These smart home items have been designed to be affordable and accessible!
IKEA, the home of do-it-yourself furniture, hard to pronounce names, and suspiciously cheap yet delicious meatballs, has announced their foray into the world of smart home technology with their equally difficult to pronounce Trådfri line.
Trå-what?
The Trådfri lineup (which is Swedish for “wireless”) is made up of light bulbs, light panels, cabinet lights, and four different kinds of sensors. However, the Trådfri line is not available in Singapore just yet. But, you would be able to view them on the IKEA’s US website for now. As all things at IKEA are, these smart home items have been designed to be affordable and accessible, with a light and a dimmer switch set costing only 179 kr (S$29).
But the spotlight on this smart home move isn’t the aggressively low price point, but a curious dimmer switch in puck form that is able to dim lights by simply rolling it around in your hand – as seen in this (incredibly awkward) video.
Affordable And Accessible For The Masses
Smart homes were once slated to be the next “big thing” in tech, but the movement has hit quite a snag with the lack of interoperability and high price points being its main problems. While issues of interoperability still remain together with several wireless smart home standards still duking it out for dominance (IKEA has gone with ZigBee, which is one of the more popular standards), the Swedish company has the upper hand when it comes to affordability.
However, from statements made by IKEA employees, it might seem that the furniture giant has come up with a solution to this connection problem. Helen Longford, an IKEA Home Furnishing expert, said that “[they] know from research that existing smart lighting technology is perceived to be too expensive and difficult to understand, so [they] have worked to remove those barriers to make smart lighting more accessible.”
Push For The Smart Homes
Moreover, the stagnating smart home market could get just the push it needed, thanks to IKEA lowering the cost of accessibility for most casual consumers. I mean if I walked past the basic set in an IKEA store – which comes with a central hub, a remote, and a pair of the smart bulbs runs right for 749 kr (S$118) – I’d be more than tempted to plop one into my basket and then proceed to regret the impulsive purchase later.
While there’s no word from IKEA yet on when their smart home lineup will be made available in Singapore, it is slated to be released in Swedish stores and selected countries outside the US by March 31st, so it’s reasonable to expect the product to make their way to our shores in the near future.
