IKEA Symfonisk Sound remote

j_a_m_i_e · September 9, 2021, 4:37pm

I’ve been using a IKEA Symfonisk Sound remote to control my volume and pause/play/skip functions with Roon.

While — at least for a beginner / non technical user — it’s more complex to set up than RooDial. For those already familiar with Home Assistant (or NodeRed) — or with a technical slant — it might make for a nice weekend project and at £15 for the remote a cheap way to add a dial to your Roon setup.

I have used one with both a ConBee II USB ZigBee dongle and a CC2531 USB dongle flashed with ziggbee2mqtt and both work fine with it.

The key components are an IKEA Symfonisk Sound remote (obviously), a copy of Home Assistant and a ZigBee USB dongle.

IKEA Symfonisk Sound remote
Home Assistant (can easily be installed/run on a RPi4)

To enable Home Assistant to see the Symfonisk (ZigBee) remote and it’s events you need to use a USB ZigBee dongle, you basically have two hardware options here.

Use a ConBee II ZigBee dongle with the deCONZ HA integration

OR

Use a Zigbee USB dongle flashed with zigbee2mqtt along with the HA Zigbee2MQTT integration

The Conbee/DeConz route is simpler to setup, the zigbee2mqtt is cheaper and more flexible, but more complex to setup.

You also need to install the following within Home Assistant:

HA HACS package (used to install community packages on HA)
AppDaemon (installed via HACS)
ControllerX HA Integration (installed via HACS)
Roon HA integration (installed and setup via Supervisor->Dashboard)

Once you have your Roon endpoints and the Symfonisk remote appearing as entities in HA you the need to add a ControllerX entry to /appdaemon/apps/apps.yaml — like the following — to connect the two.

livingroompiVolume:
module: controllerx
class: E1744MediaPlayerController
controller: symfonisk_controller *(this is the HA entity that represent your Ikea remote)*
integration: deconz
media_player: media_player.livingroompi *(this is the HA entity that represent a Roon output zone)*
volume_steps: 50
delay: 50

Wen · November 3, 2022, 7:21am

another way, easier way:
Controller - IKEA E1744 SYMFONISK Rotary Remote | Awesome HA Blueprints (epmatt.github.io)

DanMtsn · November 19, 2022, 9:56pm

Hi could you please explain more about this easier version?
Does is still require a dongle?
How do you use the dongle - you insert it in the Raspberry Pi that runs the HA server?
Do I need a dongle if I have the Ikea Tradfri gateway?

Wen · November 21, 2022, 10:19am

Yes，I insert a dongle in the Raspberry Pi that runs the HA server.

Wen · November 24, 2022, 1:39am

Roon plays music, the screen displays the cover, and the wireless knob controls volume and song selection

Wen · November 26, 2022, 1:16pm

jacobwod · January 11, 2023, 7:34am

A bit of a bummer, but as previously stated in this thread: we can’t use the official Ikea Hub for this.

I’m posting it here, as I’ve been looking myself for a way to bind events from the already exposed IKEA Remote in Home Assistant. It looks as it is not possible to listen to these events and bind directly, using the Trådfri integration:

The TRÅDFRI Shortcut button, Remotes and motion sensor only send information about their battery status, no events, to Home Assistant and thus can’t be used to automate with. If you want to automate with these devices, you need to use something like ZHA.

From: IKEA TRÅDFRI - Home Assistant

DanMtsn · January 11, 2023, 1:49pm

I finally managed to make this work.
Does not need to get too complicated if you run Home Assistant with a ZHA integration. Just add this blueprint and configure it according to instructions:

If you don’t run HA or don’t know how to run the ZHA integration it’s better to learn how to do that on the HA forums.

It works quite well, I’m considering replacing the Microsoft Dial which requires a separate Raspberry Pi just for itself…
I masked it with some wood, it makes the movement a little nicer too since the piece of wood adds some weight so it doesn’t feel so flimsy. For 12 EUR can’t be beaten (if you already run HA)