If you invest in smart blinds, you’d expect them to work with the home hubs they were supposed to work with. Unfortunately, if you were planning on buying Fyrtur Smart Blinds from Ikea, or you’ve already installed them in your home, we have some bad news if you have Apple’s HomeKit. It looks like these smart blackout roller-style blinds won’t be compatible with HomeKit until some time in early 2020. This information comes from a tweet made by Ikea U.K. Support on Twitter.
Hi, the HomeKit functionality should be added to the blinds early next year.
Thanks,
Dan— IKEA UK Support (@IKEAUKSupport) December 7, 2019
The Fyrtur blinds have the ability to be operated remotely and can be put on a timer to open and close automatically. They are currently available in various sizes on the Ikea website and start at $129 each. The blind will work remotely with Ikea’s Smart Home App and the remote they come with, but they were supposed to be compatible with Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and HomeKit right out of the box.
Unfortunately, support for Alexa didn’t happen at all, and it only works with Google and HomeKit if you get some add-ons. To get them to work with Google Assistant, you’ll need the TRÅDFRI gateway and the IKEA Home Smart app. They can also be connected to HomeKit using Apple’s HomeBridge, if you want to put in the effort and expense of adding a bridge to your setup. There’s still no word on when support for Alexa will be available. The website still says, “Apple HomeKit and Amazon Alexa support will also be available later on.”
This hasn’t been the first problem that the Swedish company has had with its smart blinds. A number of things started going wrong at the release. The blinds were supposed to go on sale in the U.S. in the spring, but missed not only spring, but summer as well. It wasn’t until October that Ikea fans were finally able to get the smart curtain and even then, it was only available to in selected stores in the U.S.
We’ll keep you updated on new developments as they become available. Until then, take a look at our top picks for the best smart home devices for 2019.
