Hands-on: IKEA’s simple smart home tech rocks, but Google Home holds it back [Gallery]

IKEA took to CES for the first time ever this year in an effort to show off its new smart home tech, which continues to get better and better, but there’s one big asterisk for Google Home users based on early user impressions.

Late last year, IKEA announced new smart home products that connect over Matter. They’re very affordable, starting at just $8, and IKEA touts that they support various smart home apps.

In person, they work super well, even with the truly awful network conditions that come with a trade show the size of CES. Connected lights respond quickly and the buttons and scroll wheels of the “BILRESA” remotes feel great in to use.

But there’s a bit of a hiccup in the Google Home ecosystem. As some of our commenters mentioned, as well as some on Reddit have found, Google Home doesn’t properly support some of these generic devices just yet, the buttons in particular. They’ll connect, but…