IKEA has officially begun rolling out Matter support for its Dirigera smart home hub. This has been a long-awaited update on its compatibility with the smart home ecosystem.

This update will allow all IKEA Zigbee-based smart devices communicate with any Matter-enabled devices, irrespective of the brand. Notably, IKEA has chosen to implement Matter support as a bridge, meaning the Dirigera hub translates between IKEA's Zigbee devices and the Matter standard rather than natively supporting Matter itself. So it will work with devices like the Inspelning smart plug.

The Matter update is available in all locations where the Dirigera hub is sold. The Dirigera hub's Matter support extends to IKEA's entire range of Zigbee-based smart devices, including lights, blinds, controllers, air purifiers, and sensors. This means users can now control these devices using any Matter-compatible system. IKEA's existing integrations with Apple, Google, and Amazon setups will remain in place, so the transition will be smooth for current users.

Matter is basically a unifying smart home industry standard that lets different brands of smart products connect and work together seamlessly. It operates as a bridge, translating between various communication protocols, like IKEA's Zigbee, and lets them interact with Matter-enabled ecosystems. This is a lot easier than custom integrations for each brand or platform. This way, you won't need to worry about making sure your devices are compatible as long as the brands continue to adopt the new standard.

We've been waiting for this update since it was announced in May of last year. This update improves the compatibility of IKEA's existing smart devices and helps create a more open and smart home ecosystem. It's much better to have a bridge everyone uses than to have to use the same brand or have multiple different apps to operate each device.

Source: IKEA via The Verge