IKEA’s new sensible residence vary is right here – however do you want a hub to make it work?

The web nearly broke yesterday after IKEA determined to casually drop 21 new sensible residence devices at 3pm on a Thursday afternoon. I’d be stunned should you haven’t seen the information already, however should you haven’t, you possibly can take a look at my favorite picks from the launch right here.

The greatest speaking level, although, is that each single considered one of these new devices is Matter-enabled, which is fairly big contemplating how reasonably priced they’re. That stated, not everybody’s absolutely clued up on what Matter truly is, so it’s sparked a number of key questions.

As somebody who’s been reviewing Matter-enabled merchandise for some time now, I believed I’d deal with the largest query I’ve seen pop up because the launch – “Do I need a smart home hub to use these new IKEA devices?”

(Image credit score: IKEA)

So, right here’s the quick reply – sure, you do. All Matter-enabled merchandise want a wise residence hub to work. IKEA hasn’t confirmed that these new units may even run over Bluetooth like its older ones did, so it’s protected to imagine they gained’t.

However, the excellent news is that as a result of they use Matter, you possibly can join them by any appropriate hub, not simply IKEA’s. That means you need to use hubs from Google, Amazon, Apple or IKEA’s own DIRIGERA, which was recently updated to support Matter.

The DIRIGERA hub can also act as a bridge for IKEA’s older smart devices, letting you control everything from one system, so don’t worry if you still own some gadgets from before.

(Image credit: IKEA)

So, in short: yes, you’ll need a hub, but no, it doesn’t have to be from IKEA. That’s the beauty of Matter.

Got more questions? Drop them below and I’ll do my best to answer!