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Ikea smart bulbs' Alexa compatibility pushed back to fall

Ikea has said that its forthcoming update enabling control via Amazon Alexa, Google Home and Apple HomeKit is now due later in the year.

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Ty Pendlebury has worked at CNET since 2006. He lives in New York City where he writes about streaming and home audio.
Expertise Ty has worked for radio, print, and online publications, and has been writing about home entertainment since 2004. He is an avid record collector and streaming music enthusiast. Credentials
  • Ty was nominated for Best New Journalist at the Australian IT Journalism awards, but he has only ever won one thing. As a youth, he was awarded a free session for the photography studio at a local supermarket.
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Ty Pendlebury
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An Ikea Tradfri smart bulb

 Tyler Lizenby/CNET

Ikea says its Tradfri smart bulbs will not become compatible with Apple HomeKit  and other smart home systems until the fall, despite reports to the contrary.

News site 9to5Mac reported that Ikea pushed through an update enabling HomeKit integration on Thursday, but in a Facebook post the company says, "Tradfri is not yet compatible with Apple, Amazon and Google." The post adds that "everything will work as we'd like this fall."

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Screenshot by Ty Pendlebury/CNET

Ikea announced in May that its bulbs would be compatible with Amazon Alexa, Google Home and Apple HomeKit sometime this summer. The Ikea Tradfri product page now says: "Make sure that you have the latest upgrade of Tradfri gateway to be able to connect it with Amazon Alexa, Apple HomeKit or Google Home."

CNET's review of the Tradfri noted that the biggest drawback for the bulb kit was its lack of integration with smart home systems, so these abilities would help increase its usefulness.

Apple did not immediately respond to CNET's request for comment. Meanwhile Ikea was unavailable for comment.

Updated 1:15 p.m. ET: An earlier version of the story reported 9To5Mac's claims that an update enabled HomeKit on Tradfri, but the story has now been updated to include comment from Ikea contradicting that.