I’ve got an IKEA Tradfri LED driver and a Rodret dimmer. When I first installed them I thought it would be good to also control some non-IKEA pendant lights with the same dimmer, in sync with the cabinet lights connected to the Tradfri - so, I created automations in Home Assistant corresponding to each of the actions the dimmer can perform and this is working fine. However, we’ve decided not to control the pendant lights in sync with the cabinet lights so it’s now unnecessarily complicated. I plan to remove the automations and link the Rodret direct to the Tradfri again.
I understand that I can do this by following the IKEA procedure to pair the devices. But I’m also curious about the option in Home Assistant to bind devices.
Finally to my question - are these two methods to achieve the same result, or is IKEA pairing somehow different than Zigbee binding?
Zigbee devices have their pairing process defined on the device. It’s just a method of generating a trust with a Zigbee network, so whatever method will end up with the same result.
Those IKEA devices have issues being part of multiple networks in my experience. Some are not even capable, so if that’s your plan, expect problems.