Leroy Merlin already has his alternative to IKEA Smart Home

You may not have heard of ENKI before, Leroy Merlin’s home automation ecosystem. A proposal that you are still interested in knowing due to aspects such as its ease of use and the fact that it is a multiprotocol solution with which the DIY store chain hopes to attract all those users who seek to dogmatize their home without many complications. Of course, there are a couple of details that you should know first.

What is ENKI

ENKI

Let’s start with the basics, what is ENKI? Well, as we have already told you, it is the home automation solution or ecosystem of products designed for the connected home that Leroy Merlin has. You could say that it is like the alternative to IKEA Smart Home. And we say this and not other solutions on the market because the idea behind it seems to offer simplicity and a good price to its regular customers, but also to the rest who are interested.

It is this simplicity and price that are the main reasons that ENKI exposes when presenting itself to the general public, although we will see that there are also some other aspects that could be interesting if you are thinking of dogmatizing your home.

The first and most important is multiprotocol support, also being easy to manage from an iOS and Android mobile app, as well as being accessible through a very popular chain of stores. The latter is what makes it a kind of natural competitor for the other platform marketed by one of its great competitors, IKEA.

How ENKI works

The use and operation of ENKI is not different from that of other home automation solutions, but it is true that it is much easier than proposals such as, for example, Home Assistant. So the necessary learning curve is easier to assume for users with less technical knowledge.

Knowing this, it is not necessary to think that it is an excessively basic solution. Once the bridge is connected and configured through the smartphone application, the only thing that will have to be done is to add the different devices that we want to control with the use of said app. These devices can make use of different connection protocols.

ENKI is multiprotocol , which means that it allows the use of devices compatible with EnOcean, ZigBee, BT, WiFi, Somfy RTS and some others. The only one that is not supported out of all those considered mainstream is Z-Wave.

Otherwise, this system is also compatible with voice assistants from Amazon and Google. So you can continue to use your speaker with Alexa or Google Assistant to control lights and other connected devices with spoken commands.

Price and where to buy ENKI from Leroy Merlin

Here’s the bad news for now: ENKI can only be bought in France. That is to say, despite the fact that there are Leroy Merlin stores in Spain, the company has not yet decided to launch the ecosystem in other countries that are the French country.

Logically, it should only be a matter of time before it arrives, because the commitment to this type of solution could be important and very beneficial for the store chain. As well as for IKEA itself, which are its connected products of the Tradfri, Symphonisk, etc. series, it has shown that it is an important market and capable of generating great income.

So, for now, either you follow ENKI on a getaway you make to France or you wait for it to arrive. The two options that exist have a price of 1,19 and 29 euros depending on whether it is the largest and most capable switchboard (up to 450 devices) or the small one. But whatever it is, the important thing is that you already know what it is.