I loved the simple and very minimalist look of the new Ikea Home Smart app.
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Lots of interesting stuff! And I think a very good direction for them.
They donāt say if their new dirigera hub will be able to bring some of its connected devices into other apps yet or not (the SmartThings hubs wonāt, the Aqara hub probably will, the Philips Hue bridge definitely will). That would be a big plus, but weāll see.
Other than that, many things to like in the announced design.
October 2022 release date
which is around when Matter itself is scheduled for release. I actually like that itās not coming out early: less confusion for customers.
Inside the Dirigera hub are radios for Wi-Fi, Zigbee, and Thread, allowing it to act as a Thread border router once everything is switched on.
As we discussed above, many of the companies with their own apps are building thread border routers into the master device you have to have before you create your first automation (Aqara, Hue, Apple HomeKit, now Ikea), so those companies will create less confusion for their customers. Itās trickier for SmartThings since you could buy a Matter-certified Thread end device like an Eve sensor but not have a Thread border router. Weāll see how that goes.
For all the emphasis on the new app, Ikea isnāt abandoning its four-interface approach to its Home Smart ecosystem: the app, smart shortcut buttons to trigger automations, remotes, and voice control. āWhen we look at the smart home, we see inclusivity being really fundamental,ā says Block. āIt shouldnāt be only for the tech-interested people, it should be for the parents, the grandparents, children, but also for guests.ā
This isnāt new, but I really like it. Weāll have to see if the battery-drain issue for the shortcut buttons with other platforms gets resolved along the way. But of course if you can leave the shortcut buttons connected to their own hub and bring them into SmartThings via Matter, that might solve that issue a different way.
It certainly looked intuitive and reliable, which are two words that most people wouldnāt readily associate with the companyās current TrĆ„dfri gateway and Home Smart app.
Intuitive and reliable, local and interoperable. Be still my heart! LOL! 
As always, and as the article notes, we will have to wait to see what actually gets delivered. But this is really hopeful, I think.
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If Digirera will cost under 50ā¬ then Iāll probably buy it to see how it compares against ST.
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It will be quite a bit different than smartthings since it doesnāt support zwave or Samsung smart appliances. But itās definitely going to be interesting to see how it compares for someone just looking for a matter capable solution. 
iām really surprised Ikea is implementing Matter as a controller. But I guess the current matter spec aligns well with their current devices, so adding one protocol to support hundreds of brands is a good bang for the buck.
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They already have HomeKit compatibility, so technically itās a pretty easy add.
I donāt think itās a coincidence that almost all of the hubs announced so far already had HomeKit integrations even if they had other integrations as well. Itās just a really straightforward roadmap for them.
but HomeKit is technically as a ābridgeā function, not a controller. non-Ikea HomeKit devices donāt show in the Ikea app. It sounds like non-ikea Matter devices will show in the Ikea app.
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Yes in the new IKEA app. Not the current IKEA app.
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I donāt want to drift too far away from the Matter theme of the thread, but I was interested to read:
Ikea is also planning to launch away-from-home remote access in the first half of 2023. Right now, the only way to access your Ikea devices from outside the home is by integrating your Ikea TrĆ„dfri gateway with Apple, Google, or Amazonās smart home networks. Ikea says itāll be developing its own cloud network to handle remote access instead of relying upon established networks.
One of the things on my wish list is an IKEA to ST integration and that wouldnāt do the possibility of that any harm.
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Two links discussing the security aspects of Matter:
- SiLabs, a major chipmaker, hosted a Matter panel for device manufacturers with some senior personnel from CSA, Google, Amazon, Digicert, WeMo, and Schneider (the latter two representing device manufacturers). You can get free access to the recording here:
- The moderator of that panel does a weekly podcast on IOT. This weekās podcast discussed the specific security details covered in the panel, so if youāre just interested in those details the podcast will be quicker.
I havenāt listened to either yet, but I thought people here might be interested.
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Without any doubts that this device is going to be good but looking at recent Verge articles about Home Automation, I have a feeling that it is cucumber time/cucumber season/silly season/slow news season what ever you call it.
PR departments are doing their last rounds before summer, and they have to feelnthe gap with some pointless news without anything promised.
This is the same quality as the SmartThings article was a few weeks ago. Without a real product, without telling how it will really work etc. Have you seen the FCC filing for this devices because I looked at the database recently and I couldnāt find it. The original IKEA articles about the dirigera disappeared a few days after it was published (a month or two ago).
With all the supply chain issues, I have serious doubts that anyone can come out with a decent product and decent stock. (Have you seen any RPi in stock recently on retail price?)
Otherwise, I am surprised that there was no celebration on the forum for SmartThingsā 10th anniversary.
If @posborne would make the CoAP working, that would be easy to communicate with the IKEA bridge locally.
Buy it to hack it to work with Hone Assistant locallyā¦ 
Nothing at FCC yet, but IKEA typically releases in Europe before the US, sometimes by 6 to 9 months, so they could still hit October without having FCC certification.
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Haha, I got pretty far along and have my lua coap lib released as open source but admittedly it was a side project and I havenāt done any testing with it on the hub as part of an edge driver at all (but I believe it should work or be close to working). If anyone wants to pick up the torch PRs are very welcome and Iād love to see it in action in some form. I havenāt looked into the IKEA bridge protocol in detail. GitHub - posborne/lcoap: Pure Lua CoAP Protocol Implementation and Client
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Other devices from top of my head are the Philips Air Purifiers and Tado devicesā¦
The current Tradfri bridge and IKEA app are now officially End of Life. They will continue to be supported for three years after the next generation is released, but old stuff and will not support Matter, for example.
The new generation, Dirigera hub, is now officially announced and will support Matter and be a Thread Border Router and have a whole new app which will act as a Matter Controller, but there arenāt a lot of details on it yet And the release date is scheduled for October.
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That is an option. 
Just to complete the previous statement. I assume it will have the multi-protocol antenna/chip built into it, not just a Zigbee one. The Tradfri bridge has been repurposed multiple times, so I guess someone will do the same with the Dirigera as well.
Sometimes I have a feeling that something is wrong with software development, and journalists as well.
You can reorganise your list of Scenes!!! (Meanwhile the community forum is still broken on mobile devicesā¦)
But still nobody knows how Matter is really going to work inbetween platforms.