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Google Search now turns your home into a virtual Ikea showroom
This mobile-first experience could save you a visit to a retail location
Technology has come a long way since the first touchscreen phone, and complicated features like augmented reality aren’t outside the realm of everyday tech anymore. Google is well aware of this, and is now partnering with Swedish home furnishings and furniture brand Ikea to make all the latter’s products viewable in AR directly in Google Search results.
Smart home hardware comes in all shapes and sizes, and while picking out the best smart home lighting is fairly straightforward, our hardware choices start getting a little more limited when shopping for something like smart air purifiers and air quality sensors. With the growing awareness of the importance of indoor air quality, new players are arriving all the time, and this week, home furnishing giant Ikea joins those ranks with a sensor of its own.
Samsung SmartThings now lets you control Matter-compatible devices
A new update is rolling out to add Matter integration to the SmartThings Hub
Matter is the new smart home standard that promises to end the frustration of using multiple apps to control your smart devices and all the compatibility woes. With the backing of Google, Apple, Ikea, Samsung, and other tech giants, the standard envisions a smart home ecosystem where all devices are interoperable. After a delay of over a year, the official Matter 1.0 standard and certification program dropped in early October. Following its release, Samsung is now fulfilling its promise of adding Matter support to the SmartThings platform with the latest app update. This will allow you to control Matter-certified devices directly from SmartThings.
Ikea lets you turn virtually any table into a wireless charging pad
The Sjömärke is powerful enough to charge devices from underneath the table
Ikea is known for its affordable and nicely designed furniture. The Swedish brand has more recently adapted its offering to the modern era by integrating wireless chargers into lamps and nightstands. It also offers standalone wireless charging pads that are amazingly cheap. Unfortunately, these products need to be placed atop a desk or table, meaning they take up some space. To free it up, Ikea has imagined a wireless charging module that you can mount under a desk or table, making it invisible and freeing up some precious space on your desktop.
IKEA's embraced the smart home market with a growing range of different products, such as smart blinds, bulbs, and outlets, so when a partnership with Sonos was announced back in 2017, it didn't really come as a surprise. After teasing us with some first looks this January, today the two companies revealed the first fruits of their collaboration and introduced the SYMFONISK table lamp and bookshelf, both equipped with Sonos-compatible Wi-Fi speakers.
In the long-forgotten year 2017, Ikea announced that it was collaborating with Sonos for future products, and a year later it named the coming fruit of such a union: The Symfonisk line of speakers. Initially pegged for a nebulous "2019" launch, a video released by Ikea two days ago states that the new products will be landing this August.
Famed Scandinavian home goods purveyor Ikea is expanding its stateside smart home selection this spring. Starting in April, stores in the US will carry the company's Fyrtur smart window shades, which can be operated using an included remote or via your choice of virtual assistant.
Ikea's Trådfri (I just discovered that my keyboard has this weird å character) line-up is one of the cheapest smart home lighting systems, costing only a few bucks per light bulb on average. It started out with limited bulb options, but has expanded to offer light panels, drivers for LED lights, and has just added smart outlets as well. These were announced a while back, but weren't available to buy until recently.
I've been here at Android Police for over a year, now, fighting my way up the ranks and RSS feeds. So far I've succeeded, and having the opportunity to spend my days writing about technology has been incredible. As a result of that, I've accrued a ton of hardware and software, much of which has become an integral part of my workflow and life.So here's a peek at all the stuff, personal and professional, that lets me do me.As a disclaimer for the organization of this subject, I'm not the sort of guy to keep my work life separate from my personal life. I'm of the opinion that, ideally, you should seek to do work that you enjoy enough to make it personal. Thankfully, the last year here at AP has very much worked with that view in mind. But, I do still keep my personal expenses separate from my business ones, so I thought that a Work/Play dichotomy might be an interesting way to sort the stuff I dig.But, first I need to get one important thing out of the way, as it's both work and play.
Swedish furniture purveyor Ikea has unveiled its first Bluetooth speakers in a line it's calling Eneby. The little guys come in eight- and 12-inch varieties, each available in black or white. The larger speaker has to be plugged into a power source to operate; a rechargeable battery pack is available separately, but it's only compatible with the smaller model.
Today IKEA has announced that its IKEA Place augmented reality app, previously exclusive to iOS, is now available for Android. With it, prospective furniture customers can see if a given IKEA product will be a good fit—in every sense. From relative sizes to aesthetic comparisons, you can choose just the right side table, lamp, or shelf to fit your particular niche, and even search for your existing IKEA furniture in the app.
One of the biggest trends in consumer technology over the last few years has been the rise of the smart home. The number of different device categories that now make up the 'Internet of Things' (IoT) has grown immensely, with connected appliances now found in many households across the US and beyond.The smart home was once an expensive hobby for tech-fiends only but has now become an affordable aspiration for normal people. You can get started for less than $30 these days, with some lights or a smart switch that can connect to your Wi-Fi network and be controlled with your phone. If you want to go all in, you could end up spending thousands on the connected home of the future.With so many different products available, the smart home sector can be a little daunting. So let's break down the key categories and take a look at some of the best options in each one.
What's the point of having smart home devices if you can't control them with your preferred voice interface? Ikea's Trådfri lights are a little cheaper than Phillips Hue, but they don't work with Assistant right now. That's going to change soon, though. Now if only you could pronounce it.
In 2012, we started a series called "What We Use," where we, the AP staff, talked about the stuff that we can't live without. It started off as something where we just discussed our Android devices and computers, but last year we took that a step further (at Artem's request, no less) and discussed a lot more than that, basically covering everything that we love in our lives. The most important stuff to us, as people.It's been over a year since my last WWU post, and you probably know what that means: time for a new one. I actually really enjoy writing these posts, and I hope you enjoy reading it. As always, if you have any questions about my gear, feel free to ask 'em below.
IKEA is jumping on the wireless charging bandwagon. The world's largest furniture maker and retailer understands the demands of the modern home. In a bid to streamline your interior's design as much as possible, remove redundant elements, and get rid of the cable clutter everywhere, it has designed a collection of bedside tables, lamps, and desks, with integrated wireless charging spots.