I've never really invested in a smart home – but IKEA's new smart lamp might change that

IKEA's move into the smart home world has been a gradual one – it's pointless to pretend that its swathe of releases in late 2025 marked a huge strategic change. After all, it already had a bunch of switches, sensors and more. What really changed, though, was that all of its new launches could finally boast Matter-compatibility.

That's a notable upgrade that makes its new smart home devices far easier to control through other, non-IKEA apps and hubs, which is a noteworthy thing. Still, I'll hold my hand up and admit that I've not really become a smart home convert in recent years. It helps that I don't cover the area very often for T3, but I've also not seen compelling enough reasons to.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still a tech journalist, which means I have a few Philips Hue bulbs dotted around my house, but in each case I just use the included remotes to occasionally swap the warmth of their light – I really never bother controlling them from my phone at all.

That's probably cemented by the fact that I've never had a smart home hub, whether it's the Hue Bridge or IKEA's newer DIRIGERA hub. These are essential to really enable true remote control, it would seem. One new IKEA launch that I saw at CES 2026, though, might finally change my attitude.

I've been a firm admirer of the IKEA VARMBLIXT lamp for a while now – and have come extremely close to buying it before. The gorgeous donut-shaped lamp has been a social media phenomenon, selling in droves thanks to influencers pointing out how it can add a really lovely ambience to your rooms at a low cost.

The new version that will go on sale in April makes it far more flexible, though, since the basic lamp only comes in one very orange colour. This smart lamp will have an included remote to let you swap it between pre-set colours easily, while IKEA's app will give you more fine-grained control.

That makes it a full smart lamp by any definition, but really, it's less the connectivity and more the aesthetics that have won me over. I just love how the lamp looks, and what I saw when I went hands-on with it in Las Vegas underlined how kooky and fun it can be in the right setting.

Of course, it's possible that if I did pick up the new VARMBLIXT I'd still use it in isolation, without actually going whole hog and setting up a proper smart home system. The included remote would make that even more doable, after all. This is the first time in ages, though, that I've been tempted to do a smart home properly, which is saying something.