After what seems like an eternity (for IKEA and HomeKit fans, at least), the Swedish furniture maker has added support for Apple's smart home platform. As 9to5Mac notes, so long as you have the company's Tradfri hub installed at your house, you'll be able to start controlling the lighting via your iOS device. It's worth noting that, this will only work with smart lightbulbs at this time; dimmer switches aren't online just yet. More than that, the hub integrates with Amazon's Alexa so if you aren't all-in on HomeKit, you can still use voice commands to turn your lights on and off. Google Assistant support isn't included in this update, however.

With its new Smart color bulb, Sylvania has jettisoned the Lightify brand (and has stepped away from the Ledvance corporate identity). But while the company has lost some of its branding, its gained something else: support for Apple's HomeKit system without requiring an external hub. Functionally, this is nearly the same bulb as the old Ledvance Lightify RGBW. The only difference is that now, if you have an iOS device, you don't need to buy a standalone hub that plugs into wall power if you want to connect it to HomeKit. This saves some money (the bulb is the same price as the old Lightify) while decluttering your outlets.

This article originally appeared on the Motley Fool. Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) has officially stepped into the market for stationary speakers powered by virtual assistants, a product category that Amazon.com Amazon's Echo family continues to expand, recently adding the Echo Look and Echo Show. Apple has never put all that much weight into being the first to market provided it can be the best when it finally gets there. With that in mind, how does the new HomePod stack up against the dominant Echo?