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Exclusive: Ikeas New Dirigera Hub And Home Smart App Deliver Big Improvements

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Exclusive: Ikeas New Dirigera Hub And Home Smart App Deliver Big Improvements
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Easy to use and durable. But let's be back in a few months.

How Thomas Riker @ Trixie

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iPhone with the new IKEA Home smart app in front of a Symphonic table lamp, Dirigera hub and voice remote control.
New smart home app from EK and Dirigera Center.

This week, IKEA's new ready-to-use Dirigera smart home hub hits store shelves in North America and much of Europe, along with a completely redesigned smart home app. Dirigera, which means "direction" in Swedish, is at the heart of IKEA's efforts to bring digital intelligence into the home. It reflects the company's ambitions for the smart home, which has evolved from simple entertainment to a real strategic goal, as important for 79 years as the Bed & Billie shelf. This requires hardware and software that are easy to set up, easy to use, and most importantly, reliable. Features that Ikea tried to offer on the original Trudfree portal.

I've been living with the new Dirigera hub for the last week, using the new app to transfer 22 devices from my old Tradfree portal and add three more EK devices to my new smart home setup. Otherwise everything was fine. So, after years of frustration with constant settings, I was shocked that the old Ikea portal often struggles to add devices and eventually stay connected.

The most important thing that is currently lacking is material support: it will be. But after a few initial setbacks, I took a minute to celebrate that Ikea now has the right foundation, even though the link hub costs twice as much as the old gate at $ 69 / $ 59.95.

Ikea does not offer a migration tool to transfer existing lights and screens from the Trådfri door to the new Dirigera Center. This worries a little. I wasn't disappointed as my Ikea setup had gone semi-zombie last year and was in need of a major overhaul. To be honest, I avoided the frustration of trying to fix things that were missing due to another system crash or software update.

Sometimes you have to start over.

However, if you are not Swedish, I can assure you that calling you an essay is a mistake. So you say, or you wish you could, but you can't:

Add equipment and scenes

Fortunately, there is no need to remove existing devices from the Trådfri portal before adding them to the Dirigera hub. You shouldn't really open the old Home Smart app (now renamed "Home Smart 1"). To reset any device simply follow the instructions in the new Smart Home app (now available for iOS and Android users) and it will quickly and easily find Dirigera to integrate into new or existing devices. Yes, the new app is not a brainless array organized by LED devices like dimmers and switches, but organized into sections that reflect the layout of your home. You can also add equipment to classes in bulk. For example, I have three Ikea smart bulbs on a physical switch. With the new Home Smart app, I was able to reset three locations and add them to the Drgera hub.

The new IKE smart home app is now organized by room.
The new IKE smart home app is now organized by room.
Clicking on a section gives you finer control.
Clicking on a section gives you finer control.

I have a total of 25 Ikea smart devices in my home, which exist alongside dozens of different suppliers. My Ikea network is a mixture of different light bulbs, switches, dimmers, sockets and sensors. two shortcut buttons; curtain set. Symfonisk speaker; And an air filter. All but one of the Ikea gadgets found and added on the first try are scattered across three floors of my long but narrow home.

The new home screen of the Smart Home app is a simple yet effective dashboard for your Ikea home. Each piece is represented by a square based on the color you choose. Inside the drawers there are interactive icons that allow you to quickly control the smart devices in each room. Click on the box and you will have better control over the tools within it.

The old Tradfree gate (left) and the new Centro Dirigera (right).
The old Tradfree gate (left) and the new Centro Dirigera (right).

The only problem I had with adding hardware was partnering with Ikea Sonos. The first problem is related to older Sonos devices, while the second is a bug that was fixed by restarting Dirigera.

Dirigera only supports Sonos owners with S2-based speakers, making EK's new smart home app incompatible with previous Sonos S1 networks and Play: 5 speakers. However, all is not lost: Dirigera supports integration with Google, Amazon and Apple, as well as Trifree Gateway. The integration from Google and Amazon supports Sonos S1 devices, allowing you to cross scenes with Ikea devices if that's important to you.

The only problem with installing Dirigera was when I tried to add the Symfonisk table lamps compatible with Ikea Sonos (2nd generation) to the smart home app. The Sonos S2 app found it on the first try and started streaming music. But Ikea's new smart home app doesn't recognize the new speaker correctly. After days of troubleshooting, including resetting the speaker to factory settings and moving between Wi-Fi and Sonosnet networks, I finally restarted the Dirigera hub and voila, I found the Ikea app. Ikea has a problem in homes (like mine) with the Sonos S1 and S2 networks that will be fixed in the next software release.

That frustration aside, adding hardware to Diregera was quick and easy as the app provides clear step-by-step instructions with helpful animations to guide you through the process. Gone are the days when you had to connect a lamp to a Trådfri gate by first pairing the wireless switch to the lamp and then you needed the gate switch to control the lamp from your old smart home app. A helpful animation is now available to guide the new lamp owner through the complex and easy installation process.

Adding tools is easy, with new animations that will keep you hooked as you go.
Adding tools is easy, with new animations that will keep you hooked as you go.
Scenes now contain helpful hints that automatically generate a rating.
Scenes now contain helpful hints that automatically generate a rating.

I can't talk about the long-term stability of the system yet. It still holds, but I received it less than a week ago. The system is responsive, with lights turning on and off in a split second when a paired remote, hotkey, or in-app button is pressed. Voice commands can sometimes take seconds, but in my experience it's not uncommon for Ikea or other smart homes. If I had to guess, I'd say the Dirigera configuration is a little more responsive overall than the Trådfri configuration I had before, but I can't be 100% sure.

If a device freezes online after a few months with no software updates or other failures, it crashes in the Smart Home app and everything works, I call it a winner.

A few other things worth noting:

  • When they open the IKEA Home Smart app, iPhone users feel helpful haptic feedback at their fingertips. Each heartbeat represents an action taken, such as turning on a light. You will also feel a constant pulse as you operate the blinds as they slowly turn where you want.
  • The app now shows the battery level of devices like roller shutters, motion sensors, and switches and alerts you when the battery level drops enough to replace them.
  • Scenes can be pinned to the home screen for quick access within the app. But the only way to delete a scene is to click on the button slider and change the heart icon to the left of the slider. That's beautiful. Exiting the menu and going back shows that the scene is not actually locked in the correct cursor position. This should be an annoying bug, but it's easy to fix in the UI.
  • I got another error when I added the shortcut button. It added pretty well to the Dirigera hub, but when I called it "shortcut" it appeared as a "TRADFRI hotkey" in my device list. So I changed the name to "Shortcut" but got two shortcut keys called "Shortcut" even though there was actually a shortcut key. I removed one of the keys from the app and both are gone. I added the button a second time as a "shortcut" in Diriger and everything became normal. guest
  • The application sometimes uses a filled circle to indicate that an item has been selected and sometimes uses an open circle. Pick one, Ikea.
  • Ikea will continue to delay the repair and security update of the Trodfree portal for another three years.
  • Dirigera does not support IFTTT.
  • Dirigera supports Zigbee, so third-party devices powered by Zigbee can be added and managed individually or in groups.

Case and more

Now that the hub and the Dirigera app are up and running, Ikea can look at three other improvements it has already announced: support for status, adding the hub to the router via Wi-Fi, and enabling Ikea Smart remote access. When the device is away from home.

What he says?

Matter is a new standard for smart home connectivity that provides a common language for smart home devices in your home without relying on cloud connectivity. It uses Wi-Fi and Thread wireless protocols and will include multimedia devices including smart sensors, smart lighting, smart sockets and switches, smart thermostats, locks and connected TVs.

All of this means that you should be able to set up and use your purchased smart home device with any Mate-compatible device and any Mate-compatible platform that has the Mate logo on it. Substance-compatible devices are expected to appear by the end of the year.

Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Samsung SmartThings, and Apple Home are just some of the major smart home platforms that have signed up to support Matter, and we expect updates for these platforms to roll out in the coming months.

Activating items is a huge feature we've all been waiting for when device controls began. The Dirigera hub is already installed for Wi-Fi, Zigbee and Thread wireless devices, allowing it to serve as Thread's edge router if everything is up and running within a few months. "Ikea has a long-standing commitment to Materia and the first step we are aiming for now is to lead the bridge to resolve the problem within a few months," says Rebecca Toreman, Ikea Home Business Director. In other words, once the Dirigera interface is updated to Matter, any Eka device connected to the cluster can be used in any Matter ecosystem.

Currently Dirigera, like the Trudfree portal, supports integration with the smart home ecosystems of Amazon, Google and Apple. I've activated all three of them at my house and they work fine so far, allowing me to use Ikea devices in scenes and control them with Hey Google, Hey Siri or Alexa voice commands.

Ikea doesn't promise a precise date, but says Wi-Fi will eventually be offered as a more flexible alternative to Ethernet for connecting a Dirigera hub to your home router. Until then, the actual location of the Dirigera in the house depends on the presence of an Ethernet connection.

Ikea is still planning to launch its cloud service offering in the first half of 2023. Until then, if you need remote access to your Ikea smart devices on the go, you'll have to rely on one of the ecosystem integrations. I use the Apple Home app and Apple TV to report the network without problems.

The color of the iPhone with the new smart home app has changed from clear to pink.
What you see is what you get with the new Home Smart app.

I think with the Dirigera hub and the new Home Smart app, IKEA has achieved the goal of lowering the level of geeks so that everyone can set up and use their smart home devices. More time is needed to assess stability, but so far everything looks promising. It's been a long time, but now IKE Modern Home is - I can't believe you're saying that - easy to set up and use.

After adding the first few tools, I found that I wanted expert mode to ignore all manuals. But I've been automating my home for over fifteen years, so I'm far from Ikea's target audience of novice or novice smart home users with a very simple interface loaded with help screens.

IKEA has spent the past few years reinventing itself as a furniture company that understands the role of technology in the home, not Silicon Valley. Dirigera is the company's first real attempt to facilitate moving and assembling furniture in the same way.

"The prerequisites for mass adoption are already there," said Bjorn Block, president of Ikea Smart Home, when he showed me the director. While this may be true, it could be a critical time for smart home technology adoption. Or not ... we'll check in a few years. All I can say after a week of use is that Ikea has clearly learned from its early smart home mistakes and that Digieria has got off to a promising start.

All screenshots and images are from Thomas Ricker / The Verge.

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