Ikea overhauls its smart home with new Matter-ready hub and app

Ikea’s new Matter-ready Dirigera hub is now official after a month of leaks and is set to arrive alongside an entirely new Ikea Home Smart app. That’s around the same time that Matter is supposed to launch, the new smart home standard that promises to make connected devices more interoperable, flexible, and private, no matter if you purchased them from the likes of Apple, Google, Amazon, Samsung, or any of the long list of companies already signed up.Ahead of today’s announcement, Ikea’s Björn Block, business area manager, and Rebecca Töreman, business leader, showed me the new hub and app working together in a real-time demonstration. When it is certified, the Dirigera hub and new Home Smart app will support all existing Ikea-sold Home Smart products as well as Matter-certified products from other companies. There also won’t be any upgrade deals; Trådfri owners will have to pay full price for the Dirigera hub when it launches in October, but all your Ikea Home Smart devices should migrate over just fine. “It shouldn’t be only for the tech-interested people, it should be for the parents, the grandparents, children, but also for guests.” Voice control still requires integration with Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and Apple HomeKit, as it’s not built in to the new Dirigera hub.Ikea seems to be on the right path with Dirigera and the overhauled Ikea Home Smart app. But we won’t know for sure until we get our hands on a review device and new app to see how they work with existing Ikea Home Smart devices — and then later with those elusive Matter-compatible devices.But for anyone who’s ever been frustrated by Ikea’s Trådfri gateway, now at least you’ve got some hope to cling to and a rough timeline to plan your angst around.