Ikea's New Smart Home Collection Is Matter-Compatible

I’ve only purchased one Matter device so far and have been thoroughly unimpressed. I held off buying any “smart” stuff until Matter launched to avoid needing a bunch of apps for different vendors or any lock in. However, I couldn’t setup the Matter device without downloading the vendor’s app (I put off doing this for over a year, because of how annoyed I was by this). Only then could I add it to Apple Home. Then after the iOS 26 update, the Home integration broke and I can only use it with the vendor’s app. I tried deleting and re-adding with no luck. The troubleshooting listed by ChatGPT seemed extreme and more effort than it was worth.

As someone who dipped their toe into the water, I’m not excited to go in further or put any trust in this stuff. It all seems very half baked.

Is this a skill issue, or just the nature of the beast that no one likes to admit to, because it’s mostly hobbiests doing this stuff? I wouldn’t expect something being sold to the masses to need special tip and tricks for basic functionality.

My dad is really into the smart home stuff, but he’s retired. He is also endlessly forgiving of what I would call pretty serious issues. For example, the lock on his front door needs to be recalibrated any time someone manually unlocks the door, and he has to wait for a local BT connection to establish any time he wants to do it from his phone. He still thinks it’s cool, but fragility in a door lock system sounds like a nightmare waiting to happen.

[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45834980

> The new Kajplats will range in price from £4 to £9 (around $5.21 to $11.73) while the dual button remote will be £3, and the scroll wheel remote will be £4. The Klippbok, Myggbett, and Myggspray sensors will each be £7, and the Timmerflotte temperature / humidity sensor will be £5. The most expensive device in the new collection will be the £25 Alpstuga air quality sensor.

Why do they say what some of the sensors (Alpstuga) are, but not others? Do they expect us to remember these non-English words mean, after having seen them once in the article?