IKEA
About the vendor and its products
IKEA is arguably known to most people, but everyone might not know that IKEA is also an important player within the market for smart home products. With its Trådfri line, IKEA has gradually expanded its range of products, typically at prices lower than similar products from their competitors. As of now (new products are continuously being launched, albeit sometimes with delays compared with announced launch dates) the selection covers:
Base station, which in IKEA’s vocabulary first called a Trådfri Gateway, which in most cases should be installed before starting to use Trådfri products (as mentioned above, you will find descriptions online on how to use Trådfri devices in a Hue system, which I have myself found to work to some extent, but for more advanced functionality and to update firmware of devices, the gateway is required). In 2022, a new base station was launched, called Dirigera, which is supposed to be faster and can accommodate more devices.
Smart light bulbs, which come with sockets E27, E14 and GU10, including a smaller E14 bulb that fit lamps where very few, if any, alternatives exist, and in line with the trends a filament bulb
Smart light sources, where the key to the “smartness” is in the so-called Trådfri Driver, which comes in versions for respectively three and ten light sources. Compatible light sources are connected to the driver and the driver is then connected to power. This way, all connected light sources can be turned on/off and dimmed (for all sources at the same time). Compatible light sources cover many different types; from cabinet lighting, picture lighting, and spot lights to more specialized solutions for wardrobes, drawers, kitchen cabinets, etc.
Smart furniture lighting, which includes doors with built-in lighting and light panels, which can be installed on walls, ceiling, or on furniture
Control devices, which include a number of different switches/dimmers and some different sensors
Smart plug
There is also a signal repeater, which can be used to extend the signal range in cases of connection problems
In the summer of 2019, in collaboration with Sonos, a series of smart speakers was launched under the same of Symfonisk, partly as stand-alone speakers and partly as a combined table lamp and speaker, with support for most streaming services, and after some time also a remote control for the Symfonisk line has been launched, later also a speaker shaped like a picture frame
Smart blinds, under the names Fyrtur and Kadrilj
Smart air purifier either as a stand-alone unit or built into a table
The Trådfri products are controlled using an IKEA Home smart 1 app for systems based on the Trådfri Gateway and an IKEA Home smart app for Dirigera-based systems. In my experience, these work fairly well, and like other similar system, such as Philips Hue, you can now access the base station also when away from home. The opportunities for setting up and programming the system are more limited than the mentioned alternatives. Another negative issue is that many of the control devices, for all practical purposes, only are possible to use with other Trådfri products, as the control devices are connected directly to bulbs/light sources, instead of providing a “generic” Zigbee signal to be exploited for automation with other devices (you will find the occasional recipe, though, on how to connect a Trådfri motion sensor to Philips Hue bulbs). Even though the Trådfri control devices are considerably less expensive that similar products from competitors, this makes them much less useful in a more extensive smart home system.
The Trådfri line builds on the Zigbee protocol (more about this under control & automation) but does not work as a properly open protocol. It is, however, compatible with both Apple Home as well as Amazon Alexa and Google Home.
Our experiences
In our home, we have a wide range of Trådfri products, see more specific experiences in the table below. I have generally few objections against the devices themselves, especially considering the price. What is not good is the stability of the system! Very often single devices will lose connection to the base station and must be power cycled, other times the base station loses connection to .Apple Home integration. With many connected devices, the response time also goes up and eventually one reaches the limit of how many devices can be connected. After much frustration with the Apple Home integration, we have connected the Trådfri devices to Apple Home via Homey, which seems to be both faster and more stable.
Notice that on phones, the table might only display in landscape mode
| Component | Room | Experiences |
|---|---|---|
Trådfri Gateway base station x 2 |
Deinstalled |
These are no longer in use, but replaced by the newer version, Dirigera, see below. We acquired our first of these at about the same time as the similar hub for Philips Hue, but the IKEA one required much more frequent relogging into the app or restarting the base station. It remained like this through several rounds of firmware updates, without noticeable improvements, but I should point out that assigning the base station a fixed IP address helped. Another irritation is that the IKEA app cannot be used when outside the range of the base station (in contrast to, e.g., the Philips Hue bridge), but luckily the connected devices are accessible via the Home app. As we expanded our selection of devices, to around 60 devices, we saw an increasing problem of both the responsiveness slowing down and the ability to add more devices eventually stopping. We therefore had to get a second Gateway, which helped a lot. But the Apple Home connection for one of the gateways was done via Homey. |
E27 smart light bulb x 13 |
Living room, library, guest room 1, guest room 2, and outdoor | This is arguably some of the most affordable smart bulbs for sale, and they have worked without any problems, also outdoor during Norwegian winters. The issues we have had of bulbs not turning on/off as part of programs/automations have been caused by the base station problems and not the bulbs. After two to three years, however, we have seen that these are shorter lived than similar bulbs from Hue. |
| E14 smart light bulb with white light x 8 | Library, living room, master bedroom, and guest room 2 | As for the E27 bulbs, this is probably also the most convenient alternative for E14, and we have the same experiences with these |
GU10 smart light bulb with white light x 5 |
Guest room 1 and outdoor | And for GU10 there is no doubt, these are quite much cheaper than competing products, and have been rock solid, including outdoor |
Trådfri Driver with three outlets x 6 |
Living room, kitchen, office, guest room 2, and master bedroom | These are a kind of “mini base station” that controls connected light sources and is a clever way of “smartening” light sources where smart bulbs can not be fitted. They are easy to install and have worked flawlessly. |
| Trådfri Adapter smart plug x 11 | Attic, office, hallway, basement living room, and outdoor shed | As the number of these we have indicated, we are very pleased with these. This is arguably by far the most affordable smart plug you can buy and it has posed no problems, even in an outdoor shed (again, problems with IKEA components are related to the base station). The plug has a useful and discrete light to show when it is turned on. If I were to criticize something, it would be that it is larger than the smallest versions on the market, which could be an issue if there is little room around the outlet it should be plugged into. |
Motion sensor x 3 |
Attic, basement living room, and outdoor shed | There are two versions of this, since a new one was launched in the fall of 2023. We have one of these, and they all work perfectly, with fast response. |
| Dimmer switch x 5 | Master bedroom, guest room 1, and guest room 2 | As mentioned above, these are sold, at least by now, only in sets with a smart plug, but they are not linked to this plug, the can be used with any IKEA component. We use ours both as on/off switches for smart plugs and as dimmer switches for smart bulbs, and we truly like these. Since they attach magnetically to the mounting plate, they can easily be moved and they do just what they should. |
| Omlopp smart lighting strip for drawers x 2 | Kitchen | We are also very pleased with these. They have a built-in sensor and thus makes it very easy to achieve smart lighting in drawers. |
| Norrfly smart light strip for closets x 3 | Master bedroom | Like the drawer lights, these also have a built-in sensor and work perfectly. In addition, they are connected to a Trådfri Driver so that they can also be remotely operated. |
| Urshult cabinet light | Living room | This lamp is in itself not smart, neither in the form of a smart bulb or built-in electronics, but has been designed to be connected to a Trådfri Driver. That allows remote control, both turning it on/off and dimming, which works very well. |
| Fyrtur smart blinds x 8 | Office, library, living room, master bedroom, guest room 1, guest room 2 | We have four such smart blinds (these come in kits with a wireless signal repeater, which is also sold separately, and a remote control) and are very pleased with these. I should mention, though, that the initial setup for the two first was a little vexing, it took many attempts to pair the remote control with the blinds (for the latter two, it all worked on the first attempt), but the physical installation is very easy, including a straightforward procedure for reducing the width of the blinds. |
| Trådfri signal repeater x 9 | Office, library, living room, basement master bedroom, living room, and guest room 1 | Five of the seven of these we have came with the Fyrtur blinds while the other were purchased separately. The purpose of these is to extend the Zigbee signal and the two separately purchased ones have been installed to extend the range toward the outdoor lights. Without any means of objectively measuring this, I believe this has helped, and a side effect is that they have a USB A outlet that allows plugging in devices for charging. |
| Dirigera Hub | Office | This hub was acquired to replace the two Trådfri Gateways described above, partly because its ability to handle a hundred devices meant one could replace the two old ones and partly in hopes of better stability. As explained under office, the latter was not the case at first installation. There were issues with devices disappearing/showing twice and not in the least, the Dirigera hub had ripple effects on the rest of the Apple Home system. It was therefore disconnected, but after both firmware updates and the 16.2 update of the Apple Home architecture, it works much better. Compared with the old Trådfri Gateway it is both faster and more stable, and the user interface in the app is better. There are still some issues, though, such as devices losing connection and must be restarted, the position of blinds misread, etc. |
| Parasoll contact sensor | This replaced a Bluetooth-based sensor, which was a bit slow to respond, and the Parasoll sensor is significantly faster. It uses AAA batteries, but one should notice that IKEA recommends using 1.2 V rechargeable batteries, and in my case the sensor did not work with regular ones. It is also larger than a corresponding sensor from, e.g., Aqara. |