Lighting (YT) Archives - Homekit News and Reviews

Aqara Ceiling Light T1M (video)

The Editor — Tue, 05 Mar 2024 03:57:58 +0000

The T1M Ceiling Light is possibly the first official lighting product from Aqara to grace international consumers, and with two lights in one, it certainly offers a lot. It uses Zigbee 3.0, so it does require an Aqara hub, but if your hub is updated to use Matter, then it can also be exposed to any Matter platform that way too. With Matter you do lose the Adaptive Lighting option, which is a great feature of the main light, with a side light strip offering full multicolour animated or static options, with 26 separate zones to play with. Aqara’s Ceiling Light T1M is now available (affiliate links below).

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

Aqara LED Light Strip T1 (video)

The Editor — Tue, 15 Aug 2023 08:01:13 +0000

The Aqara LED Strip T1 is the company’s first consumer strip available worldwide, and with it comes the ability to assign individual colours to 10 (and more) zones along the 2-metre strip and any strip extensions. However, with a recent Aqara app update, you can now expose multicolour scenes – and a lot more functionality – to Apple Home as Scenes, where previously it was only possible with Siri Shortcuts.

You can purchase the Aqara LED Strip T1 from Amazon stores in your region using the (affiliate) links below, which cost you nothing extra but help us buy more products for review, to keep you informed on how products perform.

You can get 10% off for a limited time using the following codes;

USCASTRIP (US & CA)
LEDSTRIPEU (EU & UK)
Amazon US
Amazon UK
Amazon FR
Amazon DE
Amazon IT
Amazon ES
Amazon CA

The post Aqara LED Light Strip T1 (video) appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

Yeelight Cube Smart Lamp with Matter

The Editor — Wed, 22 Mar 2023 05:51:53 +0000

The new Yeelight Cube Smart Lamps are due out soon, and we’ve been lucky enough to be trying them out to find the good and bad. Luckily there’s very little to complain about, although there’s always room for improvement.

What’s great is that these work with Matter out of the box, meaning they’re instantly compatible with All the main ecosystems too – Apple HomeKit, Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and Samsung SmartThings.

These cubes come in three different types – Panel, Matrix, and Spot, with each offering unique attributes, but When combining them, you get a lot of options to present some wild effects. In order for them to function, you’ll need at least one base sold either as a starter pack or available for purchase separately, which is the device that connects to your smart home.

You can save some money by pre-ordering these cubes as part of an “Early Bird” pricing option from Yeelight’s own IndieGogo crowdfunding page via the link below;

Yeelight IndieGogo

The super early bird price of a cube standard pack (containing 1 x Cube, 1 x base, and 1 x power adapter) is under US$60; a single extension pack is under US$35. There are also several combos offering more discounts, which you can check out on the website for further info.

The post Yeelight Cube Smart Lamp with Matter appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

Aqara Smart Ceiling Light L1-350

The Editor — Thu, 09 Mar 2023 05:14:02 +0000

The Aqara Ceiling Light L1-350 uses Zigbee, and therefore needs an Aqara hub, which also exposes it to HomeKit. Not only that, but Aqara has ensured that whilst this ceiling lamp only does warm to cool whites, it’s also compatible with Apple’s Adaptive Lighting feature, which isn’t something you see on all bulbs, let alone ceiling lights. It’s also listed as only working with 220v, but in actual fact, it works fine with 110-120v as well, just like their Aqara bulb T1.

The only potential issue is that this is currently designed to work with the China server, although I’ve not personally tested it to see if it’ll work on International servers. If you already use the China server, there are no issues, and it’s one of the best ‘bang-for-buck’ lighting products out there.

You can find the L1-350 in all the usual stores on AliExpress etc, so go for it.

The post Aqara Smart Ceiling Light L1-350 appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

ZemiSmart WiFi Colour Downlight

The Editor — Thu, 01 Dec 2022 02:46:31 +0000

The ZemiSmart Colour Downlight uses standard 2.4GHz WiFi for connectivity, which means there’s no requirement for the company’s Zigbee hub. It also means you can add the light directly to HomeKit, without even needing to add it to the Tuya Smart app either. What’s ultimately a nice surprise though is that not only does the light offer RGB colour, along with separate LEDs for cool and warm white, but the light is also compatible with Apple’s Adaptive Lighting feature, which automatically changes the colour temperature of the lights throughout the day, for both productivity and relaxation.

You can buy the ZemiSmart WiFi Downlight from Walmart in the US, or you can buy directly from ZemiSmart at a much lower price;

ZemiSmart.com – $31.50 (4in) | $28.50 (3.5in) | $25.50 (2.5in)
Walmart – $45.99 (4in) | $42.99 (3.5in)

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

ZemiSmart Smart Ceiling Light

The Editor — Tue, 04 Oct 2022 16:41:39 +0000

The ZemiSmart Ceiling Light offers both colour and warm to cool whites in a lamp that gives up to an impressive 1920 lumens of brightness, as well as 16 million colours. The company offer this light in WiFi and Zigbee versions, with the latter being the one we’re reviewing today.

Needless to say, it’s typically well priced, like most of ZemiSmart’s output, but is there anything wrong with it? Check the video to find out.

You can buy the ZemiSmart Ceiling light direct from ZemiSmart (affiliate link).

You can also purchase the ZemiSmart Zigbee hub that also exposes a lot of the company’s Zigbee devices to HomeKit (affiliate link);

The post ZemiSmart Smart Ceiling Light appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

Ikea Skydrag Cabinet Lighting

The Editor — Fri, 02 Sep 2022 14:40:36 +0000

There’s no doubting that whilst Ikea make some of the cheapest smart home products on the market, they’re not all great. Still, when it comes to cabinet lighting, they’re hard to beat, and the quality is also great. Skydrag are enclosed light strips with their own diffusers that come in different sizes, and fittings that allow these to be placed in cupboards, shelves, under kitchen cabinets, and even wardrobes, where I fitted mine.

You do need the Ikea Trådfri gateway, driver and a power supply, but it’s still an affordable solution, especially if you want to get these lights into HomeKit.

You can also check out our review for the Ikea Myrvarv Light strip here.

Skydrag at Ikea (US)

Other products featured or mentioned in this video (affiliate links);
Ikea Trådfri remote
Ikea Trådfri driver (10w)
Ikea Trådfri driver (30w)
Aqara contact sensor
Eve contact sensor (with Thread)
Aqara Hub M2

The post Ikea Skydrag Cabinet Lighting appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

Nanoleaf Lines Setup and Impressions

Eric Welander — Thu, 11 Nov 2021 02:36:19 +0000

Eric Welander: Nanoleaf Lines are a new addition to colored wall lighting that turns the concept around by shining the light on the wall with an elevated light strip. These might be the best colored-wall lighting available, but you should be careful to avoid some key mistakes when installing and know what they are like to use with HomeKit.

Order Nanoleaf Lines today: https://go.nanoleaf.me/ericwelander

MY FREE EMAIL NEWSLETTER On Apple home-related tech https://applehome.substack.com

FOLLOW ME

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ericwelander

Instagram: https://instagram.com/ericwelander

The post Nanoleaf Lines Setup and Impressions appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

Meross Smart Ambient Light

Brad Lloyd — Mon, 08 Nov 2021 03:04:28 +0000

UP YOUR SMART LIGHTING with Meross Smart Ambient Light Homekit.

Smart Home lighting makes all the difference in your home. No matter what space you are in, having the flexibility to brighten or dim lights, change colours and integrate smart lights into scenes can be life-changing. It can brighten your mood, help you focus on work or school, and at the end of a long day, can help you unwind.

The Meross Smart Ambient Light is a great addition to your Smart Home. I use Apple Homekit but it’s compatible with Google & Alexa too. In this video, I will review this light and show you a comparison with other types of colour Smart Home lights. I’ll give you my overall thoughts and show you tons of creative ways to fit this light into your home.

Find out if you should add this light to your Smart Home!

BUY: Meross Smart Ambient Light: https://geni.us/kIf3MS

The post Meross Smart Ambient Light appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

The Yeelight Vision Pro Desk Lamp – Pro Lighting!

The Editor — Sat, 23 Oct 2021 03:18:12 +0000

Yeelight have a good reputation for decent quality lighting products, especially with their lamps and the attention paid to getting accurate white light for a better experience. This lamp, the Vision Pro Desk Lamp – also known as the LED Desk Lamp V1 – is up there with their other products, and offers exception lighting for those needing good quality desk lighting that won’t strain the eyes or create glare. There are a lot of options to achieve this too, and it’s HomeKit compatible too!

You can also read the full in-depth written review HERE.

The post The Yeelight Vision Pro Desk Lamp – Pro Lighting! appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.