Ikea Dirigera smart home review: easy to setup and use, finally

Ikea’s new Matter-ready Dirigera good residence hub is hitting retail cabinets in North America and most of Europe this week, alongside a very redesigned Dwelling good app. Dirigera — which implies “conducting” in Swedish — is on the coronary heart of Ikea’s try and infuse the home with digital intelligence. It’s meant to mirror the corporate’s good residence ambitions which have grown from a easy lighting pastime to a full-blown strategic focus, as essential to the 79-year-old firm as beds and Billy bookcases. That requires {hardware} and software program that’s straightforward to setup, straightforward to make use of, and steady above all; traits that Ikea struggled to ship with its authentic Trådfri Gateway.

I’ve been dwelling with the brand new Dirigera hub for the final week, utilizing the brand new app emigrate 22 gadgets off my outdated Trådfri Gateway whereas including three extra Ikea gadgets to my new good residence setup. One hiccup apart, the whole lot went easily. So easily that I used to be shocked after having suffered by way of years of frustration with Ikea’s outdated gateway which frequently struggled so as to add gadgets after which keep connections to them over time.

The large factor that’s lacking proper now’s help for Matter — it’s coming. However after some early stumbles I’m okay taking a second to rejoice the truth that Ikea now will get the fundamentals proper, even when the Dirigera hub prices $69 / €59.95, twice the value because the outdated Gateway.

Ikea doesn’t supply a migration instrument to maneuver present gadgets and scenes over from the Trådfri Gateway to the brand new Dirigera hub. That can hassle some. I didn’t thoughts it since my present Ikea setup had drifted right into a partial zombie-like state over the past yr and wanted a whole overhaul. In all honesty, I used to be avoiding the frustration of making an attempt to sort things that once more went sideways attributable to one more system glitch or software program replace.

Typically you simply have to begin over.

Thankfully, you don’t must take away your present gadgets from the Trådfri Gateway earlier than including them to the Dirigera hub. In reality, you by no means must open the outdated Dwelling good app (now renamed to “Dwelling good 1”) in any respect. Simply observe the steps within the new “Dwelling good” app (accessible now for each iOS and Android customers) to reset every machine and Dirigera will discover them for fast and simple inclusion into new or present rooms. Sure, the brand new app is organized by rooms that map to your precise residence format, not illogical teams of gadgets organized by so-called steering gadgets like dimmers and switches. You can even bulk add gadgets into rooms. For instance, I’ve three good spotlights from Ikea on the identical bodily change. I used to be capable of reset and add all three spots directly to the Dirigera hub utilizing the brand new Dwelling good app.

My residence has 25 Ikea good gadgets in complete that sit alongside dozens of others from a wide range of distributors. My Ikea community is a mixture of a number of gentle bulbs, switches, dimmers, shops, and sensors; two shortcut buttons; one set of blinds; one Symfonisk speaker; and one air air purifier. All however one of many Ikea gadgets was discovered and added on the primary try regardless of being scattered throughout three flooring of my tall however slim residence.

The Dwelling good app’s new homescreen is a straightforward however efficient dashboard into the Ikea residence. Every room is represented by a sq. in your alternative of colours. Contained in the squares are interactive icons that allow you to rapidly management the good gadgets in every room. Click on the sq. and also you’ll discover extra fine-tuned management over the gadgets inside.

The one hassle I bumped into when including gadgets was associated to Ikea’s Sonos partnership. The primary problem is said to legacy Sonos gadgets, whereas the second was a bug solved by a reboot of the Dirigera.

Sonos homeowners ought to be conscious that Dirigera solely helps audio system that may run the S2 working system, making Ikea’s new Dwelling good app incompatible with older Sonos S1 networks and gadgets like the primary era Play:5 speaker. All shouldn’t be misplaced, nonetheless, since  Dirigera helps integrations with Google, Amazon, and Apple identical to the Trådfri Gateway earlier than it. Each Google and Amazon integrations help Sonos S1 gadgets permitting you to create cross-platform scenes with Ikea gadgets if that’s essential to you.

My solely onboarding failure with the Dirigera got here when making an attempt so as to add one among Ikea’s Sonos-compatible (gen 2) Symfonisk Table Lamps to the Dwelling good app. The Sonos S2 app discovered it on the primary attempt to began streaming music. However Ikea’s new Dwelling good app didn’t mechanically detect the brand new speaker because it ought to. After a number of days of on-and-off troubleshooting that included manufacturing facility resetting the speaker and shifting it between Wi-Fi and Sonosnet networks, I lastly simply rebooted the Dirigera hub, and voila, the Ikea app discovered it. Ikea says it’s a bug associated to properties (like mine) with each Sonos S1 and S2 networks that shall be fastened with the following software program launch.

That one frustration apart, including gadgets to the Dirigera proved to be easy and quick, with the app providing clear step-by-step directions with helpful animations to idiot-proof all the course of. Lengthy gone are the times the place including a lightbulb to the Trådfri Gateway first required pairing a wi-fi change with the bulb after which including the change to the Gateway so as to management the bulb from the outdated Dwelling good app. Now, a useful animation guides the brand new lightbulb proprietor by way of the tedious however easy onboarding process.

I can’t communicate to the long-term stability of the system but. It’s been steady to date, however I’m lower than per week in. The system is responsive, with lights turning on and off in a fraction of a second after urgent a paired distant, shortcut button, or tapping a button within the app. Voice instructions can typically take seconds however that’s not out of the bizarre for good properties, from Ikea or not, in my expertise. If I needed to guess I’d say my Dirigera setup is barely extra responsive general than my Trådfri setup earlier than it, however I can’t say that with one hundred pc certainty. 

I’ll name it a win if the whole lot stays operational after a number of months with out a software program replace or another glitch inexplicably inflicting a tool to drop off the community and switch grey within the Dwelling good app.

• iPhone customers will really feel helpful haptic suggestions within the hand when the Ikea Dwelling good app is open. Every pulse represents an motion taken such a light-weight being turned on. You additionally really feel a gentle pulse when blinds are managed as they slowly roll into your required place. 
• Scenes might be pinned to the highest of the homescreen for fast entry within the app. However I ran right into a bug whereby hitting the button slider to unpin a scene does nothing however change the fill of the center icon to the left of the icon. Bizarre. Exiting the menu and going again in reveals that the scene was really unpinned with the button within the appropriate place. Must be a easy UI bug to repair.
• I bumped into one other bug when including a Shortcut Button. It added itself nice to the Dirigera hub, however after I named it “shortcut” it appeared in my machine listing as “TRADFRI shortcut button.” So I renamed it once more to “shortcut” however then discovered two shortcut buttons labeled “shortcut” regardless of solely having one bodily shortcut button. I eliminated one of many buttons from the app and each disappeared. I added the button again to the Dirigera as “shortcut” a second time and the whole lot was nice. Odd.
• Typically the app makes use of a crammed circle to indicate that an merchandise is chosen, and typically it makes use of an open circle. Decide one, Ikea.
• Ikea will proceed to push patches and safety updates to the Trådfri Gateway for 3 extra years.
• Dirigera doesn’t help IFTTT.
• Dirigera does help Zigbee, so non-Ikea gadgets like lightbulbs that run on Zigbee might be added and managed, individually or in teams, by way of the brand new Dwelling good app.

Now that the Dirigera hub and app have began rolling out, Ikea can flip its consideration to 3 different enhancements that it already pre-announced: Matter help, including the hub to your router over Wi-Fi, and enabling native distant entry to Ikea good gadgets when outdoors the house.

Enabling Matter is the large characteristic we’re all ready for now that machine certifications have begun. The Dirigera hub is already fitted with radios for Wi-Fi, Zigbee, and Thread, permitting it to behave as a Thread border router as soon as the whole lot is switched on in a few months. “Ikea has a long-term dedication to Matter and step one that we’re focusing on now’s for Dirigera to change into a Matter bridge in a few months,” says Rebecca Töreman, Enterprise Chief at Ikea Dwelling good. In different phrases, as soon as the Dirigera hub is up to date to Matter, any Ikea machine hooked up to the hub can be utilized in any Matter ecosystem.

For now, Dirigera, just like the Trådfri Gateway earlier than it, helps integrations with Amazon, Google, and Apple good residence ecosystems. I’ve all three enabled in my residence and so they’re working effectively to date, permitting me to make use of Ikea’s gadgets in respective scenes and management them by way of Hey Google, Hey Siri, or Alexa voice instructions.

Ikea received’t decide to a date however it says that Wi-Fi will ultimately be supplied as a extra versatile choice to Ethernet for connecting the Dirigera hub to your property router. Till then, Dirigera’s bodily placement within the residence shall be dictated by the supply of Ethernet connectivity. 

Ikea’s additionally nonetheless planning to launch its personal cloud service providing within the first half of 2023. Till then, when you want distant entry to your Ikea good gadgets from outdoors the house then you definately’ll must depend on one among its ecosystem integrations. I take advantage of the Apple Dwelling app and an Apple TV on my community with no points to report.

With the Dirigera hub and the brand new Dwelling good app, I feel Ikea has succeeded in its objective to decrease the geek threshold in order that anybody can setup and use its good gadgets within the residence. Extra time is required to guage stability however issues look promising to date. It’s been a very long time coming, however Ikea’s good house is now — I can’t consider I’m saying this — straightforward to setup and use. 

I did discover myself wishing for an knowledgeable mode to bypass all of the handholding after including the primary few gadgets. However I’ve been automating my residence for over fifteen years, so I’m removed from Ikea’s target market of first time or novice good residence customers searching for a quite simple interface loaded with assist screens. 

Ikea has spent the previous few years reinventing itself as a furnishings firm that understands the position of know-how within the residence higher than Silicon Valley. Dirigera is the corporate’s first actual try and show that, by simplifying residence automation in the identical means it simplified furnishings transport and meeting. 

“The preconditions for mass adoption are right here,” mentioned Ikea’s good residence chief Bjorn Block a number of months in the past, when he first confirmed me Dirigera. That is likely to be true, this might be a pivotal second for the adoption of good residence tech. Or not… let’s examine again in a number of extra years. All I can say after per week with it’s that Ikea clearly discovered from its early good residence errors and Digieria is off to a promising begin.

All display grabs and pictures by Thomas Ricker / The Verge