I've always been an Ikea fan. I lived in nine different apartments over 15 years before moving into my home, and every single one of those places had an abundance of Ikea furnishings. But the latest thing from Ikea that's been catching my eye isn't the new bold blue shade for the Billy bookcase, but their expanded and upgraded smart home gear.

Ikea announced last year that its new lineup of smart home gadgets would be entirely Matter-compatible. That's a big deal, as the open source interoperability standard has Amazon, Apple, and Google signed up, meaning these devices will play well with Alexa, Siri, and Google’s nameless voice assistant. While some of this gear has been available for a while, much of the lineup—like the newest light bulbs and smart plugs—is new.

These are now some of the most affordable smart home gadgets available, and from my experience, they're also some of the best when it comes to ease of setup and price. Ikea is still using its Dirigera Hub ($110) that launched a few years ago, so if you're already an Ikea smart home user, you won't need a new hub to start using these gadgets. But new users should pick one up if they don't have a Thread-enabled, Matter-compatible smart home hub in their home.

Here's what gear I've tried from Ikea's new smart home collection, and how it went. The Kajplats Bulb is one of the key new products, just launched this April. Smart light bulbs are one of the most-used items in my home, and this is one of the most accessible and useful smart home products out there.

The Kajplats bulb has 11 variations, ranging from your classic E26 standard bulb to Edison-style dimmable bulbs. The bulbs are well-priced, ranging from just $6 for a 450 lumen white-only bulb for accent lights up to $13 for the 1,100 lumen color bulb. That puts it a little cheaper than my favored Cync smart bulb, but you'll miss out on extras like music sync that more expensive bulbs offer but which I don't find myself using very often.