Stephen Silver
Flat-pack furniture giant Ikea has prototypes of its upcoming, low-cost Symfonisk line, the first products to come from IKEA's partnership with Sonos.
Non-functional prototypes of an Ikea and Sonos collaboration were demonstrated at Ikea's Democratic Design Days event Thursday in Sweden. The speakers, all of which are rectangular in shape, have various designs, while one of them has a wooden finish. One is possible, it appears, to use as a shelf.
Sonos, according to the site, said that the final products whenever they're released will "integrate fully" with both Sonos' Wi-Fi speakers and IKEA's "Home Smart" range of Tradfri smart devices.
Sonos and Ikea tease new Symfonisk smart speakers https://t.co/VUMNBwKjnM pic.twitter.com/gw9lztCQn1
— The Verge (@verge) June 7, 2018
Pricing and release dates were not announced.
Apple and IKEA
The latest in the IKEA/Sonos partnership comes after IKEA's botched rollout last year of HomeKit lighting support. First in August, and again in October, IKEA attempted to roll out support of the Apple functionality through its Tradfri platform, but identified "technical difficulties."
Support was later rolled out again, but the functionality requires a bridge. AppleInsider can confirm that it slower to respond than native HomeKit gear, and a bit slower than other HomeKit-compatible products that require a bridge.
IKEA offers a "Gateway" kit, with a hub, two bulbs, and a remote for $79.99, with add-on bulbs that range in cost from $7.99 and $19.99. In IKEA fashion, the kit is one of the cheaper ways to connect HomeKit lighting.
Bjorn Block, IKEA Home Smart's business leader, said that the partnership will bring Sonos functionality at a lower price point than usual.
"Many people dream of built-in sound systems, but few can afford it," Block said to The Verge. "Our goal is for our collective work to save space, get rid of cords, make clutter invisible, and bring sound and music into the home in a more beautiful way."
There is a chance Apple users will get less expensive access to Sonos speakers, but they may need to jump through hoops to get there.
AppleInsider Staff
Malcolm Owen
Oliver Haslam
Andrew O'Hara
Wesley Hilliard
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
4 Comments
Correct, heavily invested in HomeKit compatable devices....so far all works perfectly.
Sleedge bt door lock was quicker, no hub
Ikea had better get with the program or else Apple customers will stay away in droves.
I have started implementing more and more on homekit.
The Ikea Tradfi range is cheap and affordable but have found it to be flaky in comparison to say Philips hue and you are tied to linking these horrible buttons to control them.
You can work around to get them linked to philip's hue but it just doesn't work them same and as reliable.
My opinion on smart bulbs is while they are good, in a home environment, especially a family environment, the fact you have to have power to them is their biggest flaw.
Kids and other family members will turn light switches off and render them useless.
I'm currently looking into lightwaverf products as they now support homekit. These replace the control to the light switch or plug socket itself which to me makes a lot more sense than just a controller bulb. It means I can control things the same way I can control as I would a smart bulb but with the massive advantage that switches can be used manually without affecting the whole smart environment.
Initially when I looked the switches and sockets, they do seem expensive in comparison to a bulb if you have a single light in room for instance. In the scenario (which we have a few in our home) where the room has multiple downlights controlled by a single or even multiple switches, the comparison of cost for the smart bulbs (gu10 type smart bulbs are not cheap) to a smart switch is huge. LED bulbs now are incredible cheap so even with replacing all the downlights with LED GU10's and switch (obviously there is an initial cost for the controller) it still works out cheaper and performs better than the equivalent in smart bulbs.
Ikea has some neat products but the whole idea of disposable, unrepairable, short life span furniture strikes me as a wrong approach to protecting and preserving the environment.