Ikea to Add Matter-Ready Gateway, Vows Simpler Smart Device Onboarding

IKEA will be Matter-ready this fall when it launches the Dirigera smart home hub and app, it emailed Wednesday. The products' goal is "to enable a better everyday life" for customers through smarter living, said the home furnishings retailer. Dirigera will be able to handle more smart product types and connected devices than IKEA’s current offering, the Tradfri gateway, which launched in 2014 and sells for $39. A focus of Dirigera is to improve and simplify the onboarding process when customers add smart devices to the smart home, said Rebecca Toreman, business leader. The new IKEA Home smart app will be more “user-friendly to lower the threshold for people looking into setting up a smart home,” Boreman said. Increased interest in digital technologies for the home have become “natural ingredients in our everyday lives,” said Bjorn Block, business area manager, noting IKEA’s smart products in sound, light, air purification, blinds and “many more to come.”