A £3 remote that can control lights, speakers, and blinds across any brand’s ecosystem is not just a bargain-it’s a signal that the smart home market is shifting. With the launch of 21 new Matter-over-Thread devices, Ikea makes a decisive break from its Zigbee-only past and combines aggressive pricing with technical upgrades that could accelerate mainstream adoption of interoperable home automation.
The new lineup includes lighting, sensors, remotes, and a smart plug that will work seamlessly on Matter-compatible ecosystems such as Apple Home, Google Home, Amazon Alexa, and Samsung SmartThings. Matter is an IP-based interoperability standard developed by the Connectivity Standards Alliance, with big tech companies supporting the effort. It makes provisions for devices to communicate locally over Wi-Fi, Ethernet, and Thread without the need for proprietary cloud services. Thread is a low-power, IPv6-based mesh networking protocol characterised by low latency, self-healing networking, and direct internet connectivity, especially suitable for sensors, bulbs, and plugs.
Central to Ikea’s rollout is the revamped Dirigera hub, itself now a full Matter controller and Thread 1.4 border router. Thread 1.4 brings along credential sharing in order to allow devices to join existing Thread networks rather than creating isolated ones for stronger, unified mesh coverage. This means a Dirigera hub can bring third-party Matter devices, like Philips Hue Thread bulbs, into Ikea’s Home Smart app and ensure interoperability across ecosystems in the process. The hub also supports Matter 1.3, allowing energy and air quality data from devices like Eve Energy plugs to be shared cross-platform.
Where Trådfri bulbs took centre stage, the Kajplats range comes in eleven different variants to cover E27/E26 standard globes, compact P45 E14/E12/E17 bulbs, GU10 spotlights, and clear-glass decorative models. The brightness of white-spectrum bulbs goes up to 1,521 lumens; colour-changing ones boast expanded spectra and much smoother dimming. Some models feature dual-protocol support, providing backward compatibility with Zigbee for direct pairing via TouchLink sans a hub.
The biggest rethink in hardware control comes with the Bilresa remotes. There’s a two-button version for quick on/off and brightness, while the scroll wheel model allows for granular dimming and colour adjustments, and even multi-device group control-switch from lights to audio with one button press. Offered individually or in handy, colour-coded three-packs, these are designed for intuitive use, room by room.
On the sensing front, five new devices address environmental monitoring and automation triggers: Myggspray is a motion sensor for indoor and outdoor use, turning on lights in entrances or staircases; Myggbett door/window sensors trigger lighting or send security alerts; Timmerflotte measures temperature and humidity, showing it on a dot matrix screen; Alpstuga adds CO₂ and PM2.5 monitoring to temperature and humidity, integrating with Ikea air purifiers for responsive air quality control. Klippbok is a compact leak sensor with a built-in siren for immediate local alerts alongside app notifications.
The smart plug Grillplats provides additional connectivity to non-smart appliances through remote use and energy tracking. Paired with remotes or sensors, Grillplats provides support for fast automations like turning a lamp on by detecting motion. From an engineering standpoint, that move from Zigbee to Thread is the important one: Zigbee’s mesh networking is based on the IEEE 802.15.4 standard; it features low power consumption but requires bridges specifically dedicated to connecting with Matter. In contrast, Thread is inherently IP-based, which allows for direct communication with other networks and makes for a much easier setup.
This architecture reduces latency, improves reliability, and supports dynamic routing, thus being more resilient in dense device environments. Beyond that, Matter brings multi-admin features so a single device can be controlled by several ecosystems simultaneously. So, a single Kajplats bulb might be dimmed via Siri in Apple Home, with its schedule set through Google Home without the need to reconfigure. That’s true freedom from those siloed systems that always frustrated the early adopters. The pricing reinforces Ikea’s disruptive intent: in the UK, Kajplats bulbs cost £4 to £9, Bilresa remotes £3-£4, and sensors £5 to £7, with the Alpstuga air quality monitor coming in at £25. IKEA is an attractive entry point, given that other manufacturers have been known to charge two or three times as much.
Combining interoperability driven by Matter with mesh efficiency driven by Thread and scale-driven affordability courtesy of IKEA addresses three critical barriers to smart home adoption: complexity, compatibility, and cost. To tech-savvy enthusiasts, this is a platform to expand automation without brand lock-in; for more mainstream consumers, the barrier to entry to a connected home that simply “just works” has been lowered.
