Hacking the Ikea TRÅDFRI lamp with MicroPython #ESP32 #MicroPython @qrs

Ikea TRÅDFRI LED power supplies with wireless receiver are cheap and easily modifiable. Some of them have accessible SWD programming headers allowing openocd to debug and modify the firmware. Trammell Hudson’s Projects goes over how to perform this Ikea hack as an expanded version of a short talk given at ThingsCon 2019 on installing MicroPython onto Ikea’s HomeSmart devices.

The CPU board is a Silcon Labs EFR32 “Wireless Gecko”, which has a reasonable 256 KiB of program flash, 32 KiB of SRAM, a very nice 16-bit PWM for smooth dimming, and a ZigBee radio.

Ikea also thoughtfully wired the debug port on the 10W LED driver, although the FLOALT requires soldering directly to the board.

The real reason that I started on the project was that the default firmware is much too bright. At the dimmest setting it was still a 5% duty cycle, which was blindly bright at night and unsuitable for night-light applications.

See the full details in the post here.