IKEA’s trio of cheap smart home sensors could save you from domestic disaster
IKEA wants to make your smart home even smarter with the addition of three new sensors.
The sensors, called Parasoll, Vallhorn and Badring (which Ring is certainly smart about), are designed to detect motion and spot problems like water leaks, giving you real-time notifications of any problem that arises while you’re away from your home . property.
Parasoll (€9.99, about $11 / £9 / AU$17) is a sensor that mounts to a door or window to detect when it is opened, and is designed to be very compact and discreet and alerts you if an intruder breaks into your home.
Then there’s the Vallhorn (€7.99, about $9 / £7 / AU$13), a traditional (wireless) motion sensor that detects movement and lights up when it does (with adjustable colors and intensity levels for that lighting).
Finally, Badring (€9.99, about $11 / £9 / AU$17) is the water leak sensor. Place it near a pipe or other potential source of a leak (like a washing machine) and it can spot any problem right away by sounding an alarm or sending a notification to your phone so you can act quickly to fix it leak to be solved sorted.
All of these sensors are relatively compact and designed to be unobtrusive, and IKEA promises that they are easy to use and generally easy to use.
Each of the Parasoll, Vallhorn and Badring sensors can work as a standalone product, or can be integrated into your current smart home setup (they use Zigbee).
Naturally, the sensors can be connected to IKEA’s own Dirigera smart home hub (complete with its own app), as you’d expect.
Availability may vary from region to region, but IKEA says the Parasoll and Vallhorn will hit shelves from January 2024, but Badring won’t be available for purchase until April 2024. We’ll update this article as soon as we get official pricing for the US, UK and Australia.
Analysis: Affordable peace of mind
These are useful (and previously rumored) additions to IKEA’s smart home range, particularly the Parasoll and Badring. Having the latter on hand to protect you from any mini-floods that ravage your home while you’re away will certainly provide some extra peace of mind.
Unfortunately, we don’t know the prices for these new sensors in the US, UK or Australia yet, but their European prices are affordable, so we expect them to be in impulse buying territory as well when that becomes official.
IKEA further expanded its range and recently unveiled another handy smart home gadget, namely a smart RGB LED light strip called the Ormanäs, which also connects to IKEA’s Dirigera hub via Zigbee.