Flat-pack furniture pioneer Ikea is embracing the Matter smart home standard with plans to launch more-than 20 Matter-enabled products in January.

This marks the biggest step Ikea has taken to make smart home technology open, simple and affordable for many people.

After years of exploring and learning how smart products can improve everyday life, Ikea is now introducing its most open and easy-to-use range yet, shaped by real needs, daily routines and shifting habits in the home. The aim is not to add technology for its own sake, but to make products that adapt to people and their everyday problems, while making homes more supportive and adaptable for everyday life.

Matter allows devices from different brands to work together seamlessly, offering flexibility across platforms and ecosystems. A compatible smart home hub, such as Dirigera, is required to add Matter-enabled products to a home setup.

“Until now, smart home technology hasn’t been easy enough to use for most people, or affordable enough for many to consider,” said David Granath, range manager for Ikea (www.ikea.com) in Sweden. “Bringing Matter to our products means we are taking a big step in the right direction, offering compatibility across brands, and lowering the threshold for people to get started. Our goal is to make the smart home easy to use, easy to understand, and within reach for the many.”

The products are designed to work within any smart home system the user prefers. With Matter support, the Ikea Home smart system will also open up to products from other brands.

A milestone on this journey is that Dirigera, the smart home hub from Ikea, is now a Matter controller. It can manage Matter-enabled devices from other brands and, as a Matter bridge, it ensures that existing Ikea smart products will also be compatible with platforms using the Matter standard.

Ikea is also taking a step forward in sound, with the ambition to treat speakers with the same care and personality as the rest of the home. Home electronics are often seen as purely functional – something to be hidden away – and can feel out of place in the interior. Ikea wants to change that. Two Bluetooth speakers and a design collaboration, all launching later this year, reflect the ambition to make sound a more visible and enjoyable part of everyday life.

Launching this month and bringing the look of an old radio, the Nattbad Bluetooth speaker comes in yellow, pink and black, and offers a low-price entry point into sound at home. In October, Blomprakt will follow. This is a practical table speaker in beige, black and blue that combines great sound with atmospheric lighting. It features an angled top, enabling the built-in light to be directed precisely to create the right ambiance.

The range is said to focus on affordability and simplicity. The Bluetooth speakers are built to work out of the box, with features such as easy multi-speaker setup and Spotify Tap (www.ikea.com/global/en/stories/design/ikea-and-spotify-to-liven-up-life-at-home-and-beyond-220323), requiring no deep technical knowledge to get started.

“We’ve learned a great deal about creating high-quality sound experiences that are easy to use,” said Granath. “We understand how people want to furnish with sound in a way that adds atmosphere and feels natural in the home. Those learnings continue to guide us as we bring the worlds of home furnishing and sound closer together. Our aim is to make sound accessible, functional and enjoyable, without adding complexity. That’s what sets us apart, and that’s what we’ll keep building on as we shape the next chapter of what sound can be in the home.”

Also launching in January is a design collaboration with Swedish designer Tekla Severin (www.ikea.com/global/en/newsroom/collaborations/ikea-teams-up-with-teklan-250129), commonly known as Teklan. Known for her expressive use of colour, the partnership explores how electronics can feel more like part of the home, combining technology with personal style in a way that invites more personality into home electronics.