I had no idea Ikea made IoT stuff but as a coincidence just saw someone on Twitter today getting Zigbee devices ordered from Ikea, it seems they are quite popular. Great news I guess!
They have sold zigbee devices under their own Tradfri brand name for at least two years. But they don't make any of it. The are OEM manufacturers who made these devices to Ikea's specs.
For example:
That's interesting! I love the engineering of IKEA's electronics, they're so mass produced that they have to work and be safe to protect their brand, while hitting incredibly competitive price points.
They're usually pretty utilitarian, but nine times out of ten they do the job and get it right. Only thing I've had issue with is the comparatively poor signal strength on their Zigbee outlets (especially compared to the strong repeaters). Their Zigbee lighting has been excellent and they were one of the first big suppliers to provide genuinely good 2700 K warm white LED lamps in the UK.
Wowsers, they've replaced the 400 lm 2700K candle lamps I use with a 470 lm version with three colour temperatures for £7. That's just 30p more than the old version.
1 Like
Now it makes sense. Looking at their page on Ikea they don't mention anything about Zigbee but only their own smart brand. So these are fully compatible then? Nice.
This is what I was looking. Cheap but still good quality. I don't mind paying a premium for some bulbs, but not for all the house which would cost me a fortune.
2 Likes
They almost never mention Zigbee at all; not something they want their customers even thinking about, I assume. It is buried in the documentation, but they usually put the logo on the box.
They joined the Zigbee Alliance Board of Directors at the end of last year, whatever that means, so it looks like they're invested.
2 Likes
