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IKEA introduces new chapter in designing technology for the home

This January, IKEA will introduce over 20 new smart products — all built to work with Matter, the universal smart home standard. It’s the biggest step IKEA has taken to make smart home technology open, simple and affordable for the many people.

After years of exploring and learning how smart products can improve everyday life, IKEA is now introducing its most open and easy-to-use range yet — shaped by real needs, daily routines and shifting habits in the home. The aim is not to add technology for its own sake, but to make products that adapt to people and their everyday challenges, while making homes more supportive and adaptable for everyday life.

Matter allows devices from different brands to work together, offering greater flexibility across platforms and ecosystems.  A compatible smart home hub, like DIRIGERA, is required to add Matter-enabled products to a home setup.

“Until now, smart home technology hasn’t been easy enough to use for most people — or affordable enough for many to consider. Bringing Matter to our products means we are taking a big step in the right direction, offering compatibility across brands, and lowering the threshold for people to get started. Our goal is to make the smart home easy to use, easy to understand, and within reach for the many,” says David Granath, the range manager at IKEA of Sweden.

The new products are designed to offer high-quality, well-integrated solutions at prices that make smart technology more accessible — and to work within any smart home system the customer prefers. With Matter support, the IKEA Home smart system will also open up to products from other brands.

A step on this journey is that DIRIGERA, the smart home hub from IKEA, is now a Matter Controller. It can manage Matter-enabled devices from other brands, and as a Matter Bridge, it ensures that existing IKEA smart products will also be compatible with platforms using the Matter standard. This makes IKEA Home smart an even more open and flexible system.

A distinct direction in sound

While new smart products launch in January, IKEA is also taking a distinct step forward in sound, with the ambition to treat speakers with the same care and personality as the rest of the home. Home electronics are often seen as purely functional — something to be hidden away — and can feel out of place in the interior. IKEA wants to change that. Two new Bluetooth speakers and a new design collaboration, all launching later this year, reflect the ambition to make sound a more visible and enjoyable part of everyday life — with pieces that offer great sound and that people are excited to display.

Launching in July and bringing the look of an old radio, the new NATTBAD Bluetooth speaker comes in yellow, pink and black, and offers a fun, low-price entry point into sound at home. In October, BLOMPRAKT will follow — a new practical table speaker in beige, black and blue that combines great sound with atmospheric lighting. It features an angled top, enabling the built-in light to be directed precisely to create the right ambiance.

The new range focuses on affordability and simplicity. IKEA brings forward its learnings from sound development to design well-integrated products that look at home in the living room — and make sure price isn’t a barrier. The Bluetooth speakers are built to work out of the box, with features like easy multi-speaker setup and Spotify Tap, requiring no deep technical knowledge to get started.

“We’ve learned a great deal about creating high-quality sound experiences that are easy to use. We understand how people want to furnish with sound in a way that adds atmosphere and feels natural in the home. Those learnings continue to guide us as we bring the worlds of home furnishing and sound closer together. Our aim is to make sound accessible, functional and enjoyable — without adding complexity. That’s what sets us apart, and that’s what we’ll keep building on as we shape the next chapter of what sound can be in the home,” says David Granath.

Also launching in January is a design collaboration with Swedish designer Tekla Severin, commonly known as “Teklan”. Known for her expressive use of colour, the partnership explores how electronics can feel more like part of the home — combining technology with personal style in a way that invites more personality into home electronics.

More updates about the smart home range and upcoming collaborations will follow ahead of January. 

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