IKEA MYGGBETT Review: Door State in Apple Home on One AAA

By Matthew Easterday · Published Aug 3, 2026 First-hand tested

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The iPhone Camera app reads a HomeKit pairing code and opens the Home app on its own. Point it at the MYGGBETT’s Matter code and nothing happens.

That’s the first thing to know about setting this sensor up, and it isn’t in the box’s instructions, because there aren’t any. The box contains two bars with 3M adhesive on their backs, and a QR code that leads to IKEA’s app, which you don’t need. The bigger bar is the sensor, with a button and an indicator light. The smaller one is the magnet. Magnet on the door, sensor on the frame, and a molded line across the sensor’s face marks where the magnet should line up. It’s forgiving about placement.

Power is one AAA, not included. I bought a stack of IKEA’s LADDA 750 rechargeables because most of the 2026 IKEA range feeds on them, and getting one into this sensor was the worst part of the whole experience: the adhesive back plate needs a flat pry tool to lever off, and behind it a stiff inner door with a narrow slot. A small flathead got it open.

The battery lasts, at least. The unit on my front door still reads 60% after a few months of daily openings, which points at roughly a year per charge.

Adding it to Apple Home

Since the Camera app won’t do it, the route is: Home app, Add Accessory, More Options. With the battery in and the light slow-blinking, the sensor shows up on its own, and from there you can scan or type the setup code. The printed code is on the side of the device. A QR copy also hides under the 3M strip on the back, which I found only after typing the number.

One note for anyone photographing their setup: that code is the device’s pairing passcode, it works forever, and published guides blur theirs for a reason. Mine is obscured in every image here.

Adding took a few minutes end to end. I’m on the iOS 27 beta, and the rename bug from my GRILLPLATS setup showed up again, plus an Identify button that did nothing. Both worked normally once setup finished.

Living with it

This one became Hall Door, in the Garage, and I switched Display As from Contact Sensor to Door. Do this for any contact sensor guarding an actual door: the Home app then draws a door that’s open or closed, which reads at a glance.

The indicator light gives a quick double blink each time the magnet leaves or returns:

State changes land in the app immediately. The one exception was during the firmware update.

The slow update, explained

Apple Home offered an update the moment the sensor joined: 1.0.9 on the device, 1.1.4 available, dated May 18, 2026, delivered through Home Settings with no IKEA app involved. Then it crawled. A spinner with no progress figure, one apparent failure back to “Update Available,” and finally a state I hadn’t seen before: “Update Requested — the requested update will be installed when the accessory is ready.” The app also stopped reflecting the door opening and closing until the update finished.

It turns out that’s just how Matter firmware reaches a battery device. Updates move over a bulk-transfer protocol, and a sensor like this is a sleepy device that dozes between events to save battery, so the transfer only advances while it happens to be awake. That’s the behavior Apple’s “when the accessory is ready” wording is describing.

Both units updated this way: slow, no progress figure, states that read like failures, and then, eventually, firmware 1.1.4. The second was even sitting close to the Thread mesh during setup and still took its time, so I can’t point at distance or anything else with confidence. I left it alone, and a few hours later it had finished on its own.

For most people this whole section describes something they will never see. Automatic accessory updates are switched on in my Home settings, so if I had not opened the update screen out of curiosity, the firmware would have arrived in the background without me knowing. If an update truly sticks, people report success moving the device nearer a border router or restarting the border router.

What to automate with a door sensor

After living with contact sensors, my view is that they’re for knowing state and getting alerts, not for driving lights. Lights-on-open sounds clever until you walk out through the garage, turn the lights off behind you, and the door re-triggers them as you leave.

The automation I actually use is the away alert. Apple Home’s notifications can fire only when nobody is home, and an interior garage door opening in an empty house is worth a ping, while the same event with people home is noise. A door to an unconditioned space also pairs naturally with a thermostat, easing the HVAC when it’s left open. And the pairing I actually want is a lock: door closes, deadbolt throws. That waits on a lock being installed here, and it’s what would make a contact sensor feel like security hardware rather than a chime.

If you do want lights on a door, gate them the way my MYGGSPRAY gates the living room: only when a light sensor reads dark, with a short auto-off.

Hands-on notes

Two units. The first has been on the front door for a few months, opening and closing every day, and has never missed a state change or needed attention. Its battery reads 60%, its firmware made it to 1.1.4 after a slow update of its own, and I stopped thinking about it shortly after it went up.

The second went onto the garage hall door on August 3, 2026, as Hall Door, displayed as a Door, battery at 94% on a LADDA 750. Setup took a few minutes once I stopped expecting the Camera app to read the code. Its firmware update finished unattended a few hours after setup, and both units now run 1.1.4.

Verdict

Four and a half out of five. It does exactly what it is supposed to: report a door’s state to Apple Home, immediately, for months at a time, on one rechargeable AAA. The half point comes off for the battery compartment, which needs a pry tool, and for update pacing that looks broken the first time you meet it.

Matthew Easterday

Runs the homekit.reviews test home, a real mixed Matter/Thread/HomeKit house. Everything reviewed here was set up, paired, and lived with. See how I test →