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The lamp itself is not entirely unassuming itself – especially if you opt for the white finish of our test sample – resembling something of an Apple Homepod in a hot air balloon, but being half home furnishing the design is by definition something you would have to want to see in your house regardless of its sonic capabilities. A bedroom is a wonderful place for a smart lamp because you can program the light to dim and brighten with stages of your day," Buchanan says. "Have it slowly dim and turn off at night, and program it to slowly brighten when it is time to wake up. A family or entertainment room can be a great place, too, as you can set the mood with various colors and effects to match what's going on in the room." Extra Features We've tested these speakers over a very long time and while we love their sound, we don't love everything. Siri isn't as good as other digital assistants and seems rather buggy too: we've slept late a few times because alarms we asked Siri to set, and which Siri confirmed setting, didn't go off. Siri also seems to struggle with accents. And if you don't have Apple Music, you're quite limited in what you can listen to. You can't ask the HomePod mini to play anything through Spotify – that can only be enabled through AirPlay, and requires using your phone rather than the simpler method of asking Siri to play tunes with your voice. There's also a much smaller number of compatible smart home devices that work with the smart speaker, compared to the range available for Alexa and Google Assistant-enabled smart speakers. The advanced science and engineering involved in the Lightcycle task light by Dyson push far beyond any typical desk lamp, smart or otherwise. Its uniquely industrial, linear aesthetic won't suit all preferences or home decor styles, just like many features won't be necessary for most users. The crossbar construction and rotating base let you place the light precisely where you want with just a light touch. Consider whether the lamp needs to be plugged in at all times or if it can be placed after being charged. Lamps that don’t require a power connection provide more flexibility in placement throughout the room and are often best for ambiance instead of utilitarian lighting.
According to Buchanan, connecting to the hub and additional smart lighting in the Hue line can be worthwhile for smart home aficionados. "I like the Philips Hue Iris because it can easily integrate with Philips' other lights to make impressive displays," says Buchanan. "Like other Philips Hue smart lighting products, the quality and brightness of the lights are top notch." It isn’t that the Symfonisk is particularly bad in any regard, but its rhythmic sense and organisation isn’t quite the tightest we’ve heard from a wireless speaker at this price. Though there is certainly more space here than with IKEA and Sonos’s bookshelf speaker, it isn’t impossible for the presentation to seem a little busy, particularly with denser arrangements, and clarity can suffer on such occasions too. SYMFONISK speaker lamp base needs to be completed with a lampshade from the SYMFONISK series. The lampshades are specifically designed to support the best sound experience possible. Smart Speakers can even be used for light entertainment in the form of jokes and games and also allow you to stay in touch with friends and family by making audio calls through the device. Smart lamps can become a staple product in your home. Many people are first exposed to smart products through smart lighting, and smart lamps are a direct extension of that. These lamps often feature equally as many (if not more) features than a standard smart bulb because they are designed from the ground up to serve a specific purpose.If you're looking for a smart speaker with Google Assistant built-in, the Google Nest Audio is currently the best Google-manufactured smart speaker you can buy; we liked the Google Home Max speaker, but Google has stopped making it. By connecting this product to DIRIGERA hub, you get even more out of it and can also control it, together with other smart products, in the IKEA Home smart app.
degree sound means that the sound spreads out better in the room – and provides a better experience for the listener. But even when you ignore the Symfonisk’s obvious USP, this is a good-sounding speaker – one we certainly wouldn’t mind sitting on our desk or bedside table. If that wasn’t enough, a smart speaker can also control compatible smart home devices; for example it can dim or brighten any smart lights you have in your home, turn the temperature up or down if you have a smart thermostat and let you converse with anyone at your doorstep by connecting to your video doorbell. Which voice assistant is best?It can go loud too, of course, but focussing more on its output starts to highlight a few of the reasons those after truly great multi-room sound will unsurprisingly have to forgo the lighting and either spend a bit more on the Sonos One or change eco-systems to something such as Audio Pro. You can create a stereo pair by connecting 2 identical Wi-Fi speakers, it also works with 1 floor lamp speaker and 1 speaker lamp base with Wi-Fi. Our dialling down of the bass helps keep the soundstage from becoming overly cluttered, without making it sound thin or weak, and there is certainly more space here than with the lamp’s bookshelf counterpart. For us, the audio performance is the key reason to buy the HomePod mini. It's excellent for a speaker that's so small, and it really feels like the right mix of price and sound quality. The bass isn't too heavy, vocals aren't lost in the mix, and when you pair two minis the stereo experience is really immersive. It's just a shame that Siri feels like it's lagging behind rival assistants.
At IKEA, we’re great at home furnishing but new to sound. Sonos, on the other hand, has expertise in sound and technology and is curious about new ways of making sound blend into the home – the same as us. Anton Galang is a freelance writer and reviewer who covers smart home gadgets and a variety of consumer tech for The Spruce and Lifewire. He studied journalism with a focus on magazine editing and began working in the tech field as part of PC Magazine in 2007. He uses a variety of smart home products on a daily basis in his own home, including smart lighting, thermostats, displays, and more.Since launching the first SYMFONISK table lamp speaker, we learned a lot about how and where they are being used. For example, a lot of people use the lamp speaker on a nightstand, which led us to create a new, slightly smaller lamp base. We’re now also offering customers more design choices, making the lamp speaker a better fit for their individual homes”, says Stjepan Begic, product owner at IKEA of Sweden. “By integrating a speaker into a table lamp, we can save space, decrease clutter, and create atmosphere with both light and sound,” he adds. Smart lamps often function on their own rather than connecting directly to one another, but you can control multiple lamps if you integrate them into a certain hub or smart platform. Philips Hue lamps, for example, are designed to work seamlessly with each other and any Philips Hue lights if you connect them with a Hue Bridge. Having multiple lamps synced to a virtual assistant like Alexa can also let you set routines to control them all together.
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