I always have been Ikea fan. I lived in nine different apartments over 15 years before I moved into my own house, and each of those places had lots of Ikea furniture. But the latest thing from Ikea that’s been catching my eye isn’t the new shade of blue for Billy’s bookcase, but the brand’s expansion and improved home gear.
Ikea announced last year that it a new line of smart home appliances it will be completely compatible with Matter. That’s a big deal, like level of open source collaboration Amazon, Apple, and Google have signed up, meaning these devices will play nice with Alexa, Siri, and Google’s unnamed voice assistant. While some of this gear has been available for a short time, much of the lineup—like the latest light bulbs and smart plugs—is brand new. They are currently some of the cheapest home appliances available, and from my experience, they are also the best when it comes to ease of setup and price.
Ikea still uses his Live Hub ($110) which was launched a few years ago, so if you’re already an avid Ikea user at home, you won’t need a new hub to start using these devices. But new users should take one if they don’t have Thread enabled, Parallel to the matter smart hub in their home.
Here are the accessories I’ve tried from the new Ikea home collection, and how they went.
Quay bulb
Photo: Nena Farrell
One of Ikea’s most important new products, just launched this April, is a new light bulb. Smart bulbs are one of the most used items in my home, and this is one of the most accessible and useful smart products out there.
The Berth smart bulb has 11 variations, ranging from your standard E26 bulb to Edison style light bulbs that turn off. The bulbs are reasonably priced, just to begin with $6 for a 450 lumen white bulb only for accent lights up to $13 for a 1,100 lumen color bulb. That puts it slightly cheaper than my preferred Cync bulb smartbut you’ll miss out on extras like music sync that are offered by more expensive bulbs but which I don’t find myself using very often.
The Kajplats bulb was easy to set up around my house, and because I’m an iPhone user, it also used Matter to sync to my Apple Home app as well as my Ikea app. I wish these came in multi-bulb packages instead of having to buy them a la carte all the time, but they are solid bulbs for a good price. Just check the lumens before you check out to make sure you don’t mistakenly buy cheap, lower the brightness when you need something bright enough to fill a room.
