Not so long ago there were rumours floating around that a new Trådfri Gateway was coming at some point. This, to some extent, has been suggested due to the recent scarcity of the current gateway in Ikea locations, both online and in-store. That alone doesn’t usually suggest an imminent model, but as per the article on smartapfel.de, Ikea recently used the text “Last chance! Only available for a short time” in relation to the extant gateway, hinting that the product is due to be withdrawn from sale, and replaced with a newer model.
That may or may not be true, but with Tradfri Redditor u/Caschy now posting a link to an image of a previously unseen image of what appears to be a new gateway (named the Dirgera), things are starting to look more likely that a new hub is in the offing. Currently, there seems to be no evidence of a new hub via places like the FCC.io website, but given the age of the gateway still on sale, it would make sense to be introducing a new product at this point.
What could the new gateway offer us, is the question though? Well, at present, it’s all pure speculation, but what would make sense is a new hub with support for the upcoming smart home standard ‘Matter’. With the hub supporting Zigbee, and the Zigbee alliance largely overseeing the introduction of Matter under the new name of The Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) it would be in Ikea’s best interests to make sure their products are going to be ‘future-proof’ to some extent.
Visually, the hub looks a lot more appealing than the current hub, appearing to look around two thirds the height of the current model, if we assume the diameter of the two are the same or closer, with what appears to be both a button (for pairing?) and a status light.
Beyond that, it’s also entirely possible that the new hub would also be capable of acting as a Thread Border Router, which we’ve seen come about with some of Nanoleaf’s latest products. This would then lend the gateway to be of more value to users who may have a mix of Zigbee-based Ikea products and Thread devices.
If any of these suggestions come to pass, it’s a good thing, but as usual, we’ll have to wait and see.