IKEA's new smart home products have a big connection problem

Near the beginning of November last year, IKEA announced it would refresh its smart home offerings with new affordable Matter-compatible products. These products include programmable buttons, smart plugs, smart lights, and sensors. While these devices should work seamlessly with any smart home platform, that hasn’t been the case for some users.

As reported by The Verge, there are a number of users who have grown frustrated over IKEA’s new smart home lineup. The frustration appears to stem from an inability to connect IKEA’s equipment to a smart home network. It appears that regardless of the ecosystem, whether it’s Apple, Amazon, Google, or something else, the devices refuse to connect.

The outlet points to numerous reports over on the Tradfri subreddit. A similar story is playing out in the product reviews on IKEA’s website. In addition to these reports, The Verge’s own Jennifer Pattison Tuohy reports that she is also experiencing similar problems:

Of the six devices I’ve tried to connect, I’ve so far successfully onboarded just one Kajplats smart lightbulb to Apple Home — after seven attempts — and one Alpstuga IAQ monitor to Home Assistant — after failing to pair with Apple Home.

A Bilresa smart button initially connected to Amazon Alexa, then fell off the network and refused to re-pair. The Timmerflotte temperature sensor and Myggspray motion sensor just flat-out refused to connect to anything, even Ikea’s own Dirigera hub.

One notable Reddit report mentions attempting to pair 60 IKEA Bilresa buttons. Of those 60 buttons, only 31 ended up connecting.

When reached out to for comment, David Granath, IKEA’s range manager for smart homes, told the outlet that the company is aware of the issue and is investigating:

The launch of our Matter range has been highly anticipated, and for most customers the products work seamlessly, as intended. That said, we are aware that some customers are experiencing connection issues when setting up their devices in certain home environments, and we take that very seriously.

We have a dedicated team reviewing the raised concerns and working closely with our ecosystem partners, and the Connectivity Standards Alliance, to better understand the issues and improve the experience.

For those who are running into similar problems, IKEA is directing customers to an FAQ. Something notable pointed out in the FAQ is that these products will immediately go into pairing mode once they are powered on. They will stay in pairing mode for the next 15 minutes, but if you miss that window, you’ll need to reactivate pairing mode.