I’ve all the time been an Ikea fan. I lived in 9 totally different flats over 15 years earlier than transferring into my house, and each single a type of locations had an abundance of Ikea furnishings. However the newest factor from Ikea that is been catching my eye is not the brand new daring blue shade for the Billy bookcase, however the model’s expanded and upgraded good house gear.
Ikea introduced final 12 months that its new lineup of good house devices can be completely Matter-compatible. That is an enormous deal, because the open supply interoperability customary has Amazon, Apple, and Google signed up, that means these units will play properly with Alexa, Siri, and Google’s anonymous voice assistant. Whereas a few of this gear has been obtainable for a short time, a lot of the lineup—like the most recent gentle bulbs and good plugs—is new. These at the moment are among the most reasonably priced good house devices obtainable, and from my expertise, in addition they among the finest in relation to ease of setup and worth.
Ikea continues to be utilizing its Dirigera Hub ($110) that launched a couple of years in the past, so when you’re already an Ikea good house person, you will not want a brand new hub to start out utilizing these devices. However new customers ought to choose one up if they do not have a Thread-enabled, Matter-compatible good house hub of their house.
This is what gear I’ve tried from Ikea’s new good house assortment, and the way it went.
The Kajplats Bulb
{Photograph}: Nena Farrell
Certainly one of Ikea’s key new merchandise, simply launched this April, is a brand new gentle bulb. Sensible gentle bulbs are one of many most-used gadgets in my house, and this is likely one of the most accessible and helpful good house merchandise on the market.
The Kajplats good bulb has 11 variations, ranging out of your basic E26 customary bulb to Edison-style dimmable bulbs. The bulbs are well-priced, starting from simply $6 for a 450 lumen white-only bulb for accent lights as much as $13 for the 1,100 lumen coloration bulb. That places it a little bit cheaper than my favored Cync good bulb, however you may miss out on extras like music sync that costlier bulbs provide however which I do not discover myself utilizing fairly often.
The Kajplats bulb was simple to arrange round my home, and since I am an iPhone person, it additionally used Matter to sync to my Apple Dwelling app in addition to my Ikea app. I want these got here in additional packs of bulbs moderately than having to all the time purchase them a la carte, but it surely’s a stable bulb for worth. Simply test the lumens earlier than you try to ensure you’re not unintentionally shopping for a budget, dim one while you want one thing shiny sufficient to fill a room.

