Ikea's game-changing smart lights are finally here!

Thanks to Ikea’s beautiful and affordable smart lighting range, it’s now possible to bathe your home in calming white light with just a tap of your phone screen.

Launching in April, the smart lighting range features energy-efficient LED lightbulbs, light panels that can be mounted on walls and ceilings, and light doors that can be fitted into Ikea’s minimalist METOD kitchen line. The range starts at just £15 for a smart lightbulb.

Yes, you heard right – you can now turn your unit doors into a kitchen lighting feature. It’s the ultimate tech luxury for anyone who’s a stickler for getting the perfect ambience in their home.

The light panels are available in three sizes to create simple, soothing light zones in open spaces in your home, and the lightbulbs are compatible with all standard light fittings. Prepare your favourite lamp for a serious upgrade!

With Ikea’s app on your phone or tablet, or Ikea’s custom-made remote control, it’s never been easier to set the scene from your sofa. You can switch all of the lights in the range on and off, dim them, set lighting schedules around your day, and even flick between different shades and intensities of white with just a button’s press.

There are a few different smart lighting kits available in the range, starting at a tantalising £15 for a smart lightbulb and a remote control. There’s even a kit with a lightbulb and motion sensor to make home ambience control truly hands-free. Just mount the sensor in a convenient spot on the wall using a sticky pad, and your smart lights will spring to life when you’re nearby.

If you’ve fallen head over heels with the idea of controlling your lights from an app, you’ll need to grab Ikea’s most advanced smart lighting kit at £69, which includes a gateway device to connect your lights to your phone, as well as two lightbulbs and the remote control.

For now, the app will allow you to control your lights only while you’re at home, but Ikea has promised to update it with a ‘Home and Away’ feature in the Autumn that will let you monitor and control the lights wherever you are in the world – whether that be the salad aisle at the supermarket or on a sunny beach.

The best news is that the smart lights range is plug-and-play, which means a lightbulb is ready for action the moment you screw it in and point the remote. It’s hard to think of a reason not to sprinkle some of this smart lighting magic around your home!

Look out for Ikea’s covetable smart lighting range heading to UK stores and online some time in April.

Words by Catherine Coyne