New IKEA Home Planner: Sneak Peek Exclusive! 
Latest information, pictures and news on IKEA Kitchens 2011.
Pictures, info and more on new IKEA Children's line in 2011.
Latest photos and product info on IKEA Bedrooms for 2011. 
Updated info, tips and tricks on the IKEA Home Planner.
Actual screenshot from the new IKEA Home Planner Software, yet to be released.
In an interview exclusive to IKEAFANS (w00t!), Jesper M., of IKEA’s IT department in Helsingborg, Sweden, discussed the new home planning software currently in development. Unlike the existing desktop-based planning software, the new IKEA Home Planner is an online planning tool based on 20-20’s Virtual Planner which will be Mac-compatible (edited 9/10/09 for clarity. S.M.). 20-20 Technologies and IKEA announced in July 2008 that their 3-D planner had been selected by IKEA to give customers the ability to design their rooms on the web, but details of the product have been hush-hush until now. (See more screenshots after the jump!)
20-20’s Virtual Planner will give IKEA customers the power to create and visualize spaces in a fully interactive 3D setting, putting them in the decorator’s seat,”
said Jean-François Grou, president/COO of 20-20 Technologies. Because the planner will be web-based, the current painfully long 9-10 month development cycle will be a thing of the past. Prices and product information can be updated on the fly to keep current with the catalog and store offerings, and errors can be corrected as they are noted. The new platform also lends itself to greater extensibility, allowing IKEA to expand the available product range allowing for future inclusion of items from other ‘rooms’. Notes Jesper, “There’s always been an intent that it should grow from just a kitchen planner to include all the IKEA range.”
In fact, this change to a new platform has spawned a fundamental change in the way IKEA develops 3D models of its products. Previously, 3D product models were recreated for each and every 3D application or usage. Now, plans are being made to make the creation of 3D models a part of the product development process. This should lead to greater consistency across 3D applications (See IKEA’s Space Maker for an example), a larger inventory of modeled products and a decrease in time to life. But don’t look for changes right away cautions Jesper, “customers will experience the benefits from this within a couple of years.”
IKEA Home Planner History
IKEA Home Planner, Version 1.1
Current IKEA Home Planner, FY10
Next Generation IKEA Home Planner
IKEA’s first planning tools allowed customers to design kitchen and office spaces (see image right: IKEA Home Planner Version 1.1) and later, a PAX planner was available for planning wardrobes. The software was often buggy and difficult to use, leading to frustrations on the part of both customers and co-workers alike. Though much improved over the earliest planning software launched almost 10 years ago, the current planner (see image right: Current IKEA Home Planner, FY10) remains challenging to master and severely limited in its flexibility. It is also not compatible with Macintosh to the fury of Mac lovers everywhere.
According to Jesper, the software wasn’t originally meant as a selling and planning tool, “ it was more a way to show what the possibilities are with the help of computer software.” It has, however, turned into one of the top 20 critical applications for IKEA.
IKEA Planner Purpose
The objective of the planner software for IKEA is to ”make the kitchen sales process more effective and less time consuming in the store”, by allowing for a way to save drawings directly to IKEAs servers. Although with the current technology, it’s not possibleimpractical (requiring the use of two corollary systems) to convert a planner .fpf file into a sales order, the ultimate intention is to be able to “transfer these drawings into our selling systems, thus saving enormous amounts of work for the sales personnel in every store.” Not to mention making it easier on the customer!
In October, IKEA will begin beta testing in an unnamed Scandinavian country. No date has been set for the rest of the world to get a look, but you can bet we’ll be letting you know as soon as we do! Watch this space for a Q&A with Jesper tomorrow!
Tags: 2020 Software, hadirajan, IKEA Home Planner, IKEA Home Planner Software, IKEA IT
What is the name of that dining table/kitchen island and the two white chairs in that first screenshot?!?!
That’s the STENSTORP island and it looks like HENRIKSDAL bar stools. Isn’t it pretty? The island is pictured on page 49 of the new IKEA Kitchen Catalog. Hope that helps!
A correction to the article above.
It IS possible to transfer drawing already today, but this requires a lot of extra work and 2 extra supporting systems. With the new IKEA Homeplanner it will be much much easier.
IkeaorBust:
The kitchen island is Stenstorp and the barstools Henriksdal.
Yes, you’re absolutely right Susan!
It’s actually a replica of one of the kitchen pictures in the wide selection that you can see online.
I can hardly wait!! Looks fabulous!
OMG, this looks amazing! I cannot wait to get my fingers on it!
I need it in Mac!!!! Why oh why don’t they make it Mac-compatible?
It WILL BE Mac Compatible! That’s half the point of going to an online planner. Cross-compatible on browsers and platforms. Here’s the proof: http://bit.ly/3w8Wca :D
I have just started planning my new kitchen. Using the planning program at IKEA in West Sacramento (I have a IMAC at home). it kept kicking out the price on the refrigerator. I had to keep deleting it and putting it back on. Once I got the gist of it and of course a few helpful hints from the IKEA folks I finally got 2 plans on paper. Now I just did a hand drawn one also. Hopefully this new program gets out soon and does not have too many bugs in it.
I was reading in past post on IkeaFans the following responding to a question about using Ikea Planner in Linux, this was sent by hadirajan
IKEA Co-Worker, IT Department:
Quote—-
Hello everyone,
Yes, we’re of course very much aware of the situation today, not everybody owns a PC or runs Windows on it. This has been taken into consideration for the new tool.
The new planner will be a web based system that is accessible through IE, Firefox, Opera, Safari etc. So hopefully this will solve a lot of the problem there.
And with Ubuntu gaining grounds this should be a future thing as well.
I hope that you are carrying through with what he said, of course we are few but if you make the web app OS agnostic then it can run on anything that is commonly used with a web browser.
I tried to use your present planner under Wine in linux, it runs but shows a black screen in the planning area. Looking forward to this new product and if you need someone to test it on Linux I will be most happy to.
Does this new planner have the UDDEN kitchn series in it? And some other discontinued items for us to design.
I’ve *just* tried out the current kitchen planner with
wine-1.1.32-1mdv2010.0
under Mandriva 2010.0.
It kind of works! I was able to load a previously created fpf file, and the 3D view looks fine. The 2D view is a little odd, the view doesn’t clean up old items, and the room dimension view (where you determine the room size and shape) doesn’t work very well. Also, it wasn’t possible to scroll through all the various cabinets, but I could still create a kitchen of some sort.
BUT this is certainly a step forward. I certainly look forward to the
new web based version though. It looks neat!
How do you get the Mac compatible planner? Or is it out yet? Very confusing!
Can anyone direct me too a working link for the online planner in English ( Mac compatible ) http://kitchenplanner.ikea.com/DK/UI/Pages/VPUI.htm?Lang=en-GB this link starts in English but all the components are in Danish? Also even if you translate it all you cant use it because you must be logged in to save it print it or email it VERY frustrating
Any help is greatly appreciated
On ubuntu/firefox the planner doesn’t get any further than the loading indicator.
Got it to load on IE 8 today but when using it very frustrating and slow. seems to be online all the time so each change happens slowly. I am working with a large room so may be slowing the programme. Prefer the old version. As new version won’t let me put horizontal cabinets one on top of another. Also all white cabinets show up as Grey. Went to save it, then had to register but kicked me back to planner home page (kitchen plan lost!). Maybe just some kinks as new release…how is everyone else getting on?
http://kitchenplanner.ikea.com/ca/
http://kitchenplanner.ikea.com/us/
These work great
also great for macs as it all web based
What about a DEP compatible version?
Because my internet explorer will not open the regular version.
And it is not possible to change the settings for the DEP function,
before the program is installed on my computer.
Im using IE 8.0 and nearly every time I open up a kitchen plan, either new or existing, IE 8.0 “encounters a problem with the IKEA.com site” and closes the plan and kicks me back to the start. Anyone have any suggestions? Settings in IE 8 maybe ??
Heeft iemand een weblink om de IKEA-Keukenplanner op wine-ubuntu installeren te kunnen?
Edited to Add Translation: Does anyone have a link to the IKEA Kitchen Planner on wine-ubuntu to install?
Does not work under Linux! Am using Firefox, and Ikea Planner tells me I’m using an unsupported browser, and that I should use Firefox or IE or Safari. As long as the browser is listed, the operating system should not matter.
This is very sloppy, and I am disappointed with Ikea IT.
I agree with Andreas – I am using Firefox on Ubuntu 10.04 and get the response that I should use Firefox!!
The Internet is OS Agnostic – people shouldn’t write Web Based apps that don’t run on certain OSs it goes against the very nature of the Internet.
Same problem here with new Ikea planner and Linux + Firefox.
Please solve the problem or suggest a workaround. Ikea is definitely losing customers in this way.
Also using Ubuntu + Firefox and can’t get the IKEA Planner to work. The User Agent Add-in seems to do something, but it doesn’t get me past the loading screen.
I can use Windows XP in Virtualbox to try out your planner, but disappointed that this online tool is not OS agnostic. Especially in this day and age where iOS and Android smartphones/tablets are slowly filling in all our computing needs, seeing an online resource like this stuck in the past is disheartening to say the least.
Indeed: IKEA planner is not for Linux users?
Everybody using Linux should send an email to IKEA, telling them they should support Linux too. The more people send emails, the more pressure.
Ikea,
Please support Linux…
Kthnx bye!
That’s such a pitty that Ikea does not support Linux. I’ll have to use SweetHome3D, which is java based and thus OS agnostic.
The good thing is that I’ll be able to test any kind of furnishable, not only the Ikea ones, in my next kitchen.
Please Ikea, fix your code.
Cannot get 3d planner to open. Running IE8 Vista32 system. Data Execution Prevention stops planner from running and stops IE. Any ideas?
ML
Why does your software does not work on Ubuntu linux with Firefox ?
Using firefox under linux, still the page says “Browser not supported.”
This software sucks.
So sad, linux is not supported. I’ll probably give SweetHome3D (www.sweethome3d.com) a try.
I use Firefox and the Ikea webpage sends me to a page making me choose between Firefox, internet explorer and safari. Strange! Oh it is because I use Ubuntu, the same software the IKEA server runs on. Then the homeplanner app does not work! Think again Ikea! Open Source Software should be your first choice always, also on the customer side!
Hello people,
Only one thing to say, when will you do something for Linux users ?
bye
Yes, please make for Linux.
Doesn’t work in ubuntu with firefox, get the same errors as mentioned aboove so much for platform agnostic, oh well, won’t be buying an IKEA kitchen then, a pity you didn’t do any cross platform/browser compatibility testing.
Hello
Any chance of being to use a old .fpf file from the old planner version? I’ve revisited an old design and don’t want to build it from scratch
tia
Jeremy
LINUX!!!!!!!!
doesn’t work on linux machine, I agree with DH
I’m trying to buy up to £8k worth of new kitchen and utility room. I can’t get the 3d planning application to work with Firefox under Linux (actually it won’t even install, it doesn’t recognise that the browser is indeed Firefox).
This is pathetic. The sort of person to use a DIY operating system is also the sort of person to buy a DIY IKEA kitchen. Why don’t they even give an intelligent error message when trying to use the 3d tool?
Ikea, please get your act together. Don’t distribute rubbish that good for Windoze only!
It does not work on linux! Too bad!
Can you guys recommend me a decent alternative to this IKEA piece of software that works well on linux?
They just added a requirement that useragent should have “windows” or “osx” in it, if you change useragent in linux firefox, it works okay. That’s just so stupid, who makes sites like that! Can anyone transfer the message to the IKEA IT department, because of a stupid mistake they are losing tons of customers that run other OS’s.