IKEA Bekant Table Hacking 

Hey guys! You like reverse engineering? I'm happy to share my latest project. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-T-o-ibGUEoA.html Happy Hacking! ✌️

I understood almost nothing from this video. You knowledge and skills are God level to me. Respect.

I guarantee none of my ancestors has ever had to say, "Hang on a second... I have to reboot my table."

Next time someone calls me a nerd ill show em this.

You're a hacker of the first grade. Clean and clear engineering.

You can also replace/reprogram PIC and use original electronics. New program will change buttons behaviour, single push recall memory(up memory for upper position, down memory for lower position), double push drives table manually, long push saves actual position etc.

Amazing. I understood just about everything you said, and usually I'm pretty dense. Speaks for your teaching skills! Also great how you're showing the process "I have no idea, but I found something promising" instead of just the finished product. That's so relatable whereas often it's intimidating.

I did a similar mod to my Bekant desk, but rather than grabbing any code from the desk itself (I'm new to electronics and don't know how) I just replaced the flexible PCB that connects the buttons with wires to an Arduino Nano. Plugged those into the header you removed. Then via code I raise and lower the desk for a certain length of time. It works, but it's hacky, and your solution is a lot more elegant. Mine suffers from the acceleration/deceleration drift you describe. Not enough to complain, but a set amount of run time lowers the desk more than it raises it due to the weight on top of the desk. I'll adjust that eventually, but the point is I'm really impressed with how much effort you put into this mod and how well it was done.

Electronics engineering stuff on a Mac. I'm amazed. 7:39 That's a cool ruler!

Yes! This has been my only complaint about my Bekant desk :) Now, adding a way to capture when the desk is standing or sitting to track how often you're standing vs sitting :)

"IKEA wants to know your location"

For people who don't wish to go through all this work, I suggest replacing the original buttons with push on/off buttons and using limit switches for the top and bottom positions. However your idea results in some good flexibility and scalability for added features.

THANK YOU for your work on this!! I've had this in the back of my mind for ages and had been putting it off because of just how much work would be involved, but you've done all the hard parts here! KUDOS!! and thank you so much for sharing this! :D

Amazing! I wanted a similar solution, but I don't understand it enough to implement it. Respect.

This is absolutely brilliant. I was thinking of doing something similar, but all I was going to do was put an atmega processor in between the buttons and the PIC and basically set it to emulate a hold on the up or down button for a specific amount of time. Your video of course is a 100% better way to do it.

Impressive work! Thanks to you, I'm strongly considering buying a Bekant table just to do this. With something like an ESP8266 and WeMo emulation code (like that already written by Xose Pérez) I can see being able to say "Alexa, turn on/off standing mode"

Excellent tubing! Good speech, nice speed, great level of detail and very good hold on that level. Also, I need to hack my IKEA Bekant table. :)

I feel like it's gonna be easier for someone to simply make a control board and replace the original board. I will be a customer

Very nice video. I like how you take us trough the complete process, and not just show the result.

I was going to buy one of these, but the unmotorised one. But you may just have changed my mind. Except... how cool would it be to hook it up to USB and control it from your computer?

Limit switchs, and a wireless charging base -- and control via usb or serial/wifi/poe -- consider using wesp32 maybe -- or nodemcu -- could add usage graphs and everything to chart how much time you sit/stand n such -- or integrate into a smart home hub, and allow automation

Car seat? There's electronic car seats these days? Damn..my old Primera is getting ancient =D

This is highly impressive. I'd like to do this for my desk but my hardware/electrical engineering skills are limited, does anyone have a simple form how to with a list of materials and steps?

Dude, you are in the top subscriptions among my 250 youtube channel subscriptions. Great content, keep it coming. Cheers.

That's a great mod. I would use a piezzo sensor and knock on the table to switch between positions

These kind of videos make me feel so dumb. Thanks for sharing this though, really enjoyed it.

A microcontroller for doing something a simple button can do. And not implementing any of the advantages provided by a microcontroller. What a mess! Really nice hack!

Wow.. good job. I like messing around with arduino but this is crazy. I wish I was able to do this kind of project

Thank You! This will make that Project a lot easier.

Nice idea! thanks for sharing it with the community! As a user of an ikea beakant I really appreciate! You've got my like and suscribe to your channel!

Looks like you never did make that final video? Would love to see the finished product in the end. Fantastic project - thanks for making this, which I will try build per your instructions :)

Got a myself an esp8266 and thought I could be done in an evening thinking it was either just some polarity switch or pwm signal. Now I’m thinking that I can keep the original buttons and just hook into the LIN-pin, send a frame with the desired value (copying the id of the original if necessary) - is there a reason you simulated button presses instead of doing that? Is the LIN-pin only for reading? If so would it work by splicing into the blue cable? Great video, helped so much 🙌

Beautiful name for your code: IKEA Hackankt v1.0 ! :-D Bravo°

Awesome, thanks for taking the time to document it....

I did something similar... instead of the Ikea table, I hacked the functions of the motors to tilt the beds because I hated to hold the button of the control remote and decided to add a function to it that if I pressed the button for x seconds, it would go up or down completely :)

Very interesting how complicated it is to make something more simple and convenient to use 👍🏾

Frekking cool work you've done here - wow! Even though I came in a bit late I'll be following you, that's for sure...

Fun project. In practice you could just only use the two original buttons. Short press is just the regular up and down. Long press are the stored positions. With a bit of luck you can squeeze it all in the original package :) (or just re-flash the entire pic)

Very nice. :) I'm about to buy a desk like this, and missed these preset functions. I had some ideas while watching: - I would try to find a connector for that plug on the PCB, and use naked test clips to sniff the LIN data. I would try to keep original electronics as intact as possible, given that IKEA gives 10 years of warranty for these desks. But maybe this is not really worth it, because you had to force open the button box anyway. - I would try to use the original buttons to add presets, like "both button press" + "down" to lower, and "both button press" + "up" to raise to the preset position.

Thank you ! very well documented, and nice camera shots overall

You should make a series on "From beginner to Robin Reiter". I mean they dont teach these stuff even in collage so how to become your level of expert from a beginner, where to start from and how to reach your level of genius.

Also wenn die Grafikkarte nicht schon mindestens 1x runtergeflogen ist, weiß ich auch nicht :D Hammer Videos machst du! Hast nen Sub :)

Probably should add some kind of stop button (big red emergency stop?) in case something gets in the way of the table.

ich verstehe absolut nur Bahnhof, aber der Tisch ist gut xDD

Stupid question but could somebody explain why he didn't just simulate the button press with an arduino? Did the button send a specific frequency to the microcontroller?

Do you think you could make and sell these kits? I’d like to get one so I have a programmable switch as opposed to the simple up and down switch IKEA provides

Nice, but a 1 Euro whitemarker to mark your favorite hight on the tabelstand will do the same. Job done in 20 sec. ;-)

Memory for tables and stols/chairs, in cars, office, etc is not a good thing. If u memorize a wrong position or a bad position for your body, u will not notice that until your body start to hurt. That can take a very long time, but when it happens it can be hard to get rid of it. And if u have bad luck, maybe it take months of rehabilitation for u to be fine again. So don't use those memory things. Always adjust for next position.

Or....you could just put a subtle mark/etching on the leg at the desired height(s) and referencing the mark to ensure you recall the desired height.

Any tips on how to stop the clock display on my VCR from flashing "12:00" all the time?....I put a piece of black electrical tape over that space but the adhesive wears out and it keeps falling off.

Thank you for travelling with deutsche Bahn

Aww man, how do I un-see this video? Now I'm going to have to figure out how my ADJUSTME TC15 controller and TH37 hand controller talk to each other so I can add memory buttons for the sit/stand positions.

Kudos , very good explanation .

Why not get rid of the original PCB in the beginning? Would make things quite a bit easier.

Thanks for sharing Robin, you did a great job.

Holy smokes that's genius!

If you spend some time to setup temperature of the air from air gun you will be able to remove these plastic connectors without damaging it

What if I told you there is a (hidden) memory function built in? I don't remember exactly how, but you should be able to memorize heights without any hack. Still pretty damn impressive!

Yo man. You did awesome 👏 work . And grate thanks to you for doing this type of knowledge videos.

Impressive job. So, if I understand well, the controller you've modified is the master device on the LIN bus ? If so, do you think it could be possible to build a controller without having to break the original one ? (my desk is knew, and it's quite expensive... :D )

Great hack! The lack of memory is one reason I didn't consider IKEA when buying my adjustable desk. Anyway, what IDE are you using there? I hate the arduino IDE and am looking for an alternative. (Übrigens, im Englischen sagt man "logic high" resp. "logic low", nicht "logically", da es sich nicht um ein Adverb handelt, sondern um den Nomen "Logik". ;) )

Awh man, I would love to understand this... I'm a software engineer and know nothing but the basics of electrical engineering,..

i guess you are german so: mein gott! Ich dachte mir ich kann irgendwas kaufen oder es mit ein paar "kleinen Tricks" lösen.....aber um das hier zu machen müsste ich nochmal schnell ein Studium in Sachen Elektrotechnik machen......;)

2:46 I think you wanted to say fortunately

I have the exact table lol, was thinking the exact improvement my self.

Not all heroes wear capes

Excellent video Robin, thank you. Did you finally make the follow up video to this one? 🍻🍻

Could please tell what are the red, white and blue wires are for in the original up and down button board? 1:27

This is really cool. May I ask a noob question? I've been trying to chain two BEKANT motorized desks to the same remote control. Nothing fancy like this one, just connecting them in a straight linear fashion with the same cables as come in the box. (The desks are side by side so I'd just like them to move in sync.) So in one end of the circuit there's the power supply, then four motorized legs connected in sequence, then the remote control. But whenever I'm chaining the assy like that, and have one remote control at the end, nothing moves. Not even the one desk it's supposed to be identified with (as opposed to both, which is what I'm trying to achieve). I was under the impression that the remote control was a master and all other devices were slaves, so it won't care if it's two or four slaves (leg motors) on the bus? Grateful for any pointers in the right direction. Rick

So what's wrong with the internal pull ups of the ATmega? They may have a higher resistance than your 10K pull down resistors, but for simple pull up/down resistors for push buttons, I really can't think of a good reason to use external resistors instead.

Hi! Thank you for this hack! But as I'm planning to seperate the two linear motors, do you know how they are driven? I think it's easier to make my own motor controller than hacking the SW and switch on/off one of the motors. Or do you have a better suggestion?

Other products made by Ikea are different. A lot different. I rever engineered a desk, but the interface and the protocol is really really different. I am afraid this hack is specific to this product only.

Could you answer how to read the LIN signal? Specifically, what physical Arduino port is the LIN wire hooking into? Also, how does the Arduino LIN library know which port to read the LIN signal from?

I want to get this running on a raspberry pi nano so that I can add it to smart home automations via HomeBridge / IFTTT / Alexa ?

Krasser Typ wirklich !! Genial

Great video and explanation. Subscribed.

I’m curious about how many hours were spent on this? I do these same things but feel I’m very slow. Working in the evenings when I have a few moments to spend on electronics, this project might take me 2 months to complete.

The keyboard plug already had a few unused pins, possibly You've been just needing to add the buttons to the existing design.

I see you just re-used the original board and buttons. I suppose the movement commands are also LIN packets? So one could entirely replace the original controller.

Fantastic work!

Hello Robin, i know you video about the bekant desk is 4 years old but maybe do you know a answer of the following question. Did you know how the original arrow buttons work. My desk is more then 7 years old and i must push really hard the down button to move the desk. So the question is if i can switch both button without to use your way through arduino?

Bravo! Good reverse ingeniering and excellent explanation. I want to control two tables, so four legs with one console. After you working on this table, do you think is posible that it works just connecting in series the two aditional legs?

Very cool. I want one of these modules but could never make one. Would you consider making more and selling them?

Hi Robin! I have been trying to locate a replacement intermotor power connector no luck with Ikea nor anywhere else. Any idea where I can find this kind of cable?

Is it possible to modify the LIN library to inverted the signal voltage, instead of using a transistor to do that?

Hey.. why didn't you just think of simulating the button function by attaching a parallel button like circuit that will be driven by an external controller. Use limit switches to determine the prefixed heights. A person who didn't understand protocols would probably do this! :)

Why would one use a controller and protocols for a motorized table??? What's wrong with motor and a button?

Is there anyway to raise and lower the bekant motorized desk without a key?

Is it possible to run 2 desks (4 legs) with only 1 controller?

I'm still trying to figure out how to connect 2 tables to 1 controller, could i ask you to look into that?

If there was a chance that it is a PIC16, why didn't you just reprogram it? Two buttons are enough for this application. Also MPLAB X MCC offers a ready to use LIN module. Or let the Arduino send the LIN comands as well.

excellent work. what editor are you using for coding?

Hi Robin and GREAT JOB! are you planning on selling some custom 3D printed modules that can replace standard IKEA Bekant Table buttons? I hope you do, because I would invest into having 2more memory buttons on the table ;)

Hey! can you tell BEKANT Table top Meterial? I mean what is made off? Particleboard? or MDF? or HDF?

Very nice project. One question: it is possible to invert the data stream in Arduino code and get rid of the transistor and resistors used as a NOT gate?

Nice job and quite a hack. :D So your original controller also contains a PIC16LF1938?

This is sooo good!! ;)

Не, я понимаю иммобилайзеры ломают, софт и тп. Но стол?)))

Awesome! Great job!!

Nice video! What is the program that you used to display the waveform?