Ikea Kajplats Filament Globe Bulb w/ Matter over Thread (review)

As you can imagine, I’ve used or tested quite a few smart bulbs over the years – Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Zigbee, and HomeKit over Thread – and I’m now in a position to test one of Ikea’s Matter over Thread bulbs.

The complication with these newer Ikea bulbs is that there’s a fairly large selection, all sold under the Kajplats banner, with only the specifications – brightness, colour options, and fitting type – used to distinguish between them.

In this case, I’m looking at an E26/27 transparent globe bulb, designed to resemble a traditional filament bulb. While I have been able to test it, I can’t use it in my smart home on a day-to-day basis, as I’ll explain later. That’s never stopped me before, though, so read on if you’re curious.

PACKAGING | CONTENTS

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As with Ikea’s other recent smart home products, the bulb itself is clearly shown on the front of the box. This is a Matter over Thread bulb, although, as before, the packaging only shows the Matter logo, with no Thread logo in sight. Ikea’s own documentation does confirm that it uses Thread, however.

This particular unit is from the EU – Sweden, to be precise – and therefore features the EU energy efficiency label. It’s rated as a Class C product, which I’d consider fairly respectable, with an energy consumption of 5kWh per 1,000 hours.

In one corner of the box are several icons indicating that the bulb supports warm to cool whites, but not colour, and that it’s dimmable. Ikea also rates it for an average lifespan of 25,000 hours or 25,000 on-off cycles.

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The rear of the box provides further details, including the reason I can’t use this bulb permanently in my home. Unlike many smart bulbs on the market, Ikea has chosen to limit these models to a 220~240V voltage range, although they do support both 50 and 60Hz. As the country I live in uses 110~120V, the bulb won’t work natively. Fortunately, I have a transformer available, which at least allows me to test its functionality.

The bulb offers a CRI of up to 90, which is perfectly respectable and helps produce light that’s close-ish to natural daylight.

The top of the box lists the Kajplats name, the lamp base type and size – E for Edison screw, with 27 referring to the diameter of the screw cap – and the maximum brightness of 806 lumens.

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Inside the box, there’s very little to speak of. You get a single booklet containing the Matter QR code, along with the bulb itself. There’s also a label attached to the base of the bulb with the Matter QR code printed on it. Looking more closely at the filament structure, there are four filaments in total, all capable of producing the white spectrum from warm to cool.

IN APPLE HOME

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Even though I removed the bulb from my setup after finishing the video it appears in (Link HERE), I was able to add it back into Apple Home first time once it was powered up again. That’s always a good sign.

As soon as it was added, Apple Home showed that Adaptive Lighting was both supported and enabled. This allows the colour temperature to change automatically throughout the day to better match natural lighting conditions. You get the expected single tile in Apple Home, along with a brightness slider, as the bulb is dimmable.

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There are preset colour temperature options, including Adaptive Lighting, but you can also manually choose your preferred temperature and brightness using either the temperature panel or the colour swatches.

The settings panel is fairly basic, which is to be expected, but as this is a Matter device, you do get the option to put the bulb into pairing mode so it can be added to additional Matter ecosystems.

This bulb, along with a second one, was intended to replace two Hue filament bulbs in my kitchen. Unfortunately, unless I permanently connect them to transformers, that’s not an option. As a result, I’m still waiting for Ikea to release these bulbs in markets that use the 110~120V standard.

DIMMING CAPABILITIES | COLOUR TEMPERATURE

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I’ve shown the bulb set to cool white, neutral white, and warm white at full brightness. At 806 lumens, it’s noticeably brighter than my existing Hue filament bulbs, while also offering colour temperature adjustment and Adaptive Lighting, neither of which my Hue bulbs support.

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All bulbs in the Kajplats range support dimming. Some models only offer adjustable colour temperature, while others also support full colour. In the case of the filament-style bulbs, you’re limited to colour temperature control only.

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For dimming tests, I’ve captured the bulb at various brightness levels in both warm and cool white. At the lower end, the difference between around 10 percent brightness and anything below that becomes increasingly subtle, although there is still a barely perceptible change.

As permanently powered devices, bulbs like this should also act as Thread Routers, helping to extend and strengthen your Thread network.

IN SUMMARY

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While I can’t use the bulbs I purchased on a permanent basis, the single unit I’ve tested via a transformer has behaved reliably so far. When power is disconnected, it takes roughly a minute for the bulb to show as offline, and a similar amount of time to reconnect once power is restored.

One thing worth noting is that, when connected directly to Apple Home, there’s no option to define power-restore behaviour. By default, the bulb comes back on at 100% brightness after a power cut. If that’s important to you, pairing the bulb with Ikea’s Dirigera hub may be a better option, as it’s likely to offer control over this behaviour.

When lit, the globe does appear to show what looks like fingerprints or dust across the surface. It’s hard to tell whether this is on the inside or the outside of the glass. It’s not ideal visually, but as these aren’t bulbs you’re likely to stare directly into, it’s a minor issue in practice.

I do like filament bulbs when they’re used in the right context, and my kitchen pendant lights are a good example of that. These larger globe bulbs also look more convincing than standard A19 filament bulbs, giving off a distinctly old-fashioned – or even slightly steampunk – aesthetic.

Once Ikea releases 110~120V versions, I’ll almost certainly buy another pair to replace the Hue bulbs currently in my kitchen. At the time of writing, this particular bulb only appears to be available in the UK and parts of the EU, with no availability in North America. Pricing is €7.99 in Germany and £7.00 in the UK, which suggests a likely US price of around US$7.99. Time will tell, but hopefully they won’t be too long in arriving.