Ikea’s Dirigera hub, its new hub for controlling its line of connected devices, may soon get support for the Matter smart home standard. While promised when the hub was announced in May 2022, Matter for the Dirigera didn’t materialize within a “couple of months” of the product launching, as initially announced. It was then delayed again last November. But the company has now announced the rollout of Matter for the hub in beta.
Ikea begins beta-testing Matter on its Dirigera hub
Almost two years after announcing its new smart home hub would support Matter, Ikea is finally starting to bring the new standard to users.
Almost two years after announcing its new smart home hub would support Matter, Ikea is finally starting to bring the new standard to users.
is a senior reviewer with over twenty years of experience. She covers smart home, IoT, and connected tech, and has written previously for Wirecutter, Wired, Dwell, BBC, and US News.
“We are excited to unveil the first version of Matter support for the Dirigera hub, available now for beta users through the Ikea Home Smart app,” David Granath, range manager at Ikea Home Smart told The Verge.
“The initial release transforms the Dirigera hub into a Matter bridge, allowing Zigbee devices to be compatible with Matter networks.”
The beta focuses just on lighting products initially, which I assume means lightbulbs, motion sensors, remotes, and possibly smart plugs, but Ikea has not confirmed the exact devices. Granath says the company plans to work through a testing phase and gather feedback from beta users to “help improve the overall experience when the update is expanded to include all customers and more products in the future.”
This aligns with how many other companies have rolled out support for Matter, which has had a bumpy start. Philips Hue also implemented a beta test for upgrading its Zigbee lighting bridge, but the full rollout was fraught with issues, based on my testing.
The addition of Matter should mean that Ikea lights can be exposed to any compatible Matter platform through the Dirigera hub. However, Dirigera already supports Apple HomeKit, Amazon Alexa, and Google Home, so you may not see much difference if those are the platforms you use.
As Granath pointed out, the Hub is acting as a bridge here, not as a Matter controller or Matter device. You will need a Matter controller from the platform you want to use the lights in, such as an Apple HomePod, Amazon Echo, or Google smart speaker.
Additionally, while Ikea has said previously that the Dirigera can support Thread, there has been no announcement about enabling the hub as a Thread border router, another area related to Matter that has been problematic.
Clearly, Ikea is taking things slow and steady, which may not be a bad thing. The beta appears to be a closed one, as I couldn’t find any links or resources for signing up to be a beta tester, and Ikea didn’t provide a timeline for a public release. I’ve reached out to Ikea for more details.
In the meantime, Ikea has been beefing up its smart home in other ways. It delivered on its promise of native out-of-home support last November with the new Control Anywhere feature for the Dirigera. “This makes it possible for our users to stay connected to their homes from anywhere in the world,” says Jonas Söderqvist, Ikea digital product area manager. “Products connected to Dirigera can be managed outside of the home, through another network than your home WiFi.”
The furniture giant also launched three new sensors around the same time. At €10 each, the Parasoll (door and window sensor); Vallhorn (motion sensor); and Badring (leak sensor) are all Zigbee sensors that work with the Dirigera hub. It also appears that Ikea has a new smart plug on the horizon. Reddit user johnvogel found a new Tretakt smart plug for €10 at his local Ikea store in Germany. The product doesn’t appear to be on Ikea’s website yet, but johnvogel says it’s much smaller than the existing $15 Ikea Tradfri plug and includes a Rodret remote and a physical button on the plug.
What is Matter?
Matter is a smart home interoperability standard designed to provide a common language for connected devices to communicate locally in your home without relying on a cloud connection. It is built to be secure and private, easy to set up, and widely compatible.
Developed by Apple, Amazon, Google, and Samsung (and others), Matter is an open-sourced, IP-based connectivity software layer for smart home devices. It works over Wi-Fi, ethernet, and the low-power mesh networking protocol Thread and currently supports most of the main device types in the home. These include lighting, thermostats, locks, robot vacuums, refrigerators, dishwashers, dryers, ovens, smoke alarms, air quality monitors, EV chargers, and more.
A smart home gadget with the Matter logo can be set up and used with any Matter-compatible ecosystem via a Matter controller and controlled by more than one with a feature called multi-admin.
Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Samsung SmartThings, and Apple Home are some major smart home platforms supporting Matter, along with hundreds of device manufacturers.
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