PACKAGING | CONTENTS

As my model is from China, the packaging – at least when I ordered it – is significantly different. Aside from the packaging, there’s really only one small physical difference, which I’ll point out shortly. There is another aspect of the Chinese model that differs that should be taken into account if you’re planning on purchasing this model; Both models work with 100~240V AC @ 50/60Hz, although the Chinese version only lists 220~240V AC. This is almost certainly due to it not being officially certified to work with 110~120V AC, which is the standard in North America and other places, like Taiwan in my case – Why bother to certify a product for a voltage it’s not going to be used for? It’s just something to be aware of, as the international models will be officially certified for both voltage standard in their respective regions, unlike the Chinese model.

There’s not a lot to see in my case, as it’s a simple brown box, and although it’s sturdy enough, with foam inside to protect it, there have been a couple of reports of broken diffusers, so just be aware of this possibility.

The T1M is pretty large, and is in fact the largest ceiling light I’ve owned to date, albeit by literally only one millimetre! The Mi Smart Ceiling Light 450 is 458mm in diameter to the T1M’s 459mm (review HERE, Video HERE). The former only offers warm to cool whites, and doesn’t support Apple’s Adaptive Lighting functionality, although to its credit, the LEDs do have a super low brightness feature, that the T1M isn’t capable of.

To stop the ring light from bleeding into the main light, and vice versa, there’s a white border around the edge of the main light to prevent such light leaks.

Aside from the light, there are three long screws and corresponding rawl plugs for mounting the ceiling light, and for the international model, you also get a bracket with wing nuts that allows you to affix the T1M where the same type of fixture has been used. This bracket is not provided in the Chinese model.

The main light comes with a large array of white LEDs – separate cool and warm ones – to provide most of the standard lighting as well as make use of the previously mentioned Adaptive Lighting. This feature, if you’re not aware, allows the light to adjust the colour temperature based on the time of day; so warm white in the morning, gradually changing to cooler white, to make you more alert and productive (I assume) with the light slowly heading back to warm white in the evening, so you can unwind before sleep. Once activated in Apple Home, you don’t need to do anything, it just works automatically.

The edge of the T1M is what allows it to stand out from most standard ceiling lights, which is the multicolour ring of colour LEDs (labelled as an “Auxiliary Lamp” in the Aqara app). This is essentially the company’s T1 LED strip, although it comes with 26 separately addressable zones, compared to the T1 Light Strips less impressive 10 zones (or 15 if you add a 1 metre extension). This ring light, whilst capable of warm and cool white (via the RGB LEDs), isn’t able to utilise Adaptive Lighting, even if the Apple Home app shows it’s capable of such a thing.

On the inside of the light there’s a small rubber grommet that allows you to pass your wires through to the connector. If you don’t have an earth/ground wire, that’s ok, but you will require a neutral and live wire, which is definitely going to be present even if the light switch connected to the light doesn’t have a neutral.

As far as fitting the T1M goes, you get the aforementioned screws and rawl plugs, and, as also mentioned, the bracket if you have the international model. Whilst you can use the bracket by itself, I’d recommend also using the screws, as the main body of the T1M isn’t as light as you’d imagine, due to the metal body.

IN AQARA HOME

For the T1 in the Aqara Home app, the main screen is separated into two main sections, one for the white light, and one for the ring light. The first of these allows you to control the power to both lights or just the main light itself. Brightness is for the main light only, and below that you have ‘effects’, although with white light, these effects are in some ways a little limited. The Tuneable White tab allows you to control the colour temperature and brightness, and that’s it, in essence.

When it comes to the UI for the ring light (née Auxiliary Lamp) there’s a fair bit more to take in just by nature of the fact we’re dealing with colour and multiple zones. So again, there’s a brightness slider and power button, with tabs for ‘effects’, ‘RGB Palette’, and RGB Spectrum. The latter two are just different methods by which to select your colour.

What’s neat about the main light is that with the Effects tab, you have the option to create a sort of ‘wake up’ lighting effect, so you can have the light gradually turn on over a period of time, to gently wake you up. There are more options, but I’ll leave you to experiment with those yourself.

Onto the colour LE ring light, and the ‘+’ tab gives you two options – Static Effects, and Dynamic Effects. The first of these allows you to colour the 26 different zones to any selection of colours you like, using the LED strip image at the top to do so. On the other hand, Dynamic Effects allows you to create a selection of colours (26 in total), and have them ‘animate’, for want of a better word, to create a sort of light show, with colours shifting and blending into each other. To animate these colours you have six different sync effects to choose from, with each providing a different type of motion to the colours. If you’re using Aqara’s T1 Light Strip, this will look very familiar.

IN APPLE HOME

In Apple Home, things are a little more organised, although you don’t get control of nearly as many aspects of either the main or ring lights, as you may have come to expect by now. you can have the T1M show as a single tile with both sliders together, or separately, as shown above. You get the standard sliders for each light, and as you can see, the main light has an ‘Adaptive Lighting’ option. You might also notice the ring light does too, and you’ll see it as an option in the colour picker screen. However, the ring light is not capable of this feature, even though it can produce white light.

THE T1M INSTALLED – MAIN LIGHT

I’m actually in possession of three of these lights, with two from China, and an international model, although currently, only one of these is installed right now. Where it’s situated, there was no wiring for a ceiling light, so instead, I fed a power cable to it, from an outlet hidden behind our cove lighting area.

Above are pictures I took of the light in three different colour temperature settings – cool, warm, and a mix of the two. Although the images don’t fully capture the look, in general I’d say the cools are about right as they’re shown, whilst the warm white is probably not quite as warm as is seen in the image above.

In terms of the representation of the brightness, the same applies with brightness levels; the light at 25 and 5 per cent, is probably going to be brighter than it’s shown in the images, but it’s here to simply demonstrate its dimming capabilities.

RING LIGHT

Many have asked if the ring light is enough to light a room, and of course that really depends on the size of the room. Still, the bottom line is that whilst this will be enough for you to not worry about tripping over things in the dark, it’s not going to be adequate for decent illumination on a day-to-day level. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, as it’s really to augment the main light, or in reality, for accent lighting and notifications.

As stated before, this ring light is capable of up to 26 different individual colours along its circumference, although in the Home app, you can only control solid colours, unless you resort to other means involving the Aqara app’s scene export feature. However, the colours are pretty accurate compared to the swatches in the Apple Home UI, and are really nicely saturated. Of course, colours are going to provide less illumination than whites or yellows, but they still look great.

Dynamic lighting effects are going to be hard to show in a written review, but for the sake of completeness, here are three effects selected to give you and idea of what they look like. For a better idea of the options, check out the full video for the T1M below;

IN DAY TO DAY USE

As already stated, I’ve had this light running for a good eight months, and so I can categorically say that in that time I’ve not encountered any issues so far. Problems with connectivity or even colour accuracy tend to show themselves pretty early on, but as this uses Zigbee 3.0, connectivity has been flawless. Colour accuracy for the ring light is really spot on, and with Adaptive Lighting for the main light, as well as coming in at 3,450 lumens when set to 100% cool white, this is more than enough for decent sized rooms.

The ring light animations are something that you might think are a gimmick, and I’d agree, as I don’t tend to use them except for the odd festive occasion. I did use a green and red scene I created specifically for Christmas, and a similar one for Chinese New Year, but beyond that, I’ve tended to stick to solid colours. I usually put the ring light to use for notifications, so if someone rings the doorbell (Aqara G4), or someone is using the shower, then the light will turn to an appropriate colour. That’s it really, but it works well for the limited purposes I’ve assigned to it.

Do I like it? Yes – it’s bright, reliable, and offers the extras I find useful (Adaptive Lighting, ring light). I’m extra happy it uses Zigbee as opposed to WiFi, and even if I think Thread would have been great, I’m pretty happy the way it is. Fitting it wasn’t massively difficult, although drilling into my concrete ceiling was less than straightforward, but with the bracket for the international model, it might be fairly easy for others.

As with any dedicated light fixture, there will of course come a time when the LEDs will eventually fail, and as such the whole light needs to be replaced. This is the same for any light fixture of this type – smart or not – but LEDs are designed to last a pretty long time, and even if you used this light for 8 hours a day, every day, you’re going to get around 8 years use from it based on a 25,00o hour lifespan. By that time you’re going to probably be looking to replace it for something new, and with Thread possibly, so I don’t think the concern is as valid as it might appear.

All in all I’m glad that Aqara has gone big when it comes to launching their first proper international lighting product, when they could have just gone with releasing their T1 light bulb to the international market, so let’s hope they continue to add more lighting products to their inventory, so we can all enjoy more Aqara lights.

The post Aqara Ceiling Light T1M (review) appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

THE LAMP

The L1, as I’ll refer to it hereon in, comes in a rather plain box, but you can be reassured Aqara have made the packaging strong enough to protect the contents. Aside from the line drawing on the front, there are some basic specs, all of which are in Simplified Chinese;

• Model: ZNXDD01LM
• Rated power: 24W (48 x 1W LED modules)
• Rated input: 220v~ 50/60Hz
• Wireless connection: Zigbee
• Colour temperature: 2700~6500K
• Operating temperature: -10~40ºC
• Operating humidity: 0~85%RH
• Weight: 1.23kg
• Dimensions: ⌀350 x 60mm

Aside from the lamp, there’s a basic manual, three screws and corresponding rawl plugs. As for the specs, it’s interesting to note that whilst it’s listed as “220v~50/60Hz”, it actually works perfectly well at 110~120V. This also happens to be the case with the T1 version of their smart bulb, which also doesn’t list the other voltage standard. This is most likely due to the lamp not requiring certification outside of China, where they only use 220-240V. This is not to say I’m endorsing anyone using this in a way other than as described on the box, but in my case, it does work on 110-120v.

The box is not the only thing that’s devoid of much to look at, but then it is a lamp so I’m not sure I can hold that against it. The diffuser is plain translucent plastic, and as the name would imply, the lamp is 350mm or 13.78 inches in diameter. With the diffuser removed, you can see the 48 LEDs, which are split into cool and warm white LEDs.

The underside of the lamp has three holes for affixing the lamp to the ceiling, as well as a separate hole for passing the power wires to the connectors inside the lamp.

The lamp has connectors for Live, Neutral, and Ground/Earth, and at the centre is what you might consider both the brains of the device, as well as the transformer to convert the power for the LEDs. The 48 LEDs are arranged in two rings, with the cool and warm white LEDs evenly distributed. The Mijia 450 Ceiling Light I reviewed a while ago looks pretty much the same, and is manufactured by Yeelight, so it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if this was also made for Aqara by Yeelight, or possibly Opple, with whom Aqara has cooperated before.

Just like the Mijia 450, the diffuser can be removed quite easily with a simple quarter turn. The diffuser and lamp are held together with three ‘clasps’ (I’m not sure what the actual term is). Aside from that, the only other distinguishing feature is a silver band that is more than likely just decorative. I’m not so keen, but then if it’s high up on the ceiling, it can’t be seen. Speaking of appearances, on the whole, the quality of the lamp belies its relatively low price, which is something of a feature of Aqara products.

 IN AQARA HOME

As the L1 uses Zigbee, you need an Aqara hub, and as it’s officially designed for China, you’ll need the app set to the China server, with a Chinese hub. You can see in the second screenshot that all my hubs are listed as compatible, even the G2H. If I sign out and use HomeKit mode in the Aqara app, the L1 even lists the original M1 Aqara hub as compatible. Whilst it may be possible to add the lamp to any server, it’s quite likely that it would show up in HomeKit, but not the Aqara app, or vice versa, or even neither, so if you wanted to try it on a server/hub other than China, you’d have to find out for yourself…

In the Aqara app you have two controls for the L1 – Static mode, and Dynamic mode. In the former mode, you can choose between cool to warm whites, and select the brightness, as expected. Below that are preset ‘scenarios’ or scenes, so all pretty standard stuff. Dynamic mode, on the other hand, allows you to create ‘dynamic’ scenes which are essentially animated light scenes that can be recalled within automations.

You can choose a name and an icon to best represent the scene you’re creating and then choose one of three ‘circulation’ modes. Once these are set you can go about setting up separate ‘light statuses’ which involve the colour temperature, brightness, as well as the transition time and duration of that status. The transition time is only relevant when you have more than one ‘light status’ set up of course. these dynamic scenes can be used in a variety of ways, but as an example, you could have the light pulse when the Aqara G4 video doorbell is rung, in cases where you might not hear the doorbell chime due to being in a room too far away, or because of loud music, or for those with hearing impairments. You could also set the transition, so that the light gradually turns from one brightness level to off, when you sit down to watch a movie, as part of a home cinema setup.

IN APPLE HOME

In terms of HomeKit integration, it’s mostly what you’d expect, with a single tile to represent the L1. The great news is that, along with other Aqara lighting products, the L1 is capable of using Apple’s Adaptive Lighting feature, which automates the colour temperature of the light for you, to match or replicate the type of light best suited for the time of day – mid-warm white for mornings, gradually changing to cool white to allow for more alertness and productivity, before slowly adjusting to warm white, to allow for relaxing before bedtime. To achieve this, you simply need to make sure the first of the six ‘colour’ options is set, which features the Adaptive Lighting graphic.

THE LIGHT

Here are some images of the L1 set to 100% warm white, at the following brightness levels – 100%, 50%, 25%, and 1%.

Here are some images of the L1 set to 100% cool white, at the following brightness levels – 100%, 50%, 25%, and 1%.

and finally, the L1, set to 1% in both temperatures alongside the lamp when it’s off, to give you a rough idea of how low the brightness levels are in reality. The L is capable of achieving a CRI* (Colour Rendering Index) of 90, which isn’t bad, although not as good as some lamps from the likes of Yeelight.

*color rendering index (CRI) is a quantitative measure of the ability of a light source to reveal the colours of various objects faithfully in comparison with a natural or standard light source. (source: Wikipedia)

What’s impressive is that when photographing bulbs, of which I’ve done a fair few, at low levels, you quite easily end up with a strobing effect appearing on the images you take. There seems to be none of that at any level when I took these images. Whether that’s due to the diffuser or some specific technology used, I’m not sure, but I think it’s a good sign.

PHYSICAL CONTROL

Assuming the L1-350 is going to be hardwired where a previous light fixture was located, it’s going to be connected to a physical switch too, but as most of you know by now, the minute someone flips that switch, thereby starving the light of electricity, leading to the light being disconnected from the hub and your smart home – very annoying. This means you’ll need to replace or disable that switch so the disconnection doesn’t occur, or at the very least discourage someone from using that switch to begin with. Aqara makes a ton of different wireless (and wired) switches that could possibly fit the bill, although many are the square ’86’ type, not the US size and shape. Still, the wireless versions of these switches can be placed anywhere without the need for wiring and can control the L1 quite well. In the accompanying video for the L1 (below), I demonstrate two such switches – the H1M wireless double rocker, and the H1 Rotary dimmer switch.

Pretty much all the functionality possible with the H1M is possible with any Aqara switch or indeed any HomeKit wireless switch for that matter, although Aqara switches in the Aqara app can be programmed to use one button/action as an ‘on & off’ without needing any fancy workarounds. The H1 wireless rotary dimmer, on the other hand, can both control the brightness and colour temperature via the dial, which is not exposed as an action in HomeKit, so the rotary dimmer is of key interest in this instance.

THE L1-350 IN USE

I’ve had this lamp for a while now, but I’ve not actually had it set up in the usual way just yet (i.e. mounted to a ceiling), with it being used in a more makeshift manner in the studio. Regardless of this, as I’ve found with almost all Aqara Zigbee-based products, this has been very reliable in terms of connection and simply hasn’t let me down once so far. I’m more than happy that it uses Adaptive Lighting, as the bulbs that it’ll eventually replace are the basic warm white Hue bulbs that aren’t capable of such functionality, and given the location is where I work from most of the time, I hope to feel the claimed benefits of Adaptive Lighting.

One thing I’m not so keen on, although I can live with it, is that the light doesn’t turn on or off instantly, by which I mean when it’s turned off, the reaction time is instant, but the LEDs dim from whatever brightness they’re set at, to off gradually, as though it were being dimmed – in actual fact it’s probably not more than a second, but it’s not ‘instant’. I guess this must appeal to some, especially when turning the lamp on, so as not to dazzle the eyes, but it’d have been nice to have the option for both.

Other than that minor quibble, I don’t think you can go wrong with this light, given the reasonably budget-friendly price, and the fact it works on 110-120v too. I’d say it’s decent enough for a typical-sized bedroom, although we have a rather spacious living room, and I’m not sure it’s bright enough for that. Just be aware that it may well not work on servers and hubs other than China, which also means no Alexa or Google integration.

The post Aqara Ceiling Lamp L1-350 (review) appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

There are some companies that start out promising HomeKit support, only to not deliver (Wynd are one such example), whilst others start out with HomeKit support, but then start to lose enthusiasm for it, like Eufy (who’ve been in the news this week for other reasons). ZemiSmart are an example of a company that had no HomeKit products for years, but once they released their first Zigbee hub, have gone all in on restrospectively adding HomeKit to some devices, or just releasing brand new products, or version of them, with HomeKit out of the box. This is something of a pleasant surprise, given that HomeKit has always been accused of lagging behind. Not so, and today’s product we’re reviewing goes one small step further. Read on to learn more.

UNBOXING

ZemiSmart may have made some large strides when it comes to HomeKit, but presentation isn’t one of their strong suits. That being said, if the product is well protected (it is), and it results in lower prices (it does), then who am I to complain? In this case, you get a plain – but sturdy – cardboard box with stickers for the specs and the ‘Works with Apple HomeKit’ badge. In the case of the latter, you could be forgiven for assuming this isn’t genuinely HomeKit certified, but I can assure you it is, despite appearances.

To its credit, the specs are there for you to see in plain view. In this case, I’m reviewing the largest of the three sizes the company offers, which is the 15W model. All models have the same input voltage – 100~240v AC, the same beam angle – 120º, and all use 2.4GHz WiFi for connectivity. The model for this review is the brightest of the three, obviously, but all three are capable of the standard 16m colours, as well as cool and warm whites managed with separate LEDs, which is impressive in a world where cheap lighting products tend to lean on RGB to recreate the white colour temperature range. More on this later.

In terms of what you get in the box, it’s as minimal as you should probably expect; the lamp, connected to a driver, and a simple manual in English. The manual comes with a HomeKit QR code, with the box alone coming with two copies of the code. The driver for the lamp also has a QR code, so four in total. They’re all the same code of course, just in case you’re new to this…

As with nearly all downlights/pot lights/recessed lights, you get a couple of spring-loaded clips to hold it in place. The wires connected to the driver are decently wrapped in a material sleeve that feels sturdy, and the rear (or inside) of the lamp has an aluminium heatsink.

The driver, which regulates not only power to the lights, but also controls things like colour, is quite chunky but looks pretty substantial in terms of build quality compared to the ones connected to the lights being replaced. At one end of the driver are two simple connectors for the neutral and live wires to connect to. These wires are then held in place by the large orange clamps that fit on both ends of the driver. The other end contains a tiny reset/pairing button. This is probably the best option for preparing the bulbs to be added to your smart home, as the other option is to connect the lights to mains electricity as normal, then turn the lights on/off ten times via the switch they’re connected to. This wouldn’t be an issue for a single bulb, but if you did this process for one downlight, connected it to HomeKit, and then did the same for the second downlight connected to the same switch/circuit, you’ll essentially be resetting the first light again. You could also set them to be ready for pairing at the same time, though. I didn’t in this case, as I wasn’t sure if the pairing mode disabled itself after a certain amount of time.

IN HOMEKIT

As these downlights use WiFi, you can add them directly to HomeKit without having to use either the company’s Zigbee hub or the Tuya app. In the screenshots above, you can see I’ve decided to group the two downlights so they appear as just one tile. In the second screenshot, you can see colour controls, but what came as a total surprise to me is that these are compatible with Apple’s Adaptive Lighting technology. If you’re not aware of this feature, it basically allows compatible lights (they need cool and warm white options) to automatically change the colour temperature over the course of the day to aid the human body and mind to feel generally more comfortable. This might sound odd, but essentially, people are receptive to different colour temperatures, which has an effect on their mood, mind, and well-being (it is claimed). So when you wake up in the morning, the lights will be set to warm white, in order for you to adjust to the day and natural daylight. As the morning progresses, warm white eventually makes way for cooler whites, which help with productivity and alertness. As the afternoon progresses to the evening, the lights once again take on a warmer tone, to help you to relax and unwind before bed.

This feature can be deactivated simply by choosing a different colour, but s I’m using these in a room that I tend to use for work purposes, I think I’ll benefit more from whites than colours.

COLOUR

For colours, although these images probably don’t do them full justice, the colours really appear decently saturated or ‘rich’. Equally, the warm white (when used as part of Adaptive Lighting) isn’t overly orange like you find on some bulbs, and the cool white isn’t overly blue either. All in all, I was quite happy with the colour rendering.

IN THE TUYA SMART APP

You don’t have to use the Tuya app, as already stated, but you might want to, in order to take advantage of some of the exclusive features, as well as connect them to Google or Alexa if you like to control them via multiple ecosystems – at least until Matter becomes more ubiquitous. One thing that the Tuya app allows, is showing the lights both as a group and individually. This is also reflected in Google and Amazon. You also get control over the colour and colour temperature, as normal, although if you want to check that Adaptive Lighting is working, you can see the percentage directly in the colour temperature wheel, as seen above.

You get access to scenes, which make use of the bulbs’ colour-changing functionality, as well as schedules and timers. Power Memory is useful for setting the default state a bulb should turn on to, once power is restored after a power failure, and ‘Biorhythms’ is pretty much Tuya’s version of Adaptive Lighting, but possibly more customisable.

IN USE

I’ll be honest, and say that I didn’t have massively high expectations of these downlights. In fact, for a while, I was offered these for review and turned down the opportunity, as I wasn’t keen on taking on more WiFi devices. When I finally thought it was going to be something different enough for me, to review a downlight, which is something I’ve never really tackled before, I was first surprised at how much better the product quality was than anticipated. They were easy to install, even for me, not being exactly an expert on fitting stuff like this. But the surprise at finding these worked with Adaptive Lighting took these to a new level. They work well, although I’d prefer to use Zigbee or Thread eventually, using WiFi does make things easy to some extent, so I can’t really complain. The reaction times are good enough, and the colours are more than decent, as are the cool and warm whites. I really have no complaints, other than at this late stage, I’m hoping that these can be updated to support Matter. When asked about this with ZemiSmart, they were, unsurprisingly, non-commital. To HomeKit users, this isn’t going to make any real difference for a while, but given the company is working on Matter-compatible devices as I type, then we can but hope they do push an update anyway. Recommended – if you don’t mind more WiFi devices.

The post ZemiSmart WiFi Colour Downlight (review) appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

PACKAGING

Starting off with the box, eagle-eyed HomeKit fans might well recognise this from a lamp that was released earlier this year, finding its way onto places like AliExpress. One difference with that product is that it doesn’t feature the ZemiSmart branding, and whilst both this lamp and the model by CozyLife are HomeKit compatible, the CozyLife version uses WiFi, and not Zigbee, like the model we’re reviewing today. ZemiSmart does offer a WiFi version according to the box, but there’s no sign of it on their website at the time of writing. The CozyLife model also comes with a remote control. I personally try to avoid WiFi devices these days unless it’s a real requirement (cameras for example), so I’m glad to see the Zigbee version, even if it requires the company’s own HomeKit-compatible Zigbee hub.

One thing I should mention to put your mind at ease in terms of HomeKit compatibility is that whilst the box doesn’t have a HomeKit logo, with only Amazon and Google Showing up, this is 100% compatible, via the hub of course. This isn’t out of the ordinary, however, as even Hue lights won’t show the HomeKit logo, given that it’s the Hue Bridge that’s the HomeKit part, essentially. The box also goes on to let you know that not only is there a black-rimmed version, but there’s also a white version, which is the one I have here. The basic features are also listed, which include 16 million colours, as standard, scenes, schedules and timers (all via either HomeKit or the Tuya app), as well as the ability to have warm or cool white, courtesy of separate LEDs, so there’s no approximation of white light using RGB LEDs.

THE LAMP

The lamp itself has a very slim bevel surrounding the diffuser, although that bevel is deeper when viewed in profile. You’re unlikely to concentrate on that though unless you have very low ceilings or you’re over 8ft tall… The lamp is rather unadorned so if you like the plain look, this won’t disappoint.

The lamp has an interesting, if not entirely unique method of mounting the ceiling light; The underside has a removable frame or bracket that has two holes for screws that allow you to attach it to the ceiling, without the need to mount the whole unit in one go. This bracket has two wires that you would connect the wires from any previously installed light fitting, with those wires terminating in a couple of connectors.

These connectors then come into contact with a pair of pins on the main lamp body once you slide the bracket into place via the tracks on the underside of the lamp. it does make fitting the lamp easier than I’d found with the Mijia Ceiling Lamp 450 I reviewed a while ago, although Yeelight (who also makes many of Mijia’s lighting products) has different but equally useful methods of connecting the lamp to the ceiling.

One thing to note, however, is that the wires for the lamp aren’t especially strong, so you should take care to make sure they aren’t pulled or put under too much strain, as they could break from the frame. This is unlikely if you’re fitting it and leaving it alone, but it’s worth noting.

In addition to the lamp, you get two screws and corresponding rawl plugs. There’s also a very, very small booklet that doesn’t actually refer to the lamp, but one of their colour bulbs. Even though I’d say this look poor for the company, in actuality, it doesn’t really matter, as the installation is easy as long as you use the Tuya or Smart Life app;

• You power up the lamp, whereupon its brightness levels will pulsate
• In the Tuya app, you click the plus icon and select your hub
• The hub will then automatically discover the lamp and add it
• Once added, it’ll automatically appear in HomeKit

IN HOMEKIT | THE HOME APP

As you can see, the lamp appears in HomeKit just like any other colour lighting product. You get the slider control, along with options to choose your colour or colour temperature.

If you were in any doubt the lamp works with HomeKit, you can see that the lamp is connected to a bridge (screenshot #1), with the hub listed as the Zemismart hub (screenshot #2). Screenshot #3 shows the devices currently connected to the hub – a zemismart light strip and the lamp.

IN THE TUYA APP 

I don’t really use the Tuya app for anything other than updates or adding a device, but it’s actually a fairly well-appointed app, all the same. n the main page, you can control some basic features of the lamp directly without having to go into the dedicated page for the lamp itself. Apart from on/off, brightness, and colour temperature, you also get an option called the ‘Zigbee Light Link Threshold’. Although I’m not entirely sure what it’s for, it would appear to be of use with third-party Zigbee bridges, like Philips Hue, which this lamp is apparently also compatible with, although adding it to the Hue bridge won’t expose it to HomeKit. According to the manual (even though the manual isn’t specifically for this lamp…) the lamp can also work with Amazon Echo devices with a Zigbee radio built-in, as well as the SmartThings hub.

The app has the standard colour wheels for colour and colour temperature, as well as a ‘Scenes’ tab, which you’ll find in pretty much every ‘own-product’ app these days.

There’s a Music tab that animates the light based on the audio picked up from your iPhone’s mic (whoopee…) and a ‘More’ tab that lists options like Plan, Schedule, Timer, Rhythms, and Power-on behaviour. The latter two are of most interest in my opinion.

‘Rhythms’ is actually ‘Biorhythms’ and is designed to be used in a similar way to Apple’s Adaptive Lighting, so it adjusts the colour temperature and brightness throughout the course of the day, in order to provide lighting suitable for the time of day. This, apparently helps you to be alert and productive, or relaxed, depending on the time of day, and the colour temperature. Whilst Adaptive Lighting is all done automatically, in this case, you can program it yourself.

The ‘Power-on behaviour’ option, has more sub-options, so alongside the usual feature that allows you to set how the light reacts once power is restored to the lamp, you also get options to have the light brighten or dim gradually over a period of time. The Other option available is Do Not Disturb, but in this case, it allows the app to turn the light off, with the light blocked from being turned on -presumably via a wireless button – unless the said button is pressed twice. Clever.

LAMP COLOUR RENDERING

When setting up the lamp, I was pleasantly surprised at the colour generated by the LEDs. It’s not that the colours are especially rich, although they’re more than passable, but it was the evenness of the colour throughout the diffuser. There’s no way of detecting the individual LEDs, so what you’re left with is a really solid ball of colour. Personally, I think a ceiling lamp should really focus on decent whites, but for a child’s room, this would probably be more than welcome I imagine.

I mentioned at the start that this lamp has separate LEDs for cool and warm white, and as such the whites are pretty decent. The cool white setting is where you’re going to get the maximum amount of brightness. Warm white is pretty good too, with the white not being overly orange like I’ve found with some RGB bulbs.

WRAPPING UP

It’s fair to say that Zemismart seem to be trying its hardest to churn products out at a fast pace for us HomeKit users, so it’s hard to complain about minor issues that you might find with some of their products, especially for the price. In the case of this lamp, I was once again surprised at how well it performed. The minor negative points are build quality; With a lamp of this type, you’re going to set it up and largely forget about it, so even though the materials used feel a bit on the cheap side, essentially it shouldn’t matter too much. The wires used for the switch should be more robust in my opinion, but once again, as long as you don’t keep moving the lamp hither and thither, it shouldn’t matter too much. All in all, better than expected, even if it doesn’t offer anything majorly exciting or original, but then ceiling lamps are still relatively scarce in comparison to bulbs.

The post ZemiSmart Smart Ceiling light (review) appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

Still, should that matter to the consumer? Probably not, although a quick Google search of ceiling lights by Yeelight or Mijia, and you’ll see a wide variety of ceiling lights on offer, some of which look decidedly similar. The reason this is mentioned is that today’s review product is by Mijia, and was purchased in Taiwan. Judging by the packaging and the manual, however, this is in fact an international product, or at least should be at some point soon, although whether it’s called ‘Mi Smart LED Ceiling Light 450’ where you live is another question entirely, so if you do see something that matches these specs, and is also HomeKit compatible, chances are it’s the same or a similarly worthy product. With that out of the way, let’s proceed with the review…

PACKAGING

As with most Mi branded products now, they’re not going to look out of place on the shelf at an Apple store, although given the size of this box, I’d say these aren’t going to be sat on shelves any time soon. The front has all the icons you need to let you know some of its features, which are;

• Adjustable colour temperature
• Dimming capabilities
• High colour rendering index (CR95)
• 100-240V
• App control
• Voice control
• Dustproof and mothproof

As can be gathered from the first point, this is not a colour lamp, but you do get cool to warm whites, which is fine for something designed to cover a reasonably large room. It’s suitable for 110-120v and 220-240v regions, so as alluded to before, this appears to be designed for international sales. The point about dust and moths is that the unit can be sealed much like the lid of a jar, which I’ll go into later. You can also see that aside from HomeKit compatibility, it will work with Amazon Alexa, and the Google Assistant.

Whilst it’s got control for colour temperature, like many lamps and bulbs from Mijia (Yeelight…), it comes with a Moonlight, or Moon mode, which essentially lets the brightness go really quite low. The light is quite bright, topping out at a whopping 3100lm when using cool white light, so it’s designed for rooms between 15 – 25 sq metres (49 – 82 sq feet). That’s roughly the equivalent of four Hue White Ambience bulbs I guess.

PACKAGE CONTENTS

There’s not a lot in th box, aside from the light, in two parts, along with a multi-language manual (CN, EN, DE, FR, ES, IT, RU, KO, AR, PL, PT),   a warranty booklet, and some screws with matching rail plugs for mounting the light to your ceiling. Whilst the diffuser is light and ‘plasticky’ it doesn’t feel cheap and has a matt texture, rather than shiny, scratch attracting plastic. Similarly, the section with the LEDs looks impressively well made, and solid.

The body is some kind of metal, probably aluminium, with some serious looking LEDs dotted around the fitting, in two rows.

Although it looks impressive and a little intimidating if you’re not used to fitting a ceiling light, it’s actually quite straightforward. The diffuser fits to the main body with the aid of clips, the wires from your previous light fitting pass through a hole to connect to the neutral, live and earth connectors in the switch, and the whole light is held to your ceiling with the two screws that pass through holes either side of the main body.

MI HOME, APPLE HOME, YEELIGHT

Being HomeKit compatible, via the HomeKit code, but also a Mi product, and made by Yeelight, this can be added to all three apps, although I’d recommend adding it to Mi Home first. From there, you’ll be given the opportunity to add it to HomeKit if you want to. Additionally, by signing into the Yeelight app, using the same credentials as your Mi Home account, the light will automatically appear there too.

In the Home app, you only get the option to control the brightness and colour temperature, but in both the Mi Home and Yeelight apps, you also get access to lighting effects and presets, which also includes the Moonlight mode. As both the Yeelight and Mi Home apps are compatible with Siri Shortcuts, you can always trigger the Moonlight mode, or any of the other presets, via Siri, or via the Shortcuts app.

THE MI LED LIGHT

As stated, the Mi LED Smart Light can produce warm to cool whites (2700 – 6000K), and it does so very well, as you can see via the images above. I tend to find that the warm white for most lighting products are a tad too orange for me, but then with this covering larger rooms, it’s less noticeable, generally speaking. At the coolest white setting, you can get as much as 3100lm, which is more than bright enough for most regular, square-shaped rooms, and in my case, I’ve tended to ramp the brightness down on occasion.

As previously mentioned, there’s the option to use Moonlight mode via the Yeelight and Mi Home apps. What you get is super low-level lighting, suitable for late-night use, or maybe even for a youngsters’ bedroom if they’re scared of the dark perhaps. As you can see the levels achievable are well below what you would normally be able to get. This is possible by just using the warm white LEDs, which are outnumbered by the cool white LEDs by a ratio of roughly 2 to 1.

As you can see in the images above, the cool white LEDs outnumber the warm white LEDs which partially helps the cool white setting to achieve higher brightness levels. The mid white setting uses both the warm and cool white LEDs, and the warm white setting uses only the warm white LEDs.

Just to give you an idea of how the manufacturer has been able to achieve the low light levels in Moonlight mode, you can see that at 100% the same warm white LEDs are employed but at the lowest level possible using both the inner single LED for each circle, along with the outer LED ring. To get as low as 1%, the second image shows (and you have to look really hard) that only the single LEDs are employed at their lowest level.

PHYSICAL CONTROL OPTIONS

If you were thinking “why would I need a remote for a smart light??” you would probably be in good company, and it would make sense to ask why. However, as this is designed for ceilings, it’s not the same as a smart bedside lamp, like the Yeelight Staria Pro, where there’s an easily reachable physical button when required, so unless you happened to be about 9ft tall, putting a button on the light itself is a non-starter. This is where the optional remote control by Yeelight comes in. It connects exclusively via Bluetooth to the ceiling light and isn’t smart as such, so when paired with the light, it won’t show up in either the Mi Home or Yeelight apps, let alone be exposed to HomeKit.

All of the functionality available for the light is included in the remote – separate On and Off buttons, a brightness rocker button, and separate buttons to control the colour temperature or turn the Moonlight mode on or off. It uses a CR2032 battery and can – if you want – be mounted to a wall, although it doesn’t come with any adhesive patches, so you’ll have to source your own.

Another option, also by Yeelight, is the Wireless Rotary Dimmer switch. As with the Yeelight remote, this isn’t exactly a smart device in that it doesn’t get added to your smart home. It’s directly connected to the light you pair it with via Bluetooth, and also provides all of the functionality you need, albeit in a different way. Pressing the dial gives you simple on/off control of the light. Double pressing the dial activates Moonlight mode. If you press and hold the dial whilst also turning it, you can adjust the colour temperature of the light. Turning the dial controls the brightness levels regardless of whether you’re in normal or Moonlight mode. The one I have is the wireless model (there’s a wired one too), and as it’s designed to look more like a regular wall switch, it can be stuck to a wall, with included tape. In the case of this switch, however, the rear has velcro strips, which correspond with adhesive strips that stick to the wall. The outward-facing side of the strips that stick to the wall has velcro that connects to the velcro on the rear of the switch. Personally, I would have preferred simple double-sided strips, but the thinking is that whilst you might not be able to place these rotary switches on other walls, you can at least remove them from the wall and have them sat on a coffee table for convenience, whilst also allowing them to be placed back on the wall when required. A magnetic switch holder of the type used with the Opple wireless switches would have been the best solution.

Of course, as these are compatible with Mi Home and HomeKit, it means any wireless button can control the light, so you aren’t restricted to these two offerings from Yeelight, although they do offer all of the functionality, including Moonlight mode.

IN EVERYDAY USE

Although I’ve been getting into the idea of smart light switches controlling dumb LED bulbs, namely with the Aqara US switches, this light has been exceptional. It does use WiFi, which I’ve been trying to reduce my dependency on with smart devices, but it does a great job of lighting a room, and so on that basis, it can’t be faulted. Now, at the start of the article, I mentioned that a Google search for Yeelight ceiling lights will bring up a lot of options, some of which offer colour ambient lighting in the form of colour LEDs that light upwards, thereby providing accent colour lighting on your ceiling. I wished this was one of those lights, but it isn’t. I think I’ll survive without, and in all honesty, it’s probable that these colour accent light options aren’t exposed to HomeKit anyway, like the Moonlight mode, so it’s not so enticing perhaps. Another plus is that it’s also sealed, so there’s no issue with seeing a slowly increasing graveyard of dead bugs (or dust for that matter) collecting in the diffuser. For the price, it really is a steal (assuming it can be bought for around the same price as in Taiwan), and I can’t complain about the design, which is something you see across the board with a lot of the Yeelight products, even if they’re Mi branded.

…WHERE TO BUY?

Whilst I was able to buy this over the counter in Taiwan, due to Xiaomi’s distribution being a bit patchy outside of Asia, it seems it’s not quite as easy to find. However, I’ve put a few links together for places that I was able to find it. None of the links below are affiliate links, just in case that’s an issue for you.

Australia – www.panmi.com.au

Belarus – xiaomi-store.by

Brazil – www.comprasparaguai.com.br

Czechia – eshop.xiaomi-czech.cz

Hungary – xiaomi.hu

Israel – www.mi-il.co.il

Italy – www.miwo.it

Paraguay – www.megaeletronicos.com

Poland – mi-store.pl

Russia – ru-mi.com

Slovakia – mi-store.sk

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