Ikea's new lighting feature changes your home lighting automatically

In December 2024, Ikea updated its Home smart mobile app to include a new dynamic lighting feature that automatically adjusts the brightness and color temperature of its smart lights throughout the day. This update is part of an effort to enhance the user's home environment by mimicking natural light patterns, providing warmer illumination in the mornings and evenings while offering cooler hues during the daytime. The new feature was introduced in iOS app updates, and while the Android version of the app was updated on the same day, it only included bug fixes, lacking the new adaptive lighting option. The adaptive lighting capability aligns with similar innovations from other companies, such as Philips Hue, which introduced a comparable natural light scene feature in late 2022. This suggests that Ikea is striving to keep pace with market trends and consumer expectations in the smart home sector. The feature is positioned as beneficial for mental and physical well-being, as it coordinates lighting to reflect the time of day, which can help in regulating circadian rhythms. Importantly, this new adaptive lighting feature is only available for Ikea's lighting products that connect to the Matter-ready Dirigera smart home hub, which was launched later in 2022. Some compatible products include the Sonos-compatible Symfonisk speaker lamp, indicating a growing ecosystem for smart lighting solutions within Ikea's offerings. The app's updates reflect ongoing initiatives to enhance user experience and satisfaction, particularly in the context of smart home technology, which has continually evolved to meet emerging demands. Despite the advancements, it remains unclear if the new feature will function with third-party smart lights that also utilize the Matter protocol. Ikea has been contacted to clarify this aspect, suggesting that while they are eager to innovate, there are still uncertainties regarding product interoperability in the smart lighting landscape.