Ikea Release Smart Plug with Energy Monitoring

Gone are the days when a smart home plug was received with much excitement, but when it comes to ones with energy monitoring, there’s still room for a bit of animated passion. This is one such product that Ikea has released for North American users; a compact smart plug with power consumption data, and Apple Home compatibility to boot.

The Inspelning (transl. recording) smart plug looks pretty much like many of today’s offerings, which at its core ensures that it’ll plug into one socket without blocking the other. It has a  power button on the side, along with a small indicator LED and reset button.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, this new smart plug, which uses Zigbee to connect to both Ikea’s own smart platform and others, will only work with the company’s latest hub – the Dirigera. So if you’re still using the original Trådfri smart hub with your Ikea products, this plug is either a pass or you’ll need to upgrade.

On the assumption you do have the Dirigera hub, you can then expose it to Apple Home, Amazon Alexa, and Google Home, although not via Matter officially yet. A Matter firmware update is available for beta testing if you want to try it out. A firmware update from Sept. 2nd states;

• DIRIGERA Hub version 2.615.8
  • Maintenance release, plus extended support of device types via Matter Bridge for:• Lights, including Drivers
    • Smart plugs/outlets
    • Connected blinds
    • Remotes
    • Motion sensors
    • Open/close sensors
    • Air purifiers and Air quality sensors

If you don’t want to use this beta option, adding the hub to the latter two platforms requires the legacy connection method that ties your Ikea smart home account to Google/Amazon.

Energy monitoring is only available via the Ikea Home Smart app (not the old app, named Home Smart 1). Currently it’s listed on Ikea’s US website for US$11.99, although it may be available in your nearest Ikea store.