Samsung is making a straightforward pitch to smart home users: buying IKEA‘s next wave of budget-friendly devices should no longer mean getting locked into a separate ecosystem. The company says SmartThings now supports direct integration for 25 IKEA Matter-over-Thread devices, including bulbs, plugs, sensors, and a scroll-wheel remote, so users can add them to SmartThings with less setup friction than before.

Before this change, pairing IKEA gear with SmartThings typically meant using both an IKEA smart home hub and a SmartThings hub. Samsung says that extra layer is gone for these new Matter devices, which can now connect directly to a SmartThings hub and then work alongside Samsung TVs, air conditioners, washing machines, and other third-party products already supported on the platform.

That matters because IKEA has been rebuilding its smart home lineup around Matter, the cross-brand standard meant to make connected devices less annoying to buy and use. IKEA said it was launching 21 new smart home products focused on lighting, sensors, and control, all designed to work with Matter and built around simpler setup and broader compatibility across brands.

For regular buyers, the value of Matter is pretty simple: it is a unifying, IP-based connectivity protocol from the Connectivity Standards Alliance designed to increase compatibility and help devices from different ecosystems work together more reliably. Thread, the low-power mesh networking technology used by many of these devices, handles the local network layer underneath, which is why companies keep talking about faster, more dependable smart home connections without leaning entirely on Wi-Fi.

In practice, Samsung is trying to turn that standards talk into everyday use cases. The company says IKEA door sensors can feed into SmartThings Family Care to help users check activity at a relative’s home, while IKEA air quality, temperature, and humidity sensors can contribute data to SmartThings sleep environment reports and routines that automatically trigger things like dehumidification or alerts for leaks.

One of the more interesting parts of the rollout is IKEA’s scroll-wheel remote, which Samsung says can be used inside SmartThings for finer control over lighting, especially brightness and color temperature. There is one important limitation, though: as of April 20, only lighting control is supported, while blind control is scheduled to arrive later this year.

This tie-up also fits the broader story of CES 2026, where IKEA’s Matter-over-Thread range stood out because it promised something the smart home industry rarely delivers – lower prices, simpler setup, and less ecosystem drama. The Verge noted that the lineup was designed to work with major smart home platforms through Matter over Thread, and highlighted products like the Varmblixt lamp as examples of IKEA pushing connected home gear into more mainstream territory.

Still, standards alone do not magically erase smart home headaches. The Verge reported in March that IKEA’s Matter-over-Thread rollout also showed how a seamless experience depends on the whole chain working together, from apps and onboarding flows to protocol coordination and hardware design, which is a useful reminder that “Matter-compatible” does not always mean frustration-free on day one.

Even so, Samsung’s SmartThings update looks like the kind of move that could actually matter to normal buyers, not just smart home enthusiasts. It makes IKEA’s low-cost devices more appealing to people who want the flexibility to mix brands, skip unnecessary hubs, and still get useful automations around lighting, comfort, and home monitoring. If the experience holds up in real homes, this could be one of the clearest examples yet of Matter doing what it was supposed to do all along – making the smart home feel less like a hobby and more like a utility.