- A new IKEA smart home switch called Bilresa has just leaked
- It seemingly supports Matter-over-Thread for maximum compatibility
- This means it should work with Google Home, Apple HomeKit, and Alexa
IKEA is planning to beef up its smart home offerings soon, according to a new leak that’s revealed a handy two-button smart switch that supports Matter-over-Thread.
An image of the incoming IKEA Bilresa (below) was revealed by homewithapple on Threads (via Notebookcheck). There’s no IKEA branding on the device, so it’s hard to be completely sure if it’s genuine, but it’d certainly make sense given IKEA’s increasingly strong push into Matter-supporting devices.
The Bilresa will likely be IKEA’s first smart switch that supports Matter-over-Thread, which means it should work with your existing Google Home, Apple HomeKit, and Amazon Alexa kit. The leak suggests that the Bilresa is “still in the internal testing phase at IKEA,” so there’s currently no estimated launch date, but we can likely expect it sometime in 2025.
While IKEA already has other smart light switches – including the Somrig (above) and Rodret – these are largely limited to controlling IKEA’s own accessories, like its Tradfri lights. Thanks to Matter support, the Bilresa should play nicely with your other kit, like Philips Hue lights and the best smart home devices.
That means I could well find myself picking one up during a Marketplace sweep, particularly if it’s as affordable as IKEA’s current offerings. There’s no word on Bilresa pricing yet, but the IKEA Styrbar controller costs £12 (around $15 / AU$25), putting it firmly into impulse buy territory.
IKEA embraces Matter
Other than its likely tempting price tag, the appeal of the leaked IKEA Bilresa will be its versatility. In theory, its Matter-over-Thread support should mean it works with most existing smart home kit, which means you could get creative with your use cases.
Last September, two years after announcing the support was coming, IKEA finally updated its Dirigera smart home hub with Matter support. But the Swedish homeware giant now appears to be ramping up its Matter-supporting smart home offerings.
In a separate leak earlier this month, the brilliantly-named Timmerflotte device – which appears to be a temperature and humidity sensor – appeared in some FCC filings, which were spotted by CyberModStudio on X (formerly Twitter). Like the Bilresa, it seems to support Matter-over-Thread.
This means that we should soon have some new contenders for our guide to the best smart switches, which is currently topped by the Philips Hue Tap Dial Switch and TP-Link Tapo Smart Switch.
Neither of those can be bought alongside a bookcase and meatballs at an enormous homeware store, though.
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mark.wilson@futurenet.com (Mark Wilson)
