IKEA's new viral smart light is the one thing from CES that I'll actually be buying

IKEA's major expansion into smart home territory has been a phenomenon over the last few months – it's almost overnight gone from a bit-part player to a huge competitor in the market. Now, at CES 2026, it might just be launching the most gorgeous smart home product it's ever made, revamping its most viral lamp.

At a closed-doors briefing in Las Vegas, an IKEA rep told me that it sells roughly one Varmblixt "donut" lamp every five minutes in the US on average, a figure that really underlines how wildly popular the lamp has been. Even more so, it apparently doesn't have waves of interest, but is a totally consistent seller, one that's actually punctured through the viral ceiling to achieve near-permanent popularity.

Now, though, IKEA's announcing a smart version of the Varmblixt lamp, one that lets you choose from 12 colours of light and dim it to exactly the right level, using an included Bilresa remote from IKEA's new range of smart home gadgets. These 12 shades have been hand-picked by Ikea and designer Sabine Marcelis.

Those who prefer more granular control can rest easy, though. IKEA's Home Smart app will let you choose from a wider range of 40 shades, mixing and matching to get full colour spectrum options.

As I saw in Vegas, this means that you're no longer locked into the seventies-inspired orange glow of the normal lamp, and it can unlock a huge range of aesthetic options.

This is all helped by a new matte glass finish on the outside of the lamp, one that rests at white when the lamp is powered off. The overall effect is seriously gorgeous, and I don't have much hesitation in calling it the slickest and most attractive bit of tech I've seen at the show.

Don't get me wrong, there have been some unreal laptops that I can't wait to test, but none of those will have me personally getting my wallet out, whereas IKEA's lamp falls into that category. Whether wall-mounted or on a sideboard, it looks like one of the nicest smart lighting options I've seen in a long time.

That said, while the majority of IKEA's smart home gadgets are impressively low-cost, the Varmblixt smart lamp does come in a little steeper, at $99.99 in the US with regional pricing to follow. It'll be on sale in April, so keep an eye out for what will definitely be a viral hit.