The 'Fyrtur' range of smart blinds from Ikea are appearing in a few US stores, despite the company's recent announcement of delays.
While furniture store Ikea recently revised its release date for the "Fyrtur" range of smart blinds to "later this year," a very few of its US stores have begun stocking them. Only five of Ikea's 50 US stores have them in stock, and while the company's website lists them, it's not currently possible to order them online.
Furthermore, according to HomeKitHero, the stores that are confirmed to have the blinds on display are selling them in sizes not listed on the Ikea website.
Ikea has repeatedly delayed the release of the smart blinds and but has been introducing more smart devices to its stores and online.
Significantly, Ikea's "Fyrtur" range of smart blinds is not HomeKit compatible, though the company claims that both Apple's system and Alexa will be supported later. The blinds work with Ikea's Tradfri smart devices, however, and that system does include HomeKit-compatible plugs and bulbs.
This is reason to believe that HomeKit will come to the smart blinds, but as other companies have shown, it's not a guarantee.
There's also no indication yet whether the confusingly different online and in-store sizes and availability just mean that the blinds are rolling out US-wide.
This rollout is similar to the initial deployment of Ikea HomeKit compatibility. The smart bulb line by the manufacturer arrived after several delays and false starts, and this most recent confusing availability of the smart blinds is only the latest chapter in the saga.
5 Comments
Interesting. Says in stock at my local store (Draper, UT.) I might head up there and check them out.
I use https://homeseer.com which lets me control any of my non homekit stuff through homekit, so I would rather they don't add homekit support directly since that tends to jack up the prices.
I have some Bali motorized shades on some high windows that would be impractical to have cords on and they natively use zwave - very easy to integrate, it will be interesting to see what these are using for their underlying tech.
The reason you want HomeKit and not "workaround to kinda make non-HK stuff work with the Home app" stuff is because HomeKit (alone) has strong privacy and security built-in. Others ... do not.
Ok, so not HomeKit compatible and can't be cut down to specific size.
I think I'll wait.