IKEA promised to make smart homes accessible to everyone. The Swedish furniture giant rolled out a line of affordable Matter-over-Thread devices starting at just $6 , including remote controls, sensors, smart plugs, and light bulbs , that were supposed to prove the smart home could finally be cheap, reliable, and actually work across different platforms. Spoiler alert: it’s not going smoothly.

When early adopters started setting up their IKEA smart devices in January 2026, things went sideways fast. People across Reddit, YouTube, and product review sections reported massive connectivity issues. Whether you were trying to connect devices to Apple Home, Google Home, or even IKEA’s own Dirigera hub, the experience was frustrating. Some devices refused to connect at all. Others worked fine one day and dropped off the network the next. One popular tech YouTuber even documented his painful attempt to onboard a device to Apple Home , and it was rough to watch.

The problems were widespread enough that it became clear this wasn’t just about individual network setups being too complicated. Reviewers who dug deep into the issues discovered something more troubling: there wasn’t one problem, but multiple problems that varied depending on which platform you were using. The fixes people found online ranged from the simple (restart your phone) to the bizarre (just leave it alone for a few days) to the technical (dive into your router settings and enable IPv6).

Here’s where it gets messy: Matter was supposed to fix this exact problem. The whole point of the Matter standard was to create universal compatibility so manufacturers could make one device that would work with any platform. But what’s actually happening is that Apple, Google, and Amazon are each pursuing their own agendas. The cooperative spirit that built Matter in the first place has basically evaporated, leaving manufacturers like IKEA stuck doing the heavy lifting that Matter was supposed to eliminate.

Thread Border Routers , the devices that help Thread networks connect to the internet , have become a particular pain point. When you have multiple routers from different companies, they often don’t cooperate well with each other. IKEA also may have shot itself in the foot by releasing battery-powered devices weeks before the mains-powered light bulbs arrived. Thread networks rely on mains-powered devices to repeat signals, so early buyers with just batteries had nothing to boost their network.

To IKEA’s credit, the company is working on fixes. New software updates to the Dirigera hub are improving Thread performance and Matter onboarding stability. IKEA has also added useful diagnostic tools, including a Thread network checker so you can see what’s actually happening in your setup. Some users have reported improvements after these updates.

But even with the improvements, connecting devices still feels like a gamble. Some devices connect on the first try while identical ones fail repeatedly. That’s not the “just works” experience that Matter promised. Until the major tech companies actually prioritize real interoperability instead of just talking about it, users are going to keep hitting these walls. And that’s bad news for smart homes, bad news for IKEA, and bad news for the entire promise of what Matter was supposed to achieve.