Color-changing floor lamps have been the fastest shortcut to a moody, layered living room for a few years now. But the best-known versions, like the Philips Hue Signe gradient floor lamp and Govee's floor lamps, cost anywhere from a hundred to several hundred dollars and assume you want an app involved. IKEA's newest release takes the opposite bet: that most people just want the glow, not the ecosystem.
The FÖRLIG, designed by Henrik Preutz and Ida Pettersson Preutz, is a slender 52-inch light column on a compact 6.6-inch metal base, priced at $24.99 in the US (£17 in the UK).
One Lamp, Three Placements
What makes the FÖRLIG genuinely interesting for decorating isn't the price. It's that the same lamp works as a floor lamp, a wall light, or a ceiling pendant. The base, a wall bracket, and a cord hook all come in the box, so you can change your mind without buying anything new (though you'll need to supply your own screws for wall or ceiling mounting).
That flexibility solves a real small-space problem. In a narrow bedroom, floor space for a lamp often doesn't exist, but mounted vertically beside the headboard, the FÖRLIG does the job of a plug-in sconce. Hung from the ceiling in a reading corner, it reads as a slim pendant. And standing behind a sofa or beside a media console, it does what light columns do best: washes the wall in color and softens all the hard rectangles of a TV wall.
Ten Colors, No App Required
Instead of smartphone control, the FÖRLIG cycles through ten colors and multi-color combinations with a physical button press. It also remembers your light preference, coming back on with the same color setting it had when you last turned it off.
There's no color blending, no scheduling, no voice control. If you want those, Hue's Signe remains the (much pricier) answer. But for most people decorating a living room, a bedroom, or a cozy reading corner, ten colors and a memory function is more than enough to set the right mood without any of the technical setup that smart lighting typically requires.
Power comes via USB-C, although IKEA doesn't include the USB-C cable or power supply. If you want to mount the Förlig on the wall or hang it from the ceiling, you'll also need to provide your own screws. It is worth keeping that in mind before your first setup, but neither is a dealbreaker given the overall value on offer.
At $24.99, the FÖRLIG is one of the cheapest ways we've seen to add a dedicated color accent to a room, and the three mounting options make it a good option for renters and small homes. With holiday-season rooms about to want all the warm glow they can get, it's an easy, low-commitment buy.
Photography courtesy of IKEA
