After a few false starts, IKEA is finally ready to offer HomeKit support for its cheap line of Tradfri smart blinds. The update is underway now, though not all Tradfri owners see the required firmware update yet.
The HomeKit blinds category has been a thing of the past, but the IKEA range has been hotly anticipated due to their accessibility. The Fyrtur range costs between 129 and 179 USD. However, you will need the IKEA Tradfri hub to control the blinds through HomeKit.
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The blinds were launched in early 2019 without any HomeKit support, which means they can only be controlled by the included remote control or Google Home integration. Initially, IKEA promised to launch HomeKit support for its blinds in the fall of 2019, but this was delayed to "early next year."
The first week of January would certainly count as "the beginning of 2020", so it's nice that this time IKEA has kept its promises.
To get blind support, you must first upgrade your Tradfri gateway to the latest firmware. As the update has just begun, your hub may not be able to immediately see the update for the latest version of the gateway (1.10.28), so you should wait a few hours and try again new.
Assuming you have already added the gateway to your HomeKit home, blinds should automatically appear in the Home application.
The experience with IKEA accessories is the same experience as other HomeKit blinds. You can manually drag the blind cursor from the Home app to raise or lower them or use voice commands with Siri. In addition to basic commands such as "open blinds" or "close blinds", HomeKits also understands expressions such as "open blinds to 40%" or "close blinds slightly" for more minor adjustments. .
(If you have existing blinds and are looking for ways to jump into the smart home experience, consider something like SOMA Smart Shades, which I reviewed earlier this year.)
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