IKEA has just brought out a new smart RGB LED light strip in the Netherlands, and it looks like a promisingly affordable alternative to the likes of Philips Hue and TP-Link that'll hopefully go on sale globally.
Tweakers (a Dutch site) reported on the launch (as flagged by The Verge) of the Ormanäs, an LED strip that offers RGB colors or white. It’s dimmable, but it seems that the LEDs are not addressable individually, meaning you can’t mix and match – the strip is all one color.
Control of the lights can be facilitated via IKEA’s Styrbar remote control (that can control all your smart lights) or the retailer’s own Home Smart app. Or it can be hooked up (via Zigbee) to IKEA’s Dirigera smart hub (which has support for Amazon Alexa, Apple HomeKit, and Google Home, bringing all your smart home devices together).
The Ormanäs is 4m long (13-foot) and as is usual with these LED strips, you can cut it down to the needed length (between the lights at any section you want).
One of the key attractions here is the price of €30 (around $32 / £26 / AU$50), but for now, the Ormanäs is only on sale in the Netherlands (and only then in limited fashion). However, we can expect a rollout to the US and elsewhere hopefully before too long, as it isn't unusual for IKEA to initially launch products in the Netherlands (where its head office is currently located).
Analysis: A promising new light strip
It should be noted that the Ormanäs isn’t even available in many stores in the Netherlands (and not up for grabs online at all yet), so it might be a little while before it starts to pitch up in other countries.
Still, it could be a popular product given the pricing, as it looks like a cheap-but-effective solution that you can hook up to your smart home system for a fully-integrated experience (as opposed to the typical standalone ‘dumb’ LED strip that you might run around the back of your TV as a backlight, for example).
As for potential drawbacks, the LEDs do look a little on the widely-spaced side, but it’s difficult to tell exactly how much from the images provided (and the overall effect looks good enough anyway).
Folks may not be too concerned with any potential small niggles when you compare pricing to the Philips Hue Lightstrip, of course…
