Last month Ikea began rolling out the HomeKit-compatible Trådfri smart plug to Sweden and a few other countries in the European Union. Today, HomeKit News spotted the same smart plugs in listings on the United States Ikea website, suggesting a launch in the U.S. sometime later this month.
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Ikea's Trådfri smart plug connects to the company's existing Trådfri Gateway ($29.99), which connects a variety of other smart home products like light bulbs, dimmers, motion sensors, and more. Among the list of Trådfri products, U.S. shoppers can now see the "Trådfri Wireless Control Outlet" -- or smart plug -- near the bottom. At the time of writing, the smart plug is not available online and not sold in stores yet.
In the U.S., the Trådfri smart plug will cost $9.99 for a single plug and $14.99 for one plug and a wireless remote control button. The price of a single smart plug at Ikea is far lower than the cost of rival HomeKit smart plugs, like Eve Energy ($49.21 on Amazon), Wemo Mini Smart Plug ($29.95), iDevices Switch ($28.40), and the iHome Wi-Fi Smart Plug ($22.86). The Trådfri Wireless Control Outlet was also spotted on the UK Ikea website for £9.00.
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When added to HomeKit, the Trådfri accessories can be controlled through Siri, scenes, and custom automations. For smart plugs, you can attach a regular lamp, coffee maker, tea kettle, or other household appliance to the plug and control it through Ikea's own app, or with Apple's Home app. Ikea first introduced HomeKit support for the Trådfri system in November 2017.
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Great stuff Ikea!
Sonoff seems to be the cheapest so far at $6, but that requires a little diy. No hub required.
“Does not include assembly kit”
Kvölt Smart Plug Assembly Kit for Trådfri
$19.99
No it's not. You need the $30 gateway + the $10 plug (or $15 plug + button) which brings it above the iDevices Switch, Wemo Mini Smart Plug, and iHome Wi-Fi Smart Plug, all of which do NOT require a dedicated gateway.
True, but I don't think many people are buying this kind of thing just for 1 plug. If I buy the gateway for $30 plus 6 plugs for $10 a pop I'm at $90. That's $40 less than if I were to buy 6 of the iHome Plugs mentioned in the article.Come on guys.
Motorola Cable Modem
IKEA's TRÅDFRI line of products use Zigbee, which means you can use Philips Hue Bridge instead.Apple Timecapsule
Apple Airport Express 1
Apple Airport Express 2
Hue Bridge/hub
Smart Things Hub
Raspberry Pi (next purchase)
Seriously? Hub required? I'll stick with iHome switches, they don't require a hub and are compatible with multiple platforms. I can usually get them for ~$15 on eBay (sometimes new, sometimes pre-owned, don't care).
Also, hub is not always a bad thing as it significantly reduces the load on your Wi-Fi router. Once you exceed 20 or so connected devices, many Wi-Fi routers start to perform poorly.