Ikea debuts a trio of affordable smart home sensors

Ikea’s push to democratize the smart home continues with the introduction of three new Zigbee sensors that won’t break the bank. There’s Parasoll, the door and window sensor; Vallhorn, the motion sensor; and Badring, the water leakage sensor. They’ll all be priced less than $10 when they go on sale globally in the first half of next year.

Parasoll is a typical window and door sensor that can be discretely mounted to trigger an automation when an open / close event is detected. It can also be paired directly with an Ikea light bulb right out of the box without needing to buy and configure an Ikea Home smart hub. It’s priced at €9.99 in Europe, but exact US pricing is yet to be confirmed for it or any of Ikea’s three new sensors.

The Vallhorn motion sensor can be used both indoors and outdoors (with IP44 splash protection against rain) to activate lights or other automations when movement is detected. It’s powered by three AAA batteries and can be paired to directly control up to 10 Ikea smart bulbs right out of the box. It costs just €7.99 and can sense more of the room than Ikea’s existing $14.99 / €12.99 motion sensor that’s smaller, but only useable indoors and needs its coin-cell battery replaced more frequently.

The Badring water sensor includes a built-in siren (60dBA at 1m) that can alert you when it senses a leak. It can also trigger a mobile notification in the Ikea Home smart app for homes with an Ikea Dirigera hub ($69.99) installed. Sensors like these can save homeowners a ton of money before a water leak has the opportunity to create real damage. It will cost €9.99.

Of the three, the Parasoll and Badring sensors are not compatible with older Trådfri Home Smart gateways from Ikea. All support the newer Dirigera hub, of course, which fully integrates the sensors into Ikea’s burgeoning lineup of smart home products and Home smart app. The hub also allows Ikea’s devices to interoperate with smart home ecosystems from Google, Amazon, and Apple when at home or away. 

Despite Matter support being just “a couple of months away” over a year ago, the company still doesn’t support it. Ikea plans to eventually enable Matter by turning on the Thread radio inside the Dirigera hub to bridge Ikea’s existing Zigbee-based devices to the next-generation smart home standard. In a statement sent to The Verge, Ikea Digital Product Area Manager Jonas Söderqvist says the company has “decided to delay this functionality” and will provide an update “when it’s time.” The ongoing delay is understandable given that Ikea’s products already integrate well with other platforms, and the company is focused on keeping things as simple as possible for anyone that delves into the smart home on a whim while shopping for a new bookcase. And when you consider the hurdles required to get everything running on Matter networks during this period of transition, Ikea’s delay is more than justified.

Vallhorn will be available in select countries including the US starting in January 2024. That’s the same month the Parasoll launches internationally, but its US rollout won’t happen until April. Badring is scheduled to begin retail sales in April in some countries, but won’t hit the US until July. It’s confusing, but these staggered releases are a byproduct of Ikea’s franchise retail system.