The Brief
A young Pakistani couple had just bought their first home — a 3-bedroom townhouse in Town Square. They wanted smart lighting, smart blinds and a starter automation setup but didn't have AED 30K+ for a high-end system. They'd already bought a few IKEA TRÅDFRI bulbs themselves and asked us if we could build their smart home around what was available off the shelf at IKEA Festival City.
The brief was a complete starter setup — lighting, blinds, basic automation — under AED 6K total, built on hardware they could top up themselves at any IKEA store.
The Build
18 IKEA TRÅDFRI bulbs across the home
Living, dining, kitchen, master, kids' room and entry — all on TRÅDFRI white spectrum bulbs. The whole house can shift from cool task light to warm evening light, controlled by scene or schedule.
6 IKEA FYRTUR smart blinds
The west-facing living room and the master bedroom have FYRTUR blackout blinds. Battery-powered, charging port hidden inside the cassette. They close on a schedule at 2pm in summer to block heat and at 9pm in the master to dim the room before sleep.
IKEA DIRIGERA hub plus Home Assistant
DIRIGERA handles the IKEA devices natively and exposes them to Apple HomeKit. Home Assistant on a Raspberry Pi sits alongside, pulling everything in and adding the scenes, schedules and automations that the IKEA app alone can't handle.
4 motion sensors for hallway and bathroom automation
Hallway lights come on at 20% if anyone moves through after sunset. Master bathroom gets a low warm wash at night so a midnight trip doesn't blast cool light at sleepy eyes.
Five smart plugs for appliance control
The TV, the coffee machine, the kettle, the washing machine and the kids' room desk lamp all on smart plugs. Schedules turn the kettle on five minutes before the alarm. The TV gets killed at midnight if nobody has touched it for an hour.
The Outcome
- Total scope: AED 5,400 including all IKEA hardware, the Raspberry Pi, install and an evening of scene tuning.
- A starter setup that doesn't feel like a starter setup. Scenes, automations, voice control, schedules — all the stuff people pay 5x for elsewhere.
- Easy to expand. The owner has already added two more bulbs himself since handover.
- Open underneath. When he's ready to step up, Home Assistant means the IKEA gear keeps working alongside whatever he adds next.
- First-time-friendly. We trained the couple on the basics and they've been running it independently since.
This project is part of our IKEA work — a great starting point for first-time smart home buyers.