IKEA’s Tradfri gateway was many people’s first foray into smart home technology. IKEA has now introduced its replacement, which is superior in every way: whereas the Trdfri hub was intended especially for smart lighting, the new IKEA Dirigera hub is meant for smart everything. That includes all of IKEA’s smart home equipment, such as blinds, speakers, and air purifiers, as well as smart home technology from other companies. This is due to the Dirigera’s inclusion of Wi-Fi, Zigbee, and Thread radios, which allow it to interact with a variety of smart home devices.
The hub will also be Matter-ready – not Matter certified, since that process will take place later this year – but it will fulfill all of the requirements to communicate using the Matter protocol when it launches. You’ll need an Ethernet cable to connect it to your router at first, but after October, you’ll be able to connect wirelessly on the 2.4GHz or 5GHz frequency bands. If the Dirigera performs as well as it appears, it may be a serious competitor to Amazon’s Echo and Google’s Nest Hub. Both of these smart home hub lines are well-established at this time, but Dirigera, with its state-of-the-art Matter protocol and, ideally, a reasonable pricing point, might become one of the greatest smart home hubs money can buy.
To be sure, Matter will also be available on Amazon Echo and Google Nest, so both devices will continue to be excellent smart home hub options, but we may soon have another system that is just as adaptable and powerful. If you already own Tradfri products, IKEA claims it won’t change anything: it’ll preserve its four-interface strategy, which lets you operate gadgets using your smartphone, smart shortcut buttons, remote controllers, and voice control. Because the Dirigera hub doesn’t have that feature, you’ll need one of the top smart speakers.
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