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00:00This is a Philips Hue smart bulb and I had to pay £55 to buy one of these here in
00:05the
00:05UK last week.
00:06That made me pretty angry.
00:08Then I found out IKEA, literally starting this year, has decided to become a tech company.
00:14They've just had their biggest ever smart home push and their light bulb is £7.
00:19So I bought every single IKEA tech product I could find.
00:24No, literally.
00:26I bought their new giraffe lamp.
00:27I found smart tea lights, I even discovered a cabinet that secretly opens up into an entire
00:33gaming station.
00:34Where are you?
00:38So carrying no fewer than 47 IKEA products, I scurried back home, desperate to find out
00:43how this stuff can actually be as good value as it seems to be.
00:46It was not much of a scurry by the end.
00:50So I've only just started setting up these products, obviously prioritising my new home,
00:54the gaming closet.
00:55But right now, at least, this feels a little bit too good to be true.
00:58Like, these mad lads made a MagSafe charger for £9.
01:02Yes, it's very light and it can wobble, but if you just stick it down, that's insane value.
01:07And the lighting!
01:08I thought this £7 smart bulb would have some very obvious caveat when I plugged it in.
01:13But there's an app, you turn it on and off from your phone, there's a brightness slider
01:17to the side and you can choose any colour on the spectrum.
01:20I have found that Philips does also sell an affordable bulb, but even their absolute cheapest
01:25is three times the price of IKEA's.
01:27It's the same brightness as IKEA's.
01:29Oh yeah, and it scores an F in energy efficiency compared to a D.
01:32And the thing with all this IKEA stuff is it's still based on Matter, which is the latest
01:36standard in smart homes designed to be kind of like a shared language that lets all types
01:40of devices from all different companies play nice with each other.
01:43It means that I could say to this Alexa hub, Alexa lights blue.
01:49Okay.
01:52Okay, that works.
01:53Or, I can use a £4 Ikea Matter remote.
01:58And it's so sick, because clicking down turns the light on and off.
02:02You can scroll this wheel.
02:047 out of 10, satisfying.
02:06But then also, press down at the bottom of the remote to switch which group of Matter devices
02:11that I want to be controlling.
02:12The idea being that those devices could be almost anything.
02:16Even one of these.
02:17So this is the new IKEA color light strip.
02:20£13, by the way, compared to the minimum that I can find Philips for, which is £50.
02:25But I guess what they've cut to get there is this doesn't directly connect to anything.
02:30It's not Matter.
02:31The only way you typically control it is this button to turn it on and off,
02:34and this one to change color.
02:35But yeah, so what you can do then is connect it up to one of these Matter smart plugs,
02:39which will then let my Matter smart remote talk to it.
02:44And it has memory.
02:45When I turn it on, it's remembering what color it was set to before I turned it off.
02:49Am I nerding out over furniture store LEDs?
02:51Yes, but the configurability here for the money is like everything I've been searching for.
02:58Well, so I thought at this point.
02:59Things are about to take a dark turn soon.
03:02IKEA's also made a bunch of Matter sensors.
03:04And yes, I've also managed to catch them all.
03:07So there's a £7 door sensor, which I've stuck inside the gaming cabinet,
03:12because it means that every time this door closes, this part of the sensor,
03:15which is just a magnet, changes the magnetic field.
03:17That's picked up by the Hall effect sensor in the main body,
03:20which then sends a Matter signal out to everything here,
03:24including all the non-smart stuff like these light strips, because of those Matter plugs.
03:30That was so well-timed.
03:31And then because it's configurable, I can also get it to like ping me a notification,
03:35to let me know that the door's been opened or closed.
03:38There's a motion sensor too, which can do the same thing,
03:40but in response to, let's say, you walking into the room.
03:44And you can do crazy stuff.
03:46Like this, right here, is IKEA's temperature and humidity sensor.
03:51£5, by the way.
03:52And you could set this so that the moment it picks up
03:54that the lights are making this cabinet hot beyond a certain point,
03:58they just get switched off.
03:59And by the way, this isn't just running Matter, the universal language.
04:02It's Matter, but based on a layer of technology called Thread,
04:06which should be better than the more traditional Wi-Fi smart home tech of your.
04:11Thread essentially means that instead of each of your products
04:13needing to communicate with your Wi-Fi router first,
04:16they actually just talk directly to each other.
04:18And each one acts as its own signal repeater.
04:20So it extends the range way past most routers.
04:23And it's a self-healing system.
04:25So if one device goes down, another one can just fill in that gap and keep the network going.
04:29You do still need a hub.
04:31But the cool thing about Thread is that that hub can be any kind of newish smart home product,
04:37like an Amazon Echo or an Apple TV 4K.
04:40Things you might already have.
04:41To be clear, plenty of companies are already using this combination of Matter over Thread,
04:46just not at this price.
04:48I don't actually understand.
04:49Like, how is this even a viable business model?
04:52This is a £5 product.
04:53£1 is just tax here in the UK.
04:55So IKEA is making £4 from selling this.
04:58How in £4 are you managing to cover the temperature and humidity sensor itself,
05:03the system on a chip required to run the thing,
05:05the materials, the display, the assembly, the packaging, the cost of retail,
05:10and then somehow still keeping room to make a bit of profit?
05:15I've just gone into a bit of a rabbit hole online,
05:17and turns out you can actually find the exact sensor that IKEA is using in one of their products,
05:23their air quality meter, which they're selling for £25.
05:26But it's this, look, the Sensirion Sen63C.
05:31And if you search that up, this one sensor alone is worth like £28.
05:35So yeah, obviously IKEA is getting massive bulk discounts on parts.
05:39But still, this would be a bit like if someone was selling a complete gaming PC
05:44for the price that you could also find just like the graphics card inside of it alone.
05:48I think IKEA has a particularly strong incentive right now to establish themselves in this space.
05:54So they've chosen to make next to no money at all on this stuff.
05:58Because they know that they're already THE home company,
06:01and if they get this tech transition right, they will also become THE smart home company.
06:06And that could be worth billions.
06:09I've just tried some of their bedroom products, and this stuff is not Matter.
06:13It's actually a bit less smart, but it might be even better value than the smart stuff.
06:17Like for £1.50 a pop, we've got things like the cabinet lights.
06:20They've got motion sensors inside to pick up when you open doors or drawers.
06:24Nice and bright too.
06:26And then the nightlight.
06:27You might remember I was absolutely in awe at Xiaomi's motion sensing nightlights.
06:31They're £12.
06:32The IKEA nightlight is £2.
06:34It still seems to work just as well.
06:36And lasts six months on battery, apparently.
06:39There's an interesting thing I've started to notice with IKEA products.
06:43Oh.
06:44It works.
06:46This company is not really like most tech companies,
06:48where they come across like they're designing products with one hive mind,
06:53and each product has the exact same philosophy.
06:55Every IKEA product seemingly has its own assigned designer.
06:59Maybe it's like whoever came up with the idea for something becomes the lead producer of it.
07:04Which is probably pretty normal when it comes to furniture.
07:06But kind of weird with tech, because it means that each product functions a bit differently.
07:10But then the upside is some of this stuff is so creative.
07:14Like look at this.
07:14Really nice weighty glass bowl.
07:17This is where you chuck your stuff.
07:18Like your keys, your chewing gum, your micro Game Boy Color.
07:25For some reason.
07:26But then you can stick your phone onto this magnetic puck.
07:28And that's a charger.
07:29And then press down.
07:30It's a light too.
07:32I don't know about you, but I think that's pretty delightful for £15.
07:35These speakers are £5 each.
07:38I say each because the idea is you just press one button to pair two of them together.
07:42And you can do this with up to a hundred of them.
07:45You probably shouldn't.
07:46They don't sound very good.
07:48But you can.
07:49And that's kind of fun.
07:51Or tea lights.
07:52Up until this point, I've only ever used real tea lights.
07:55But then, you know, they die after one use.
07:57All ones powered by those little coin cell batteries.
07:59That are a massive hassle to keep changing out.
08:01But IKEA has made a USB-C charging station.
08:04Where each tea light docks when you're done with it.
08:06Blinks to confirm that it is charging.
08:08And then when charged, IKEA has claimed that they can last 35 hours each.
08:12That number sounded crazy to me.
08:14So I tested it myself.
08:15And yeah, they weren't getting tea light battery tests.
08:18That's where we're at now.
08:20What are they sitting on?
08:22And then an IKEA table.
08:23That is also an air purifier.
08:25And credit to David Wall.
08:27The thing's so damn efficient.
08:28Pull out these clips.
08:29That lets you take the top off.
08:31Then you can see your filter, in case you want to change it.
08:33A hidden compartment where the power supply hides.
08:35Love that.
08:36And then the cable wires through the back of the leg.
08:41David, can you organize my life, please?
08:43Oh, and then my favorite.
08:45It's a giraffe lamp.
08:46You push the head to turn it on.
08:50And then it'll turn itself off after 15 minutes.
08:53Just enough time for a quick Pokemon Champions.
08:55And then you can even take the light off.
08:57And use it to make sure you can see your way to the bathroom at night.
09:00Now, there are some things I can see which partly explain the low prices.
09:04Like the fact that IKEA seems to refuse to give you batteries unless they absolutely have to.
09:08This giraffe takes double A's.
09:10All of these sensors take triple A's.
09:11And I guess that kind of helps IKEA.
09:13Because then they can sell you theirs.
09:15And then the charger for those batteries too.
09:17But I think the biggest thing is IKEA's volumes.
09:19I actually just cannot wrap my head around the fact that this company has sold
09:22over 140 million of this one bookshelf.
09:27So IKEA can place enormous orders for parts and get a very good deal doing so.
09:31And it actually feels like they specifically reuse those parts
09:34in as many different products as possible to maximize those savings.
09:38And even more importantly, unlike most companies who make home accessories,
09:41who probably sell a few thousand units and want to make big bucks with each one,
09:46IKEA does not care.
09:48As long as they're making pennies per product, they're still doing fine overall.
09:52That's why for years now IKEA's been able to sell things at silly low prices when they want to.
09:57Things like these simple sensors.
09:59And I guess now they're seeing it as their chance to start applying that to the smart home.
10:04Now specifically, because matter is kind of like the stars aligning for IKEA.
10:09You might know that for the last decade, the smart home was basically owned by premium companies
10:14like Philips Hue, Sonos, Google Nest.
10:16Because to actually make a smart home that worked needed a ton of initial R&D
10:20to create a system and a set of hardware where each thing can talk to each other.
10:25You had to be primarily a tech company.
10:28So up until this point, there's been no such thing as the mass market middle ground,
10:33where someone goes in to buy a sofa or a cabinet, but then casually adds a smart bulb to their
10:38basket
10:39just because it's right there at the till.
10:41It's been too complicated and price way too high.
10:44But matter is designed to fix that.
10:46In theory, it takes away all of that expensive R&D that used to cost billions.
10:50All of that, will my bulb actually talk to my speaker engineering?
10:54That's now baked into the standard itself.
10:56So you don't need to be a tech company anymore.
10:59You just need to make yourself matter-compatible.
11:01And no one wins more from this than THE company with hundreds of millions of people
11:06specifically walking through their doors while in the process of setting up a home.
11:11One area where it definitely does pay to go high-end, though, is the Eight Sleep Bed, our sponsor.
11:17Which I've been using for over a year at this point.
11:19Instead of the bed that I spent 10 times more money on.
11:22Because I tested them, and to my shock-slash-despair, this made me sleep better.
11:27And it's not even close anymore.
11:29Because you know how every single sleep device measures your sleep score with a number, right?
11:33Well, Eight Sleep have just upgraded their app with a sleep agent, powered by AI,
11:37that can also tell you why you slept the way you did, and then fix it.
11:40Like, the last two weeks, I've been knee-deep working on an investigation video.
11:44And I've been stressed.
11:45But this app is not just noticing that and giving me suggestions for how to fix it.
11:49By itself.
11:50But it's also taking matters into its own hands and making 30 different adjustments while I sleep.
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11:59You have 30 days to try it, but I don't think you'll be sending it back.
12:03It's falling apart, guys.
12:05I know.
12:06I did the whole spiel about why all this matter stuff should be incredible.
12:09But it's been four days of living with our IKEA tech, and it is not going well.
12:15Like, this donut lamp.
12:17Which, by the way, on its own is already kind of disappointing.
12:20Because it's the exact same tech as that seven-pound smart bulb.
12:24Same app, same features.
12:25But just now, because it's in a mouth-blown glass container, it's 55 pounds.
12:30It doesn't even have zone lighting or the ability to do gradients.
12:33But more importantly, how is the connection process this terrible?
12:37We've been going through loop after loop of discovery, trying to find the thing.
12:41And after seven failed attempts, it randomly works on the eighth.
12:45Even though we've changed nothing.
12:46Some of the bulbs have the same thing.
12:48Like, we put six of them in this column light over here.
12:51Bought them all the same day.
12:52Five worked perfectly.
12:54One just would not connect.
12:55It tries to find it for two full minutes, and then just says, unable to add accessory.
12:59I've noticed sometimes the QR code on the box lets you add these products onto your network.
13:04Other times it does not.
13:05And then the only thing that seems to work when that happens is resetting the hub,
13:08and then manually entering the unique device numbers that you can find on the products.
13:13And while I've been dealing with that, some of the lights that originally set up fine
13:16have now started showing that they're offline when they're clearly on.
13:20My precious Matter remote has gone super laggy sometimes.
13:27That should have turned it off.
13:29Didn't.
13:34Ikea, what's the matter?
13:35Do you want to press it a hundred times and see what the success rate is?
13:38Oh my god.
13:40I don't want to.
13:41One.
13:45This is content.
13:48No.
13:51No!
13:52Yes!
13:56How much longer do we have of this?
14:0746 successes.
14:09Oh dear.
14:11Still, you know, you see that and then you think, maybe it's just me.
14:15Then I looked online.
14:17Reddit is full of, I bought Ikea's Matter products, nothing will connect.
14:21There's some positive reviews on the Ikea site, but then nearly as many one stars,
14:26with pretty much each person talking through everything they've done to try and get this stuff to work,
14:30and then how it still doesn't.
14:32I even found someone who's tried to pair 59 of these Matter remotes,
14:36and they've only managed to successfully pair 29.
14:39They've got this 11-step troubleshooting technique they followed,
14:42and according to them, it fixed nothing.
14:45So, they're estimating a 50% defect rate,
14:49which kind of horrifyingly lines up with the near 50% negative reviews on their site.
14:57And the 50% success rate of the remote.
15:01I mean, regardless of which way you look at it, it's completely unheard of.
15:04What if your car only started 50% of the time?
15:08The more I look into this, the more it feels like ultimately, Matter is just not ready.
15:12It could be, and it should be the solution.
15:14And one day it still might be, but it seems like the main companies who built Matter
15:18— Apple, Google, Amazon, etc — they invested in it because it would help to promote the idea that
15:23anyone could have a smart home.
15:25But individually, none of them actually has an incentive for it to succeed.
15:30If Matter becomes a viable mainstream smart home solution,
15:33then who's going to pay three times the price for a Google Nest-branded doorbell?
15:37How will Amazon make sure that you also subscribe to Prime and do all of your shopping on Amazon.com?
15:43Matter will basically open up the gates for companies like Ikea to whip up something for a fiver
15:48that works just as well and that's not going to lock you into any company's ecosystem.
15:52You'll notice as well, if you pay close attention, that Samsung has actually been
15:56really great with all this Matter stuff.
15:58Their SmartThings is usually among the first platforms to support each new Matter version,
16:03often within a few months of release.
16:04But Apple, Google, Amazon — sometimes we're talking a year behind for the same updates.
16:10And that's probably not random.
16:11Samsung is the most aggressive because Samsung has the least to protect.
16:15They don't have the dominant voice assistant or the dominant phone ecosystem.
16:20So an open standard like Matter has a lot of upsides for them.
16:24They make tons of stuff like fridges, washers and ovens.
16:27All Matter is going to do is help those products work better in other companies' systems.
16:31It's really those companies, the ones who make those systems, like Amazon,
16:35who have the most to lose and so are the most reluctantly trudging towards actually making Matter good.
16:40And instead focusing their efforts on trying to ensure that the best experience with their products
16:45comes when you use all of them and you do so via their app.
16:48And it feels like all of this politics has left Ikea a little bit stuck.
16:53They clearly saw the potential of Matter.
16:55They dived headfirst into it.
16:57But it's just not ready yet.
16:59And while Ikea are not the only ones supporting Matter,
17:01the difference is that Ikea's products depend on Matter.
17:04Because they don't have their own robust ecosystem to fall back on.
17:08So for the sake of making this smart home dream accessible to the masses,
17:13I really hope Ikea can get over this incredibly bumpy start.
17:16But I'm not holding my breath.
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