Here's how to add Ikea Trådfri lights to the Philips Hue Bridge hub

The key selling point of Ikea’s smart home accessories is that they’re cost-effective without any serious compromises in remote control or platform support — Trådfri lights work with Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and Apple HomeKit. As good as they are on their own though, they can be even better if you use them with your Philips Hue Smart Hub (a.k.a. the Hue Bridge).

Luckily, it’s not too hard to add Trådfri lights to Philips Hue. It may sound counterintuitive, what with Philips being a competing brand, but the trick is that the Hue Smart Hub uses the Zigbee protocol. This means you can shop around for Zigbee-compliant smart bulbs from Ikea or elsewhere, though you should always doublecheck Hue compatibility online.

Connecting your Trådfri lights to the Philips Hue Smart Hub

Connecting your lights is quite simple on paper, if not necessarily intuitive. Follow these steps, as per Ikea’s website:

• Ensure that the Trådfri lights you want to connect are installed in their sockets, and have an updated software version (1.2.x or later).
• Keep the lights close to the Hue Smart Hub.
• Search for new devices using the Philips Hue app.
• Do a factory reset of the lights by toggling their power switch(es) 6 times.

If all goes according to plan, the lights should be connected to the Hue ecosystem, and by extension any platforms that support Hue.

What if I have problems connecting Trådfri to the Hue Smart Hub?

In theory, the Hue app should be able to discover Trådfri lights the same way it does any other Zigbee bulb. There is a possibility your accessories won’t show up however, so you may have to keep trying until they do.

Here are some tips to make setup work smoothly:

• Try to get your bulbs as close to the Smart Hub as possible.
• To cut down on interference, turn off any other Zigbee hubs you might be using — just for the time it takes you to sync your Ikea lights. Some smart speakers and displays have built-in hubs, such as the 4th gen Amazon Echo.
• Finally, you might turn off your native Hue bulbs as well.

With that advice in tow, you should have everything you need to know to get Trådfri gear hooked up to your Hue Smart Hub. Once you follow these steps, you’ll be able to control your Trådfri bulbs from the Hue app, or any Hue-compatible smart home platform.