IKEA smart lighting range announced
Swedish flat-pack aficionados, IKEA, has announced its own affordable smart lighting system today called Trådfri, which means ‘wireless’ in Swedish.
Known for their stylish, yet affordable home goods, IKEA has announced it’s stepping in to smart home kit.
Back in 2012 IKEA outed their smart TV system, but now they’re hitting the smart light market.
Smart Light kit
The Smart Lighting range of products includes Trådfri LED bulbs, a remote dimmer switch puck, a gateway kit, a motion sensor kit, and dimming lights.
IKEA is also introducing a selection of LED light panels and doors that can be built into cabinets for the bedroom and kitchen. Nice.
Details
The Gateway starter kit (above) will cost around £70. This includes two bulbs, a remote, and a gateway hub to connect everything to the app.
The Trådfri bulbs have three white color temperature options (2200K, 2700K, and 4000K) that IKEA claims each last around 25,000 hours.
ZigBee
Just as Philips Hue series before it, IKEA’s first range of automated lighting products is based on the ZigBee Light Link standard. The standard was released in a number European countries late last year and should see a larger rollout at the end of this month.
IKEA Home Furnishing expert Helen Longford said:
The Ikea vision is to bring affordable home furnishing solutions to the many people. We know from research that existing smart lighting technology is perceived to be too expensive and difficult to understand, so we have worked to remove those barriers to make smart lighting more accessible,”
Smart Light availability
IKEA gives March 31 as the date when the new lighting range will land in Sweden.
We then expect it to appear on UK shelves in April.
The IKEA website doesn’t no mention compatibility with existing smart home platforms such as Amazon Alexa or Google Home. We reckon support for other standards seems likely at some point though.
