Ikea’s Quiet Smart Home Upgrade

I’ve been an Ikea customer long enough to have moved through nine apartments over 15 years before settling into a house, and yes, a heroic amount of flat-pack furniture came with me. But the brand’s latest move that deserves attention is not a new paint color for the Billy bookcase. It is the expansion of Ikea’s smart home lineup, which is now bigger, cheaper, and more useful than it has any right to be.

Last year, Ikea said its new smart home devices would be fully Matter-compatible. That matters, inconveniently enough, because Matter is the open standard backed by Amazon, Apple, and Google, which means these gadgets can work with Alexa, Siri, and Google’s voice assistant without the usual ritual of app-switching and mild regret.

Some of the products have been around for a while, but plenty of the collection is new, including the newest light bulbs and smart plugs. In practice, these are now some of the least expensive smart home devices you can buy, and they are also among the easiest to set up. Rare combination. Nice when that happens.

Ikea is still using its Dirigera Hub, which launched a few years ago and costs $110. If you already use Ikea smart home products, you do not need a new hub to add these devices. New users, though, should get one if they do not already have a Thread-enabled, Matter-compatible hub in the house.

Here is what I tried from the new lineup, and how it went.

Kajplats Bulb

One of Ikea’s main new products, launched this April, is the Kajplats smart bulb. Smart bulbs are some of the most practical connected devices you can buy. They are also the kind most people actually notice when they work well, which is a refreshing change from the average smart home gadget that spends its life being conceptually interesting.

Kajplats comes in 11 versions, from a standard E26 bulb to Edison-style dimmable models. Pricing is aggressive: the range starts at $6 for a 450-lumen white-only bulb and goes up to $13 for a 1,100-lumen color bulb. That puts it a bit below my preferred Cync smart bulbs, though you do give up extras like music sync. To be fair, that is the kind of feature many people will use once, then forget exists.

Setup was easy around my home. Because I use an iPhone, the bulb connected through Matter to both the Ikea app and Apple Home. I wish Ikea sold these in multipacks more often instead of making me buy them one by one, but the bulb itself is solid and the price is hard to argue with.

One warning: pay attention to the lumen rating before you check out. The cheap one is also the dim one, and that is not always what you want if you are trying to light an actual room instead of a decorative corner.

If you want a small starter bundle, Ikea does sell a bulb paired with the new Bilresa smart remote for $10.

Bilresa Remote

The Bilresa remote is, frankly, charming. It lets you control Ikea smart lights, plugs, speakers, and other gear without using your voice or digging through the app every time. It functions a bit like a smart switch. Ikea includes a mounting plate and sticky adhesive, so you can attach it to a wall or another surface, but the remote also has a magnet on the back. I used that to stick mine right to the fridge, because apparently that is where all useful household things eventually end up.

Bilresa comes in three colors, though the white version is the only one sold individually. If you want the tomato red or soft green options, you have to buy the three-pack. There is also a choice between a simple button version and one with a wheel for adjusting things like brightness.

The button-only model costs $6 on its own or $15 for a three-pack, which is very affordable for something this useful. The remotes do require AAA batteries, and Ikea does not include them. I tested mine with Ikea’s Ladda batteries, which cost $9 for four.

My red remote, chosen to match my living room, has been controlling the lights there without drama. It connected quickly in the app, and it was easy to open the front and insert the batteries with a flathead screwdriver. A butter knife probably would have worked too, which is either clever design or a quiet admission that nobody should have to go hunting for special tools just to turn on a lamp.

The app made it simple to assign the remote to a room, and it can manage up to three groups of products. For someone who has spent a lot of time reconfiguring lights and re-pairing devices for Amazon smart speakers, the one-button simplicity feels like a relief. It would also make sense beside a bed, where people tend to appreciate not having to stand up to turn the lights off.

Myggspray Motion Sensor

Ikea’s new lineup also includes several sensors, such as door sensors, temperature sensors, and a water leakage sensor. I tried the Myggspray wireless motion sensor, which costs $8.

My original plan was to use it to see when my son leaves his room in the middle of the night, but the device is really meant to trigger lights when someone enters a room. Since it does not keep a motion history you can review later, I moved it to my bedroom and set it up to control that light instead.

The app lets you choose what should happen after motion stops, but it does not give you a special confirmation step for the obvious part, which is whether the light should turn on when motion is detected. You can also set a schedule for when the sensor should react, so a late-night bathroom trip or a 3 a.m. visit from a child with a nightmare does not illuminate the whole room like a crime scene.

At first, it did not work immediately. After I let the sensor and its settings settle in the app and with the hub, it started reacting properly. Once that happened, walking into the bedroom triggered the light instantly. Since this is a room without a light switch for the outlets we actually use, that turned out to be genuinely useful. A small victory for not tripping over things in the dark.

The Ikea Experience

Unlike the furniture Ikea is famous for, none of these gadgets required me to lift anything heavy or wrestle with a hex wrench. They still delivered the same mix of affordability, convenience, and clean design the company is known for.

The Ikea Home Smart app recognized each device quickly once I plugged it in, and Matter handled the connection to my iPhone’s Home app for cross-platform control. The app itself is tidy and easy to follow, which makes the whole system feel more approachable than a lot of smart home ecosystems that seem designed to test your patience.

The low price helps. This is an easy smart home setup to enter if you are new to the category, because it is not expensive and does not require you to become a hobbyist overnight. It is also a little fun that the gear comes from a brand so many people already know from furniture, lamps, and assemblies that somehow always require two more screws than expected.

After a month of using this equipment around the house, I am still not done. Next up, I will be testing Ikea’s new smart plug, a smart version of the viral donut lamp, and some tiny Bluetooth speakers.