. Do I need to put up more gateways? Or should I place Router devices in the network and how do I let the Coordinator know they are there . .. More work to be done there. When I have 2 lamps connected to the gateway coupled on the same remote, the lamp does not swich on always or only one of the two is switching on. In that situation when clicking on the on-off button, the lamps switch on alternating. You can only get the lamp on when you press the button to increase output power.
Disclaimer
This page and its content is not affiliated with IKEA of Sweden AB.
The purpose of this project is to learn and improve using reverse engineering techniques. Use this information on your own risk.
The Type 1GC is a Murata WiFi module.
Quite amazing, so much technology, and it does not even dim the lamps nicely. And pricey for being Ikea.
Marco, I forgot to say, I great article, and a great teardown!
I only have a couple of round button controls and a couple of lamps, they are not related to each other. So I am not using a gateway as I was a bit disappointed with the dimming, so I just use them as switches basically. Maybe with the gateway and the App it is possible to set dim times to scenes.