The Zigbee Alliance announced that IKEA has joined its Board of Directors. This decision validates the world-renowned retail leader’s commitment to universal open IoT standards for its smart home product offerings and complements IKEA’s overarching vision to create a better life at home for as many people as possible.
“The world is constantly changing, and our home furnishing designs are also ever-evolving with specific intent to create a better life at home for everyone,” said Ulf Axelsson, IoT Architect at IKEA Home Smart. “Elevating our membership within the Zigbee Alliance to the board level enables our company to play a larger role in influencing the global IoT movement that’s connecting technology, design, and imagination. Our goal is to democratize smart home technology by offering affordable products to everyone.”
Smart Home Living for Everyone
A tiny Swedish mail-order catalogue business started by Ingvar Kamprad in 1943 today operates as a global home furnishing brand dedicated to making great design available to everyone. To bring amazing products to people the world over, IKEA products are created around five dimensions: low price, function, form, quality, and sustainability.
The IKEA Home Smart portfolio includes smart lighting, smart blinds, smart speakers, and wireless accessories. In 2018 alone, IKEA sold more than five million Zigbee devices. Beyond offering intelligent devices that allow consumers to transform and control their living spaces, IKEA is also squarely focused on creating positive impact and change within the communities and people they source from, as well as respecting the planet.
This environmental emphasis and overall collaborative nature between IKEA partners, divisions, and employees is key to the organization’s remarkable success – and is an approach that will be applied to the market-changing measures steadily underway via the Zigbee Alliance.
“As the curators of enjoyable home design and enriched living, IKEA is a tremendous gain to the Alliance leadership. Their ability to make imaginative, affordable connected home products accessible to consumers across all classes and categories forms the core of great connected device experiences,” said Tobin Richardson, President and CEO, Zigbee Alliance.
“We're excited for IKEA to bring that innovation and consumer-centricity to our open IoT standards, and help facilitate collaboration between smart products and the innovative companies behind them. Our shared commitment to align and move companies to open standards at product design is what helps ensure that all IoT products ‘just work’ once installed,” concluded Richardson.
