PACKAGING | CONTENTS

Considering the package sent to me came from China, the box survived pretty well, as did the contents, thankfully. There’s not a lot to see, but everything required was included. I was also sent a SwitchBot Hub 2 for the purpose of testing the K10+ Pro out, which you won’t get, but is also not a requirement unless you plan to add it to Apple Home. That may not be worth it at the time of writing, but may make all the difference with iOS18.

The main piece is the robot vac itself, which only comes in white. Visually, it’s pretty much the same as the previous model, except for the larger front docking sensor. Similarly, the docking station is fairly similar to the previous iteration, with just a different fascia, now grey instead of black. You get two side brushes (one of which is a spare), a main manual and a quick setup/reference card, a Hepa filter (one is already installed in the vacuum), 30 disposable mopping pads for wet floor cleaning, and a pair of disposable dust bags. That’s pretty much it.

THE VACUUM

In many ways the K10+ Pro looks much like any other robot vac out there, with a LiDAR unit on top,  front ‘bumper’, sensors around the edges, and a corner brush. Where it differs to most other models is down to its size. I have been using a Roborock S6 for a while and it has served me well, but it’s slightly too large to reach certain places, most notably when it fails to get between the legs for our dining chairs. It’s just slightly too large. The K10+ series (both models) are 34% smaller, and so getting into these narrower gaps is not an issue. Now I no longer have to put the chairs on top of the table when I need to get a robovac to do its thing, and that’s a big deal for me.

There are two main buttons on the top, much like other vacs, with a Power and Home button, but actually the housing around the LiDAR sensor is also a button which can be pressed down, although typically this is usually only when you’re setting or resetting the device.

There are vents either side of the unit, although one is home to a small speaker for the robot to communicate the actions it’s taking, like cleaning, returning to the dock, or for alerts if it gets stuck.

The rear is home to the dust box. This also has a shutter that only opens when it’s connected to the base station, which is also when the internal battery is being recharged. This is achieved via two metal connectors either side of the aforementioned shutter. Whilst the dust box is set up to be emptied automatically via the docking station, you can actually empty the contents of the box yourself, and forego the cost of further disposable dust bags, although considering you shouldn’t need to replace these bags for 90 days, I think it’s worth the ongoing costs versus the potential issues you might encounter emptying the contents yourself, as I’ve had to do with the Roborock S6. At the top of the dust box is another docking sensor, as the K10+ Pro has to reverse into the dock.

The top of the robot has a removable plate that reveals an on/off toggle switch as well as a way to access the dust box, which is lifted out via a fold away handle. The underside is home to a pair of powered wheels, a directional wheel, and three edge or ‘cliff’ sensor – one set either side, and one at the front. This is designed to prevent the robovac from falling down a flight of stairs, if you’re using it on an upper floor, for example.

IMPROVEMENTS OVER THE K10+

If I’m honest, whilst I’ve never tried the original K10+, if I were to have one, I don’t think the improvements afforded the K10+ Pro are worth the upgrade. If you don’t own the K10+, then going for the Pro model makes total sense of course. Visually, they’re much the same apart from the differences already mentioned, but they have beefed up the suction power, going from 2,500Pa to 3,000Pa. That doesn’t seem a lot but it’s a 20% increase overall. SwitchBot claim its ability to clean further into corners has been improved, although given the brush attachment looks the same, I’m not sure how that has been achieved, unless it’s to do with the improved suction.

They have changed the sweeper from a combined rubber blade and coarse brush, to an all rubber design, which appears to work better with hairs apparently. Whilst the LiDAR sensor hasn’t changed in and of itself, the robot does now also use PSD (not the Photoshop file format…), which stands for Position Sensitive Dectector. This is charged with better avoidance of objects, and knowing where it is, if it has been moved to a different location. I personally haven’t noticed it being any better than my S6 in this regard, although it’s definitely faster at getting around, and with the S6 only capable of 2,000Pa, the K10+ Pro is 50% more powerful.

THE DOCKING STATION

My Roborock has a docking station, but it’s merely there to recharge the internal battery for the S6. With the K10+ Pro, you get a bit more, as is clear from the size of it. It has the connectors for recharging, as standard, but in between these two connectors is a large port. This connects to the port on the robovac, to suck out all the dust, dirt and hairs collected, and store them in a disposable bag in the top section. Above this port is also what I guess is a sort of transmitter to guide the robovac back for recharging.

The top section has a lid, and once opened you can see the rather cavernous space granted for the disposable dust bags. The bottom of this section has a fan to draw the dust into the bag from the vacuum’s dust box, via the evacuation tube. Fitted inside the lid is a mopping pad clip plate, although I’ll be honest and say if you’re looking for a robovac that can also do a deep clean via the mop, this isn’t the type of model that’ll work for you.

The bags that work with this base station can collect up to 90 days of dust and hair, although that really depends on a variety of factors. It’s pretty easy to fit, and once installed you don’t even think about it, although I’ve found myself checking how full it is on occasion (OCD much?).

the inside of the dust bag holder is a mopping pad clip plate. If you want to give your floors a cursory wipe, you can remove this plate, wrap a mopping pad around it, and clip it to the base of the robovac. It’s positioned to fit over the rubber brush, so effectively you can mop or vacuum, but not both at the same time. As stated, I’m not convinced this is worth using, and even though my Roborock S6 has a similar set up, the application of disposable pads is a lot more well thought out, as the S6 has a clip on module that also contains a small water reservoir that slowly leaks water onto the mopping pad. So as it stands, in the absence of a dedicated robovac with fully dedicated mopping functionality, the K10+ Pro does the vacuuming, whilst the S6 is now designated with wiping the floors when required.

When it comes to the base station doing what it’s meant to do, it’s actually a lot more pleasant of an experience than I’d anticipated. Prior to this device being sent, I would dutifully empty the dust box for the Roborock S6 after each clean. This would first involve wrapping a disposable plastic bag around the box, shaking the contents of the box loose, so they’d end up in the bag, then dispose of the bag, once sealed. This would often result in some dust getting out, and going up my nose, and boy do I have sensitive sinuses! As you can imagine, it wasn’t great, but it was the best way to deal with the collected dust. Now with the K10+ Pro able to do it for me without any intervention, it’s one less hassle, for which I’m grateful.

Wrapping up the features of the base station, the box also contains a small blade/brush combo to cut tangled hairs from the rubber cleaning brush. The rear of the unit has a fitted power cable. I was sent the UK version with a Type G plug, but it works fine with an adaptor, so I’m ok with it.

IN APPLE HOME

At the time of writing this review, I’m still on iOS17, so if the next iteration of iOS comes with better integration, I’ll update this section of the review to reflect any changes – good or bad. I guess Apple Home integration can’t get any more basic though, so I have high hopes that things will improve. As it stands, to get the K10+ Pro into Apple Home, you have to associate the K10+ Pro with one of SwitchBot’s own Matter hubs. This is also where it can get a bit confusing; most SwitchBot devices use Bluetooth,  and so they need these hubs for both their own ecosystem, and for third-party Matter ecosystems. The hubs are Matter enabled, allowing the devices connected to them to be exposed to Apple Home, which is much the same as Aqara Zigbee devices, and how they interact with their own Zigbee hubs. However, the K10+ Pro uses WiFi, so it actually doesn’t need a hub, or so you would think. For SwitchBot’s own ecosystem, it doesn’t – unless you want it to work with other SwitchBot devices – in which case you’ll almost certainly have a hub anyway. To expose the robovac to Matter platforms like Apple Home, you need the hub, so even if the vac isn’t connected to the hub via Bluetooth, in the app it’s part of their ecosystem, and is therefore able to associate with the hub for the purposes of getting it exposed to Apple Home.

What you do get is minimal, however. You get a tile, which can be displayed as a power outlet, a light, or a fan, so not exactly representative. To be clear, this is not the fault of SwitchBot, it’s simply due to Apple Home not being ready for robot vacuums in iOS17. Beyond that, there’s a toggle switch that does the same as the tile, a settings page that allows you to include the device in scenes and automations, and a tab to show that it’s connected to a SwitchBot hub.

Pressing the icon on the tile, or toggling the switch, simply activates the vac to clean the whole home (once you’ve actually set it all up of course). There are no options to clean specific rooms as such, so you only get the option to get it to start cleaning, or stop cleaning and return to the docking station. Luckily, as the SwitchBot app offers the chance to use Siri Shortcuts, so there is more that can be done, which I’ll touch on next.

THE SWITCHBOT APP

Things are different in the SwitchBot app, which is to be expected. You get a single tile on the home page, which allows you to launch the robot to do a full clean (by pressing the circular button), without having to go deeper into the app. Tapping anywhere on the tile other than the circular button launches a pop up that gives you three options – Clean, Finish, and Recharge. Pretty self explanatory. Tapping on ‘More’ launches the full range of options.

Assuming you’ve set up the robovac and have mapped your home, you’ll get the floor plan on the home page. The app will automatically break up the plan into rooms, although you can edit it yourself too. Beneath that are metrics to tell how much floor has been covered on its last clean, how long it took, and the estimated area based on the whole plan.

At the very bottom are four buttons; Charge, Clean, Max, and More. The first two allow you to send the vac back for recharging its battery, and begin cleaning, respectively. Max is actually the option to choose from four different cleaning strengths; Quiet, Standard, Strong, and Max. The More button opens up additional options.

You get buttons either side for cleaning modes (vacuum or mop), empty the dust box, how many times the cleaning task is to be performed in one session – with a maximum of two. My Roborock is capable of three cleaning passes, but it does have a much larger battery. You can save the current map, as well as set no-go zones, which is useful for areas where you might want to keep the vac away from.

once selected, the previously mentioned ‘More’ button opens up additional features that allow you to edit your current map, choose from other stored maps, create schedules, or show a cleaning report. You can choose from a selection of voices in different languages, which includes English (US accent), three Japanese voices, Korean, Hokkien (a Chinese dialect), Taiwanese Mandarin, German, Spanish, French, Italian, and Dutch.

The page also allows you to directly control the robovac with a three button controller that allows you to steer it. Finally, you can choose between a whole house clean, clean individual rooms, and select what order they’ll be cleaned in, and even clean a specific area.

Having been used to the UI of the Roborock app, at first I felt it was better than the one presented by SwitchBot, although I’ve come to appreciate the options to quickly access certain functions, that in the Roborock app require a big more digging. All that said, the one area Roborock’s app is arguably better is with Siri Shortcuts. With SwitchBot, you can start, pause or resume cleaning, return it to the dock, pause docking, locate the robot, change the suction power, or change the cleaning mode. What you can’t do is create a Siri Shortcut that allows you to ask the robot to clean specific rooms. Roborock does offer this, and so I can tell my Roborock S6 to clean the main bedroom. For SwitchBot it’ll only offer to clean the whole apartment. Hopefully SwitchBot can update the options to include specific rooms at some point.

There are further options to tweak the way it cleans and empties, which as a summary, include;

• Do Not Disturb (no voice announcements or noises between certain times)
• Sound volume
• Dust collection settings
  • Dust collection time – how long the docking station collects dust from the robovac once docked
  • Dust collection frequency – how often it will empty the dust box (after 90, 75, or 60 mins of cleaning time)
• Child lock
• Button lights

PERFORMANCE IN DAY TO DAY USE

At first I wasn’t sure I’d like it, after coming from a very happy experience with the Roborock S6. That eventually changed, for a couple of reasons, but mostly due to its smaller size doing a better job of getting into areas I’d previously have to adjust every time I wanted to clean said area. Now it’s much easier to clean without having to temporarily hoist dining room chairs onto the dining table due to the space between the chair legs being a tad too small for the Roborock to contend with. I’m also really happy to let it clean the dust by itself, which is one less job, and one less messy one at that.

I wish the Siri Shortcuts options were better, as already stated, but with iOS18 it may not be neccessary (fingers crossed). I would say that whilst the object detect seems to be no worse than my S6, I thought it would be better, but it doesn’t appear to be an improvement. It will still bump into things that are clearly in its path, so the PSD option doesn’t seem to make any real improvements.

One area of frustration, which thankfully I no longer need to deal with is the vac not being able to find the docking station sometimes. This all happened early on in the process, and as such I eventually got to the bottom of the issue that causes it to happen. So when you’ve mapped out your home, you can set it off to go cleaning, but if you happen to try to make any adjustments to the floor plan whilst it’s doing so, it appears this screws things up for the vac in relation to the map and how to find the base station. In some cases this can be (relatively) easily remedied by deleting any maps currently in use, and remapping your home. If that doesn’t fix the issue, deleting the robovac, and re-adding it to the SwitchBot app is the remaining option. Since stumbling on this discovery, I’ve ensured that I don’t try to fiddle with the floor plan until its back at the the docking station, and so far I’ve not encountered the issue again, so feel confident that this was the issue, with a remedy to go with it.

Other than that, for the price, it’s pretty reasonable. Robot vacuums are fast becoming the most expensive item for your smart home, and prices for some are astronomical, even if the cost is justified. Still, we’re at a point now where SwitchBot now have a K10+ Pro Combo, which was just announced at IFA 2024. This ‘Combo’ includes the K10+ Pro that I’m reviewing here, but it comes with a modified base station that allows the also included handheld robot vac to connect to, and empty it. You can read more about it HERE. If like me you already have a handheld vacuum (we have a top line Dyson that it pretty darn amazing all by itself), then the combo may not be of much appeal, but if you’re not a fan of having to empty a vacuum of any type on a regular basis, and you’re in the market for a handheld too, this may be the perfect option.

Either way, the K10+ Pro has converted me, and so the Roborock is currently on standby only, with the option to do some mopping as required. Recommended.

The post SwitchBot Mini Robot Vac K10+ Pro (Review) appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

(mmWave) sensing is a non-contact system of using mmWave radar sensors to measure movement, acceleration, and angles as small as a fraction of a millimeter. This system requires a mmWave radar sensor to transmit and receive pulses of millimetre electromagnetic wave energy, detecting targets and motion from the reflections it receives back.

So as you can see, simply shallow breathing will be enough to let a Presence Sensor know you’re still there, and not leave you in the dark – literally. today’s product review is for the Aqara FP1E, which can both be considered the successor to the FP1, which was only released in China, and a scaled back version of the Aqara FP2 (review HERE, video HERE).

If you’re keen to know how it performs, and how it differs from the other two Presence Sensors just mentioned, read on…

PACKAGING | CONTENTS

Aqara’s packaging is fairly standardised now, with the product front and centre, a sort of ‘disclaimer’ below, and logos for compatible ecosystems. this is where some Apple Home users might be confused, as the ‘Works With Apple Home’ logo is not present alongside the Alexa and Google logos. That’s due to the FP1E using Zigbee 3.0, which in turn means it would require an Aqara hub, which is point of entry to Apple Home. I have to assume that Alexa or Google are a bit more easy going about their logos being on the box than Apple, as the disclaimer text does state “To connect to third-party ecosystems such as Apple Home, Amazon Alexa and Google Home, an Aqara Zigbee 3.0 hub is required”. So don’t panic, it definitely works with Apple Home – as long as you have one of their Zigbee 3.0 hubs.

The rear of the box is a little more technical, showing the sensor’s radar detection range, whilst the sides offer up features and specs;

Features

• Accurate presence detection
• Active spatial learning
• Hassle-free setup for all
• Versatile mounting options

Specs

• Model: PS-S03E
• Ports: USB-A
• Input power: 5V 1A
• Wireless protocol: Zigbee (3.0)
• Dimensions: 57 x 50 x 37mm
• Operating temperature: -10~40ºC | 14~104ºF
• Operating humidity: 0~95% RH, no condensation

Inside the box you get the FP1E of course, a metal plate with two holes for fixing it to a wall using screws, a matching double sided adhesive patch, and the manual in multiple languages. Both the metal mounting plate and the base of the FP1E’s stand are magnetic, so once you’ve mounted the plate the FP1E will cling to it very well. If you’ve ever used the G2H or G2H Pro, you’ll be able to attest to the magnet’s strength at holding fast. THere’s no power brick, as you may have come to expect these days.

The FP1E uses the now tried and tested stand you find in products going way back to the days when early Xiaomi cameras came out – you know, the ones that were released years before Wyze used the same camera design and repackaged it…

This stand is still in use with the Aqara camera Hub G2H Pro, and the cameras that preceded it – the G2, and the G2H – so it’s clearly a good design, and offers versatility for the placement of the FP1E at many different angles. Along with the option to angle it in the vertical plane, it can also be rotated, making it really exceptionally handy. The underside has a simple but easy to press reset button.

Unlike its big brother, the FP2, the power cable is fixed to the device, and as such can’t be replaced for another cable. The cable it comes with is probably more than long enough for most use cases, coming in at a bit under 2 metres.

If you’re an owner of the FP1 (I have three here myself), then you’ll immediately know the design has not changed at all with the introduction of the FP1E. It differs from the FP2 visually, but also in terms of functionally too though, which I’ll get to shortly. It has improvements over the original FP1 too, although perhaps less perceptible.

IN AQARA HOME

Compared to both the FP1 and the FP2, the FP1E is a lot more streamlined, both in terms of the options within the app, and in terms of functionality. Whilst the FP2 offered an array of functionality, including creating a detailed map of your room or living area, along with icons for furniture etc, the FP1E has none of that, and in some ways is better for it. Also unlike the FP2, which offered up to 30 separate zones – all exposed to Apple Home, I might add – the FP1E simply covers one area, which can be adjusted.

The main page for the device is quite simple, with three main accessible options shown. The first of these is a log of presence and absence events. It’s very simply laid out, and as such is easy to understand. The Detection radius setting is really simple to use, and a lot more intuitive than was offered by the FP1, which had a screen that represented your room/area, like the FP2. However, the UI for the FP1 was really difficult to get a grasp on, as through trial and error you had to work out the edges of its detection range. This for me involved standing in four corners of the living room, to check whether I was within range or out of range of the sensor, then adjust the map boundaries accordingly. It was pretty tedious, if I’m honest.

The FP1E does away with that, and just has  slider that represents the complete detection range, from zero to six metres. When you’re in the sensor’s range, a little icon would appear above the slider to show where you are in relation to the sensor, and therefore allow you to adjust the sensors detection range. This means if you wanted it to only detect presence within two metres of the sensor, even if the room was  four metres deep, then this allows for that. Of course, it’s not as detailed as the FP2 with its 30 zones, but for some people and some use cases, this simple setup is exactly what’s needed, and no more.

For the last few weeks, I’ve been testing it in a few locations, but primarily in the bathroom. The reason for testing it here is that the bathroom offers the perfect circumstances for testing how well it adheres to the limits set for its detection range. when going from the living room to the other bedrooms, we would pass by the open sliding door of this bathroom, and so for a standard motion sensor, there’s going to be the strong chance that it would pick up motion even when you’re not actually in the bathroom, merely passing by.

Not so with the FP1E! Before anything else, you should set the device up, then clear the area of any type of moving object, be that a person, a pet or a fan. Then with the help of AI, the FP1E will build up an image of the area in question as a starting point. It only take around 20 seconds to do this. after that’s done, you can go into the Detection Range Settings page, and set up the limits for the sensor.

As you can see from the last two screenshots above, I’ve set it so that anything outside of the bathroom is set so that it won’t trigger anything based on presence, even though it clearly can detect when I’m outside of the range I set it at. This has worked incredibly well, and I can stand right outside the door to the bathroom without triggering the automation I set up for it, which incidentally turns on the Aqara wall switch controlling the bathroom lights.

IN APPLE HOME

There’s not much to report on with the Apple Home side of things, so in essence, if you’re going to use the FP1E in Apple Home automations, it’ll act like any motion or presence sensor to trigger other devices, depending on the detection of presence or absence. It’ll still abide by the detection limits you set in the Aqara app, however.

One thing the FP1E lacks versus the FP1 is that the latter does offer both presence and motion detection. Motion detection is almost on a par with a standard Zigbee motion sensor in terms of speed, which is quicker than a presence sensor for initial motion detection. You can see the two separate sensors listed here in the Eve app, with the FP1E only showing presence as an option. The FP1E doesn’t have such an option, however, whilst presence detection still isn’t as fast to react compared to a PIR sensor, it’s a massive improvement over the speed of presence detection with the original FP1. In most cases I may end up using a standard PIR sensor in combination with the FP1E, unless response time isn’t a top priority.

Ultimately, the options in Aqara Home are superior, as long as the automation is working with other Aqara devices of course. There are options for presence and absence, but also ‘presence for’, ‘Absence for’, ‘Moving’, ‘Still’, ‘Moving for’, and ‘Still for’. Additionally, you can even trigger a couple of options with the FP1E, which you don’t normally see. So, you can, for example, use an Aqara smart button to trigger the FP1E to relearn its Spatial Learning, thereby resetting the absence status, or you can even restart the device. That’s impressive.

THE FP1E IN USE

As previously mentioned, I have three FP1s, two of which are in use. Both are used in small spaces, like our en-suite bathroom (not the one used in the tests), and our entrance area. I never reviewed the FP1 for two reasons; I found the device hard to set up to my liking, and found it inaccurate some of the time, especially for larger areas. I also didn’t review it because it was only available in China, and didn’t want overseas readers buying one off the back of my review, despite it being a largely negative review if I’d written it. With the FP1E, things have changed considerably, and I’m glad that Aqara saw fit to release this internationally, as it does the job well. Yes, it’s not as comprehensive as the FP2, but for use in a bathroom or kitchen, where you may not require the zones feature offered by the FP2, this does a great job. It’s way more easy to set up than either the FP2 or the FP1, and on that basis it works as well as I could have hoped for. I’m also glad they stuck with Zigbee for this device as opposed to WiFi as is found in the FP2, or Matter over Thread for some of the company’s newer devices. Not that I don’t like Matter or Thread, but I know where I stand with Zigbee, and it rarely lets me down, which is of paramount importance to me, and I should imagine to other users too.

If I were to find any negatives, it would be the fact the power cable is permanently fixed into the sensor, but I guess Aqara decided to stick with the design they already had in the FP1 and just upgrade the internals, which definitely seems to be the case in my experience. Other than that, its highly recommended.

The post Aqara Presence Sensor FP1E (review) appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

PACKAGING | CONTENTS

The front of the box features both the lock and keypad, and depending on the option you purchased, you’ll see either the silver or space grey model. I’m told there’s a white model, but have yet to see anyone with it. When it comes to the front, they really pushed the boat out when it comes to letting you know just how compatible this lock is;

• support for Apple Home, Amazon Alexa, Samsung SmartThings, and Google Home
• Offers Matter and Thread support (Matter over Thread, essentially)
• It doesn’t mention Apple HomeKey on the front, but then only Apple Home users get to use this, so…

The back of the box has the standard blurb, but it also outlines the type of locks the U200 works with. Bear in mind this is a retrofit lock, so for both deadbolts and eurocylinder locks, you get to keep your original lock. If you have locks other than these two basic types, the U200 is not guaranteed to work with it, but to be sure you can visit the company’s website to do a compatibility check to be certain. I’ve fitted the U200 to a deadbolt lock on one of our internal locks, so I guess this is probably the easiest of all the installations (that makes a change…).

The box lists some of the features;

• Matter over Thread support, which will no doubt please the more keen early adopters
• NFC support by using either Aqara’s own NFC fobs, or certain types of NFC cards
• Apple HomeKey support
• Quiet unlock mode
• The option to power the keypad with batteries or ‘wire-powerd’ [sic]
• Other unlock methods, including your own key of course
• And the fact that it works with your existing lock

The other side features the specs, which I’ll also list;

• Model: EL-D02E
• Wireless Protocols: Thread, Bluetooth 5.1, NFC
• Door Lock Dimensions: 62.3 x 60.6 x 152.5 mm (2.4 x 2.4 x 6 in.)
• Keypad Dimensions: 42.7 x 33 x 146 mm (1.7 x 1.3 x 5.7 in.)
• Powering Modes:
  • Door Lock: Aqara Rechargeable Li-ion Battery 7.4V
  • Keypad: 4 x LR3 AAA 1.5V Batteries
  • 12V-24V AC 0.5A 50/60Hz or 12V-24V DC 0.5A wired input
• Operating Temperature: -15 °C ~ 66 °C (5 °F ~ 150.8 °F)
• Operating Humidity: 0 ~ 93% RH, no condensation
• IP Rating (Keypad): IPX5

As you can see, you still get Bluetooth as an option, which means you can create a direct connection between your phone and the lock (actually the keypad), which is still something we’re unable to do via Thread, even with Thread built into the later iPhones.

So, there’s a ton of contents in the U200 box, to say the least.

• Smart Lock U200 × 1 (incl. keypad)
• User Manual × 1
• Aqara Rechargeable Battery × 1
• Cylinder Adaptor Kit × 1
• Hexagon Screwdriver × 1
• USB-C Cable × 1
• AAA Battery × 4
• 3M Sticker × 1
• EVA Pad Kit × 1
• Screw Kit × 1
• Power Bank Pouch × 1

If like me you’re adding this to a US style deadbolt lock, you won’t be needing the 3M sticky pads.

THE LOCK | KEYPAD

Unlike many locks with keypads, the U200 comes with its own keypad as standard, and isn’t an optional extra. The two are pre-paired at the factory, so if for any reason one of the two parts gets damaged, you can’t just replace it, so the lock and keypad would have to be replaced in total. That would normally make you understandably think twice about the purchase, given that an optional keypad would be preferable, but as it stands, none of the keypads you can buy as an optional extra come with Apple HomeKey included. Some have a fingerprint reader, which is probably just as good in most cases, but once again Aqara tops most other options with an included NFC reader too. The SwitchBot Lock Pro also offers both a fingerprint reader and NFC, but no Apple HomeKey support, but it does require their own hub due to it using Bluetooth, whereas with the U200, it’ll connect to an existing Thread network via Matter, so no hub required unless you plan on using it in the Aqara ecosystem, in which case the Aqara Hub M3 will be the device to provide Matter and Thread support. You don’t actually need the Aqara M3 to use the U200, as it’ll connect to the Aqara app via you phone using Bluetooth. If you want to make use of automations within the Aqara app, you will need the M3.

I can only speak from the perspective of fitting it to a deadbolt door, but it was very easy to install. I have had experience in fitting other retrofit locks though – having installed the Nuki Lock 2.0, August Pro, and the previously mentioned SwitchBot Lock Pro, so maybe I’ve had a bit more practice, but it is actually pretty straightforward. Deciding where to place the keypad is probably more tricky, but only because you need to ensure that the location you place it is going to be easily accessible for NFC, hands (with the keypad), but especially iPhone and Apple Watch. Having it in a location that makes you contort your wrist to use HomeKey on your watch or your phone is not going to be much fun.

Focussing briefly on the lock portion, removing the cover plate reveals a few things; first of all this is home to a rechargeable battery, so you don’t have the option to use standard disposable or rechargeable batteries. That’s ok, as long as the cost of a replacement battery is reasonable, and possibly more importantly, is readily available. So far, I’ve not seen any mention of replacements, but I’m sure that’ll come in due course. The battery clicks into place quite easily, and comes with a little tab to pull it out, so no complaints there. As it’s rechargeable, there’s a USB-C port at the top (or bottom, depending on how you’ve installed it), so in essence, you don’t even need to remove the battery to recharge it, as long as you’re a bit creative. There’s also an LED indicator that briefly flashes when the lock is activated in any way.

As this is a full-on Matter device, you don’t get a QR code for HomeKit, only a Matter QR code. This is going to be something we’re already seeing more of, but to HomeKit users it generally makes little difference – you scan the Matter code to add the device to Apple Home in the same way you’ve always done. There’s also a QR code for the Aqara ecosystem, which you may or may not need to scan, as once powered up, the lock should be sending out a Bluetooth signal allowing it to be discovered. If not, you can use the QR code. Below (or above) these codes are two buttons – Reset and Set – both of which are pretty self explanatory, although maybe less so for the set button. With the lock set up, you tend to need the Set button to add it to other ecosystems.

IN AQARA HOME

The main screen isn’t dissimilar to the screens for Aqara’s other locks, with user management, passcode and log options. Even though the lock uses Thread, Bluetooth is still available, which – as I’ve previously stated – means you don’t actually need the M3, or any other Aqara hub, to use the U200. As you can see from the second screenshot, I’m not connected to the M3, and I’m still able to access functions and settings for the lock, as long as I’m within Bluetooth range. For some reason, however, even if you’re connected to the lock via the M3, accessing most functions for the lock does require you to activate the keypad first, which would be achieved by pressing any button on the keypad. This means accessing most features can’t be done remotely.

When it comes to users, just as with the other Aqara locks, it’s broken down into three basic categories (not including users of one-time passcodes);

• Admin – this gives the user access to all lock settings, as well as locking or unlocking using all the available methods
• General – much like the Admin option, this allows the user to use all the available lock/unlock methods.
• Temporary user – This allows the user to access the lock only using a passcode. Additionally, you can limit access between specific dates, or certain days of the week and between certain times.

The one-time passcode option can generate a one-off passcode that can only be used one, and will expire after a set date. This also doesn’t require you to activate the lock, unlike the other options.

Both Admin and general users can access the lock using a registered fingerprint, passcode, with an NFC card, or with Apple HomeKey (Via Apple Home), if they have a suitable iPhone. There are no restrictions to the user in terms of dates, days, or times. Periodic/temporary users can be restricted by date – so you can allow access between specific dates, but you can also customise this access to only work on specific days of the week, and even between certain times of the day. If you’re worried you’re going to come up with an easily guessed passcode, the Aqara app can generate one randomly for you.

As with all Aqara locks I’ve reviewed so far – A100 Zigbee, U100, U500, the U200 has so many options I’m just not going to go into detail on each one. A possibly useful one for people who rent out their properties on a regular basis, the Door Lock Log is quite useful for keeping track of all comings and goings, as well as alerting you to other issues.

As for the long list of features, there are options for controlling the audio that comes from the lock, there’s auto lock, although in my testing I couldn’t get it to work consistently. There’s an option to lock the keypad if repeated failed passcodes have been attempted to be used. Night latch mode allows you to only allow for certain types of access to be used between specified times, and Auto-Turn is a good option for people with potential disabilities or issues with the strength in their hands. This allows the thumb turn on the lock to be turned just a little way, with the U200 completing the rest of the locking/unlocking action for you. If you turn the lock a little way, slowly, the deadbolt will lock/unlock slowly in kind. Turn it a little way more briskly, and it’ll respond with a fast lock/unlock. It may seem a bit strange to offer this, but it does work. I just wonder if a small button might have been better though.

The lock also has Quiet mode, which allows the U200 to lock much quieter and slower. In fact there are three speeds available, quiet, normal, and fast, with the latter being the default. To achieve this mode, you simply need to press the Confirm button (the one with a ‘tick’ icon) followed by the lock or unlock method you choose, and it’ll duly open in the slowest mode. You can also set the lock to perform and any of the three speeds on a schedule, which is great if you have a family member that regularly arrives home late, which means they’re less likely to wake other members of the family.

The lock also offers the following modes – Do Not Disturb and Passage, with the latter ensuring that the U200 stays unlocked for those times when you need the lock to be accessible for when people are constantly going in or out of the house.

IN APPLE HOME

You’ll not be surprised to see the U200 offers much the same level of detail as most locks. You get the one tile, and a toggle control beyond that. For the settings panel, you get to see the battery levels, but only for the lock itself, not the keypad. This is because it’s the lock that connects to your Apple Home via Thread, with the keypad connecting to the lock using Bluetooth.

If you prefer not to use the Aqara app for user management, you can still use both Apple HomeKey and passcodes, with the latter option using the ‘Manage Access’ feature, which allows you to create or generate passcodes directly within Apple Home. Manage Access doesn’t give you the range of customisation options you find in the Aqara app, so you can’t restrict the user to a start and end date, certain days or times. You can only give them access, turn access off, or remove it totally. What you do get is the option to allow the same passcode to be used with other locks in Apple Home, as long as those locks also support the Manage Access feature. If you look in the second screenshot, you can see both the U200 and U50 are present as options, but my now ageing August Lock is not present, as is the case with Aqara A100 Zigbee, neither of which has this option. You can then share the passcode in a variety of ways – AirDrop, Email, Messages, Notes, and much more.

IN DAY-TO-DAY USE

This is a tricky one to conclusively talk about, as I only have one front door, which is already being taken care of by the Aqara A100 Zigbee (review HERE, video HERE), so I’ve had to confine my testing to a bedroom door – hey we live in an apartment! This also means I’ve been unable to test the keypad with the outdoor elements. That said, in all the testing, which so far covered maybe just a tad under two months, I’ve been impressed by a few things. First of all, the response time between a fingerprint being pressed onto the sensor and the lock opening, is exceptionally  fast. This had been my experience with the A100 and U100 locks, but the keypad is hardwired into these locks, so you should expect nothing less. With the keypad not physically connected to the lock, only utilising Bluetooth, you’d rightly expect there to be a delay, at least initially. This simply isn’t the case, with response times being astonishingly fast.

All of the lock options – fingerprint, NFC, and Apple HomeKey – are as fast to respond, with only the keypad being slower due to having to tap in a passcode. I think aside from being able to offer HomeKey via wireless keypad, which I honestly had my doubts would actually come to pass, the reaction times really do put many other locks to shame when you compare like with like.

One downside is the fact you currently need to be with the keypad and have it activated in order to access nearly all the settings. Hopefully Aqara can address this. The other more minor downside is regarding issues I had with connecting it to the M3. When I first set it up, everything worked well in both Aqara and Apple Home. As I’m meant to be actually testing the device, I did remove and reinstall the U200 a few times, and this is where I encountered issues. The second installation went through, but on this occasion Apple HomeKey was added, but wouldn’t actually work. A third installation fixed this, but then I couldn’t bind it to the M3, which is the state we’re at currently. I did have separate issues with the M3, which I detailed in my review, so as it stands, the U200 is mostly used in Apple Home, with Aqara Home only used to change settings.

Build quality is of the usual Aqara standard, which can vary depending on some devices. For example, the Aqara A100 I have here is built like a tank, due to the two parts being mostly made of heavy, durable metal and glass. The U200 isn’t as ‘tank-like’ as this due to the keypad and lock bodies being made of plastic. They still feel well made and put together though, and don’t creak at the seams, or offer gaps where there shouldn’t be any.

I think the one thing that makes this lock stand out from other retrofit locks is that it can work with both European and North American style locks. The SwitchBot Lock Pro can too, but you have to have a separate model for this, whereas the U200 does everything with the one model. The Nuki only works with European locks, and the likes of August, as one example, are only meant for deadbolts, so the U200 is truly on its own in this respect.

If I were to offer a suggestion, it would be that if you want to replace a dumb deadbolt lock, you may want to consider the U100 or U100, as they have it all in one package. If, on the other hand, you’re renting, and aren’t allowed to simply replace the whole lock, then the U200 is best for the least intrusive option of the two. It goes without saying that for European users, this is probably the best option right now, and I say that having used locks by Nuki and SwitchBot.

The post Aqara Smart Lock U200 (review) appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

PACKAGING | CONTENTS

Like many companies for the last 15 years or so, Switchbot take the Apple packaging route, with just the remote on the front of the box, leaving the rear to host the details. The side is equally minimal, with just the name of the product. The box is pretty sturdy, in an ‘Apple’ way too, so less chance of damage to the contents, thankfully.

The back spells out the features pretty well, so it works with devices that typically use an infrared (IR) remote control, thus replacing said remotes. It also works with SwitchBot’s own devices, using Bluetooth, which is the communication method of choice for SwitchBot. It does state the remote is Matter compatible, although this is only the case once it’s connected to one of SwitchBot’s own Matter enabled bridges/hubs, of which there are two – the Hub 2, and the Hub Mini Matter. The fourth point stating ‘Start Quick Scenes’ also requires that the remote be connected one of their hubs, to both trigger scenes in the SwitchBot app, and other Matter platforms. The remote comes with a built-in lithium-on battery that offers up to 5 months of average use between charges.

Aside from the admittedly lovely looking remote, you’re provided with a USB-A to USB-C cable for recharging the battery inside, a couple of warranty and social media cards, the instruction booklet, and a sim pin for resetting, as required.

Given that SwitchBot all are still clinging to Bluetooth, it comes as no real surprise that this remote would use that, even in the face of Thread’s increasing prominence. Ordinarily I’d deride such a choice, but given SwitchBot’s sizeable customer base, it doesn’t make sense to potentially abandon them for the sake of one device, so reluctantly, I can see why they opted to go down this route.

THE UNIVERSAL REMOTE

As a remote control, I personally like that it’s unencumbered with a ton of buttons, which is almost always the case with remotes for TVs, ACs, Blu-Ray players and the like. Of course, that could lead to some confusion for some, due to buttons taking on different functions depending on the device connected, but I found it generally intuitive. I’m not a pensioner (yet) though, so maybe my experience is a tad skewed. Still, the concept of a remote control is familiar to almost everyone I’d argue, and this should ‘slot in’ for most people.

with almost half of the body being taken up with a screen, you’re left with a relatively small set of controls, but as already stated, the functionality of some of these change depending on what you’re controlling. When it comes to controlling a TV for example, you get the standard volume controls and mute button, as well as a channel button. There’s a ‘back’ button and a Home button, both of which have become more common on remotes. The one button that sticks out – literally – is the red button with a SwitchBot logo. This is for the remote only, and basically takes you back to the top menu of the remote, where all devices will be listed.

What’s less common for standard remotes is the jog wheel, which you’ll be more familiar with if you own an Apple TV, perhaps. This serves in the way you’d expect, but in certain circumstances, it also makes use of the typical up/down/left/right controls if you’re selecting something within a list or menu. There’s a ‘confirm’ or ‘select’ button in the centre, and above that are on and off buttons, that for a TV or AC, work as expected.

Above the array of standard buttons, but below the display, are four ‘shortcut’ buttons. These change what they offer based on what you’re controlling, which I’ll touch on in more details later.

As the remote uses IR, you get the same transmitter window at the top/front of the device, so nothing different there. What is different to many other remotes, is the built-in lithium-ion battery, so you don’t use AA or AAA batteries like you would a normal remote. With this, you have a USB-C port for recharging the internal battery. Next to that is a pinhole to reset the device if necessary.

THE DISPLAY

I’ve already added a few devices to the remote; my Xiaomi TV, an Apple TV4K, a Tower fan, and my bedroom AC. In addition, I’ve also added the remote to a SwitchBot hub Mini with Matter, and from there, exposed the remote to Apple Home, which then gives me the option to program four buttons, which I’ll go into later. Focusing on the AC control for now, and as you can see, there’s a large ‘OFF’ on the display, along with an AC icon. Below that, three of the four shortcut buttons have options assigned to them with the relevant icons. Pressing the main On or Off buttons on the remote will turn the AC on or off, so that’s pretty straightforward for most people to understand.

• The first of the three shortcut button (the one with a snowflake icon) gives you access to the different AC modes – more in fact than you’d typically get in Apple Home. Home; Cool, Heat, Dry, Auto, Fan Rate.
• The second button gives you access to the different fan speeds; Auto, Fan Speed 1, Fan Speed 2, Fan Speed 3.
• The third button allows control of the louver (not the famed Paris museum…), the blades that allow control of the directional flow of the cool/warm air from the AC.

It should be noted that the controls and options within each of these separate sections may well be different, depending on what type and model AC you have. Additionally, the sections assigned to the shortcut buttons are automatically set, and can’t be changed.

One rather important final note, and one that I’ve approached SwitchBot regarding, is that when you change any settings on the AC via the remote, they aren’t synced with the AC in either the SwitchBot app or Apple Home. This appears not to be an oversight, as SwitchBot told me AC control via the remote is entirely independent of any instance of the AC in other apps or ecosystems, and essentially works as intended. To me this is a major fail, as the one reason many people have smart AC controllers, ditching the existing remotes is for this very point – changes in the AC need to be reflected in your smart home when the changes are coming from a smart remote, or your smart home. I hope they reconsider this, as you may as well not use the remote for your AC if your smart home isn’t aware of the actual status of the AC.

Quickly onto the TV control, and in my case things were a bit tricky for my Xiaomi TV, as the main remote it comes with actually uses Bluetooth. This meant that I couldn’t program the SwitchBot remote with the Xiaomi remote. However, the TV does receive IR controls, and so I was able to program some basic instructions, but in a really circuitous way, as I’ll describe on the off chance that someone else might have a similar issue.

I have many Aqara hubs, one of which is the P3 AC companion. For whatever reason, I was able to create a remote within the Aqara app using the P3 as the remote for my Xiaomi TV. I then had to teach the remote’s basic instructions to the SwitchBot Hub Mini with Matter. This involved having the Hub Mini receive IR signals from my P3 in order to learn them. I then transferred the set of Xiaomi remote controls from the Hub Mini to the Switchbot remote, which thankfully was easy enough, and done all via the Switchbot app.

Incidentally, the screen is capable of colour, but it’s used quite sparingly for some reason.

Regarding Apple TV control, you simply have to go into the settings for your Apple TV, and add the Switchbot remote as a third-party remote control, which is something Apple TV has offered for a while now, so in this respect it’s nothing new. Having said that, controlling your Apple TV from the remote is via Bluetooth, not IR, so there are some differences at play here. What you’re missing that exists on the standard Apple TV remote is the option to invoke Siri. That option isn’t going to be coming to this remote any time soon, even if it had a built-in mic, which it does not.

All the controls work in much the same way they do on the original Apple TV remote, so it should immediately be familiar, even if the buttons are in slightly different places.

IN APPLE HOME

If you want to use the four shortcut buttons on the remote to control scenes or devices in Apple Home, you will need to connect the hub to one their Matter bridges. Once that’s done, you’ll be presented with a single tile (shown as a button). Tapping on it reveals four programmable buttons, much like any smart button in HomeKit. However, unlike most smart buttons, you’re only getting a single press action out of each one. Regardless of this, as I mentioned in my video for this product, as for the Apple Home/Matter integration, it makes the remote a glorified smart button, to an extent. That could be seen as a little unfair, as smart buttons can’t do the things the remote can do, all in one package, but if you were purely looking at this to control scenes in Apple Home, that’s pretty much what it is. For buttons #2, #3, and #4, I’ve simply used previously created scenes, but for button #1, I decided to try something slightly more useful.

I wanted to be able to control my blinds with the one button, and so I used the ‘Convert to Shortcut’ option that allowed me to press button #1 to close or open the blinds. It’s very simple, so all I’m doing is when the button on the remote is pressed, it checks to see if the target position is 0% (or closed), and if so, it’ll set the blinds to be fully open, otherwise set the blinds to fully closed. Of course programming the button for different open/closed percentages isn’t possible without a lot more trickery, but it does what I need, all within one button press.

THE SWITCHBOT APP

In the SwitchBot app, you can see I have two remotes, although only one is really in use at present. Tapping on the tile for ‘Remote B’ brings up individual panels, each representing a device the remote is able to control. If I tap on one of these, it’ll open up a screen that’s essentially a replication of the remote itself. This allows you to tap on any of the buttons, and see what options are tied to those buttons. In most cases these can’t be changed, however, but it does give you an idea of how these buttons and the controls their assigned to actually work.

When it comes to Apple TV, you don’t get a lot of options, and in fact, volume control isn’t available here. This is usually because the original Apple remote takes on the role of controlling the volume on your TV whilst setting it up. In my case, I have a soundbar that is both capable of AirPlay, but is also directly connected to my TV, so I’d have to separately set up the soundbar in the remote, which is less than ideal.

Device management has changed a bit since I did my video review for this product. In fact, it has changed twice! Originally, the ‘How to Add’ section had three options – Import Existing Appliances, Manually Add, and Third-party Control. Now as you can see, that’s currently down to two for some reason, so currently, you can only add a device that has first been set up via one of their hubs. This is not good, as originally the missing option allowed you to add a device without the need for a hub (although you wouldn’t get Matter integration). Between the first update that I featured in the video, and the current update, they did expand on the amount of categories you could add directly to the remote, although I can no longer show you that, until they presumably add it in a future update.

One final feature to mention is ‘Find Universal Remote’, which once pressed, gets the remote to play a beep sound for a couple of seconds, allowing you to dig it up from the back of your sofa, for example. The buttons and display also flash briefly. You can achieve something similar with the Apple TV remote, but it would require the use of an Apple AirTag, and a specially designed case to hold both the remote and the AirTag, so not quite as good I guess.

IN DAY-TO-DAY USE

I was initially quite excited about this, and it probably shows that in the video. Having since lived with it for a couple of months, it hasn’t lost any of its sheen in many ways, but the limitations have slowly surfaced, meaning there is a lot of room for improvement. I think the design and simplicity of the remote is great, and it really does well with the minimal amount of buttons compared to a standard remote in most cases too. Where it falls down is with the previously mentioned lack of syncing the AC state with the app and/or Apple Home. I like the idea of the four shortcut buttons that are exposed to Apple Home, and even though they’re single press, I’m not sure what else could be achieved in this sense. It’s also fair to say that whilst you can compare it to 4-button smart control device, those devices can’t also control your TV, fan, AC and more, so it is a bit more than that.

I just wish SwitchBot would bite the bullet and move to Thread. It’s well overdue in my opinion, and if this were to use Matter over Thread (if that’s actually possible), this could be a real killer device. As it stands at the time of writing, the latest update has fixed some issues I encountered early on; no Apple TV control at launch, with the second update, introducing several bugs, one of which was the inability to rename the shortcut buttons. Now with the latest update – V2.6 – there seems to be no option to add devices directly to the remote, which is insane really. Hopefully that will be fixed soon, but I do see some people being less than happy with some of the limitations. For me, being a constantly curious smart home enthusiast, I just muddle on and make the best of it!

The post SwitchBot Universal Remote (review) appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

PACKAGING

I’ve found the packaging for previous Smartmi products always nicely designed, and protect the contents very well. The packaging for the E1 is no exception. The product is front and centre, so you know exactly what you’re getting, and all the relevant info you’re likely to need is printed on the box too.

It supports Apple Home, Google Home, and Amazon Alexa, but there’s no mention of SmartThings. It also doesn’t support Matter, which for HomeKit users isn’t going to make a lot of difference, but does change things slightly for users of the other two platforms.

The included HEP13 filter is designed to tackle the usual pollutants, like dust, pollen, odours, smoke, pet dander, and PM2.5, which some of these come under anyway. It also has a layer of active carbon in the filter, so this should deal with VOCs to a large extent. As you can see, this is really only meant for small to medium size rooms, with the ideal size being 205 sq. ft./19 sq. m.

This being the case, as you can see from the image on the box, it does have a space saving design, so for small rooms like a kids bedroom for example, this would probably be ideal for taking up minimal space, whilst also being powerful enough for that typical type of room.

The E1 is unique (for an air purifier) in that the replacement filters available come with artwork printed on them. Of the three pictured above, I’ve only really seen the cat design, so I guess they’ll expand on these depending on how well the E1 sells, ultimately.

The E1, like all of Smartmi’s devices, uses standard 2.4GHz WiFi to connect to your network, and your smart home. That being the case, there’s no requirement for a hub.

THE PURIFIER

There’s not a lot in the box; the E1, a metal stand, the manual, and some mounting parts. The filter comes preinstalled, and the grey cover is actually part of the filter itself in that the cover, frame, and HEP13 filter are all one unit. Once you replace the filter, the cover – whether its the plain grey pattern or one of the art style covers – is also gone.

With the filter removed, you can see the fan that draws in air through the filter, which is then pushed out after pollutants are caught in the filter.

The inside is also home to the Apple Home QR code. There’s only one instance, so do make a backup in case. There’s a handy (if not necessary) diagram to show you how to replace the filter. In the third image, you can see the depth of the filter (), with the cover being glued onto the filter frame.

The filter is proprietary, which means you’re unlikely to find or be able to fit generic filters from other manufacturers. This being the case, you’ll need to purchase replacements from Smartmi, who have said that if you don’t want the artwork filters, the plain grey ones will also be made available.

The back of the stand has three keyhole slots that allows the E1 to be hung on a wall or other vertical surface. This, as you might now gather, is the reason for the art covers! If you don’t plan on hanging it off a wall, the unit has two holes for affixing the provided metal stand to the E1.

I think most people will opt for the stand option, although as already mentioned, mounting it to a wall does sort of create even more space, when its at a premium.

The back also features a vent area at the top where the clean air is expelled once it has passed through the filter and the fan. At the top of the unit is a small but brightly coloured panel featuring the controls for both the fan speed (three in total), and a power button.

There are small LEDs representing the power and WiFi connection, as well as the three aforementioned fan speeds. If these are likely to bother you at night, the good news is they can be turned off, although only via the Smartmi app.

First impressions are pretty good, and despite looking similar in concept to the much cheaper Ikea Förnuftig air purifier, the design is a lot more stylish in my opinion, looks way more sturdy, and the latter isn’t smart in any way, so it’s easy to see the Smartmi as a better product ultimately.

SMARTMI LINK APP

the Smartmi Link app is pretty bare-bones when it comes to features, which is a shame as it’s nicely designed and laid out. Any devices you have will appear as large tiles showing the devices themselves with a quick on/off control. Tapping on the tile brings up the main screen which has the standard on/off control as well as a sort of carrousel section to choose from three different speeds, listed as ‘gears’ for some reason. Aside from that, there’s the option to turn off the LEDs, as well as a basic schedule/timer section. The app also stores the HomeKit code, and allows you to bind the E1 directly to HomeKit via the app.

APPLE HOME

The Apple Home app fares little better, although as you can have the E1 interact with HomeKit devices from other brands, this is where it takes over from Smartmi’s own app, and for good reason, as I’ll explain later.

You get all the standard stuff, so a single tile for the E1 that allows for on/off control. Tapping anywhere other than the icon will open up the control screen; this is a slider control and power button. Even though the E1 has three distinct speeds, the slider doesn’t snap to those presets, so setting the slider to the relevant speed can be a bit of guesswork. I did mention this to Smartmi, who promised to remedy this via an update. Beyond that, in the settings panel, you get a different slider, that still controls the fan speed, as well as details for filter life and filter condition. That’s pretty much it.

With many devices, there are hidden controls you can access via third-party apps, but this generally isn’t the case for Smartmi devices, so if you want to turn the LEDs off via an automation, or simply via HomeKit, you’re out of luck, as it can only be accessed via the Smartmi app.

REPLACEMENT FILTERS

As it stands, replacement filters are only available as a triple pack, and they also only come with the ‘art’ selections. I’m told by Smartmi that the plain grey filter, like the one the comes with the E1 as standard, will also be available for purchase soon, so hopefully that will happen sooner rather than later.

Above is one of the artwork filters sent for this review, and although I’m not a cat person, per se, it does look cool. I dare say it would look great on the wall too, but that does require a commitment to drilling some holes into the wall, so it’s over to you!

PERFORMANCE AND POTENTIAL MINUS POINT

The main issue that some will have is that unlike many purifiers, the E1 doesn’t come equipped with a built in PM2.5 sensor – or any sensors at all for that matter. The company’s other purifiers – P1, P2, AP2, Jya – all come with PM2.5 sensors built in, so this is the reason for the lower price point of the E1. I personally don’t think it’s a problem, as I’ve found time and again through tests that the sensors in purifiers tend to measure the air immediately around themselves, and as such don’t tend to give realistic measurements for the room. This I’ve found is in part due to the air surrounding the device being cleaner due to the job it’s tasked with, whilst it seems logical to know the levels of PM2.5 the room in general, not in the immediate vicinity of the purifier.

My take on this is to get the E1 to turn on and off (via automations) based on measurements from an external sensor. There are plenty of PM2.5 sensors available for all budgets these days, and because they’re dedicated to a specific task, chances are they’re going to be at least as good, if not better than any built in sensor. You can also place these external sensors wherever you think the concentrations of pollutants is represented best, possible near a window facing a main road, for example.

Aside from this point, I don’t have any complaints, and in month I’ve had it running, I’m happy to say that it hasn’t gone offline once so far, which to me is always a worry. The usual price point is a little high at US$161 (it’s currently on offer for just US$129.00), considering the superior Smartmi P1 is available for just a little more. Still, it takes up little space, can be wall mounted, and comes with artwork printed on the covers, so it certainly has it’s own niche.

The post Smartmi Air Purifier E1 (review) appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

PACKAGING | CONTENTS

The S10+ comes very well packaged, and not just for the design, which is more than decent. The internals are all held in place with very dense foam, so there’s little to  no chance of the product inside getting damaged. The front illustrates what features the S10+ offers, which are things like direct connectivity to Spotify Connect, wireless connectivity, AirPlay, multi-room audio, and USB DAC. As regards Spotify, this isn’t the only streaming service offered, which also includes the likes of Tidal, Napster, Amazon Music, and a lot more. When it comes to multi-room audio, this can only be achieved with additional Arylic (or WiiM) devices, as AirPlay 1 isn’t capable of multi-room audio as such, which is the preserve of AirPlay 2 of course.

Some of the specs mentioned include a wired connection via an RJ45 port, as well as 2.4GHz WiFi being supported, so no 5.0GHz support I’m afraid. It does also offer Bluetooth 5.0 audio capabilities, and can be connected directly to a computer via a USB-A to USB-C cable for streaming audio, with the USB-C port also doubling up as a power connection.

In the box you get a manual, the S10+ streaming box, an IR remote control, a USB-A > USB-C power cable including power brick, a 1/4″ jack to jack cable, and a 1/4″ jack to stereo phono cable. The only thing missing is an ethernet cable and a digital audio cable.

THE S10+

This thing is smaller than you’d expect, at only 108 x 72 x 26.6mm (WDH) and as such it also feel exceptionally light. That shouldn’t matter though, as this is almost certainly going to be sat in one permanent place.

One of the first upgrades from the original S10 is the introduction of an LED display, which shows icons for the different input source being used at any one time. The S10 only has small labelled LEDs to let you know where the audio was from. However, these icons are pretty small, so maybe not a massively useful upgrade if you have this sat at a distance.

The S10+ now has an optical audio out, which was’t present on the S10, as well as have a dual purpose USB-C port. This port serves to provide power to the S10+, but can also be connected to a PC for streaming digital audio from your computer to the S10+ whilst also providing power.

There’s an ethernet port for a wired connection if you prefer that over WiFi, and of course you have standard Line in and Line out jack sockets to go with the provided cables. One big improvement is the inclusion of controls at the top of the device, with buttons for changing the input source, play/pause, and buttons to control the output volume.

Having the buttons on top of the device provide a modicum of usefulness, albeit way more limited in scope. although they may look more or less mechanical they are in fact touch sensitive, so a gentle but accurate touch works effectively every time. This is possibly one of the more useful upgrades, although possibly not one that would get too much use when factoring in access via your phone.

All in all, the package has it all apart from a digital audio cable and an RJ45 cable.

The image above shows four of the five icons that can be displayed on the front panel, with the first showing both a WiFi connection, as well as representing the ability to listen to audio from any of the aforementioned streaming services, which includes audio streamed from Apple devices using AirPlay. You can connect devices to the S10+ using Bluetooth, which also once again includes iOS devices. The third icon is for the Line input, which would include CD/DVD players, for example. The fourth icon shows up when a USB memory stick is plugged into the USB-A port at the back. The fifth icon (not shown) is displayed once you connect a PC to the S10+ via the USB-C port.

It certainly makes for a better visual than simple LEDs found on the original S10, although stated before, they are small, so maybe not so noticeable, but useful when you’re in front of the S10+ and are changing the input source.

THE IR REMOTE CONTROL

The infrared remote control that comes packaged with the S10+ is the same model you’ll find with one other Arylic products, like the  A50+ I reviewed a couple of years ago (Review HERE, video HERE) but it’s actually quite good. There’s nothing remotely (no pun intended) groundbreaking about it, but it has everything you’d possibly want in my opinion. It has the basics, like power, volume, and audio mute buttons, as well as a separate button to turn the display on or off. You then have individual buttons for the different input methods – USB, Aux-In (Line in), Optical in, Bluetooth, and WiFi. You then have buttons to control the bass and treble levels, as well as a ‘deep bass’ button, and a ‘Flat’ button, which resets the audio to its flat positions. Finally, you have six numbered buttons that allow you to call up presets, which are part of the 4Stream app’s ‘Favourites’ playlist feature, one of two compatible apps, that we’ll get to next.

4STREAM | GO CONTROL (APPS)

There’s no need to create an account with either the 4Stream or go Control apps. Once the S10+ is plugged in, it will eventually be detected by the apps, allowing you to go through the process of adding it to your WiFi network. If you choose the wired option, the S10+ will be discovered even faster. The app is designed to work with a variety of third-party streaming platforms and supports multi-room audio with Arylic’s own selection of amps and streamers.

The home page for 4Stream has four tabs: Browse, Device, Search, and Settings. The main page provides access to preset content and favourites, library items (music on your phone or devices connected to the amp), and music streaming services. If you scroll to the bottom, you can also select the audio source – WiFi (labelled NET), Bluetooth, Line In, or USBDAC.

The Devices page displays any devices connected to the app, which in my case is the S10+ and below that a WiiM Mini (review HERE, Video HERE).

Clicking on the device reveals a more detailed screen with the track timeline, track details, and the usual play/pause/skip buttons, as well as volume controls. Settings for the S10+ includes basic options like naming the device, device info, and even an alarm clock, with a basic treble or bass eq option, which brings us to the other app mentioned, Go Control…

The Go Control app is slightly different in that in focuses more on control over the audio than the streaming options that 4Stream offers. Go Control offers you the chance to sign in or sign up, but this is optional, so you can simply skip this. Once inside, you’ll be presented with the devices you have and an option to select one. As you can see from the second screenshot above, the WiiM Mini is there, listed as Soundbar B, but there are also two instances of the S10+. This is because one option is for the device as it’s connected to your WiFi network, whilst the second is for direct connection between the S10+ and your smart phone or tablet, using Bluetooth. After you’ve made your selection, you can then control playback, as well as swap the source of your audio.

On the same page as the playback controls, you also have options for basic audio adjustments. Under the ‘Sound’ tab, you have sliders for;

• Treble
• Mid
• Bass
• Balance
• Max volume
• Crossover (frequency)
• Deep bass (intensity)

The ‘EQ’ tab gives you access to an 8-band equaliser, that offers a few standard presets, like Classical, Pop, Rock etc. You can also create your own EQ preset and store that in the app for recall later. This app doesn’t offer any way for you to select different streaming services like the 4Stream app does, but it does give you more control over shaping the audio to your liking so they both serve their own functionality.

AIRPLAY 1 | AIRPLAY 2

I’ll admit that when Arylic first contacted me regarding a possible review of the S10+, I was disappointed when I was told it only used AirPlay 1, given that AirPlay 2 has essentially been the standard on Apple devices for a while now. If you’re not familiar with the difference between the two, aside from improved latency and overall reliability that AirPlay 2 brings, AirPlay 1 doesn’t allow you to stream to the device in question in tandem with other audio devices.

AirPlay 2 brought what is described as Multi-Room audio, meaning I can stream a track from my iPhone, iPad, Apple computer, or Apple TV to other AirPlay devices, but I can also select more than one device at a time. Once playback begins, audio going to all devices is synced, so you can be listening to a track in your home office, whilst the same audio is playing from a kitchen AirPlay 2 speaker, if you decide to go and make a sandwich, so you never miss any audio when moving from one room to another. It’s pretty good, and works very well.

As you can see from the screenshots above, each device listed has the option to be selected with over devices – apart from the S10+, which can be selected, but not along with other AirPlay 2 devices.

So in that sense, AirPlay 1 is clearly inferior if you want multi-room audio. The question is how many people actually use this? Probably many, given how many laud airPlay 2 as a concept. In my case, I spend a lot of time in front of my computer, working. If I go to the kitchen or living room, I’m not going to be there long enough for me to justify going into my phone to have any music I’m listening to, stream to another part of the home, for the sake of a minute or two. This might be different if you’re listening to a live broadcast perhaps, but in my case I rarely need or use multi-room audio, so it doesn’t really matter to me, as long as I can stream the music to the S10+ when needed.

As already mentioned, if you have multiple Arylic or WiiM devices, you can achieve multi-room audio, but it’s not AirPlay 2.

THE S10+ IN USE

As you can gather from the last set of screenshots, I do have a lot of AirPlay devices, almost all of which are AirPlay 2. The one device I have that I was thinking of replacing is the Belkin Soundform Connect, which along with being an AirPlay 2 capable device, is a fully fledged HomeKit device too, as it comes with an actual HomeKit QR code, which you don’t often see with AirPlay devices. It can connect to 5.0GHz WiFi which is a big plus for me, and has behaved very well, so I’m loathe to upset the apple cart on this occasion. So, whilst the S10+ has many benefits compared to the aforementioned Belkin – a wired connection, better input options, on-device controls, display – for the time being, the reliability of the Belkin, as well as it’s AirPlay 2 functionality (regardless of whether I use it) and HomeKit integration, are enough for me to hold off for the time being.

This doesn’t and shouldn’t reflect badly on the S10+ (apart from maybe the lack of AirPlay 2), as it’s a great device. I just don’t have a space for it in my smart home right now.

The post Arylic S10+ Wireless Audio Streamer w/AirPlay (review) appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

In this review, we’ll be look at not just the lock itself, but also the optional Keypad Touch, and the Switchbot hub Mini, with Matter support. It’s also important to note that I’m reviewing the model that works with US deadbolts, whilst there’s also a separate version available for european locks, typically for Eurocylinders.

Final point to note is that unlike many locks that have been released in the last year or so, the Switchbot Lock Pro is NOT Apple HomeKey compatible, at least not at the time of writing this review.

PACKAGING | CONTENTS

If we’re solely talking packaging, Switchbot has made it clear that they feel this is a premium (or Pro) product, with very a understated black box, featuring little aside from a line drawing of the lock, and the product name on the side. The back has the specs, and that’s it, so on the assumption you know what you’ve purchased, the contents are more important, but it still exudes class, so never underestimate the power of good packaging.

There’s a fair bit in the box, which aside from the lock, includes a mounting plate, two pairs of bolts for securing the plate to the outer part of your lock and the deadbolt, as well as three numbered adaptors for different tailpieces. There’s some tape, for holding the outer part of your lock in place during the installation, a magnet for door position detection, a screwdriver, and a hex tool for some small additional screws.

Onto the lock itself, and like the box, it’s a monolithic slab of black for the most part, with only a thumb turn featuring a small orange dot to set it apart. The thumb turn has a tread on it for decent grip, and when turned, has a reassuringly well engineered feel to it. There’s also a small LED above that, which lights up in various scenarios to let you know it’s working. Above the LED is a magnetic lid that hides the battery compartment. The sides are home to a total of four small holes for the included tiny hex screws (there are eight in total, in case you lose some).

The rear isn’t normally seen, as this is the section that connects to the mounting plate, which itself is connected to the door via the bolts that normally connect the existing thumb turn to the outer part of the lock. What you do see is the method in which the lock works to replace the thumb turn, and essentially lock or unlock the door for you. In the case of the US Deadbolt, you would remove the existing thumb turn, connect the mounting plate to the outer part of the lock with either your existing bolts, or the ones provided, then place one of three adaptors onto the exposed tailpiece, with the adaptor then connecting to the centre of the mechanism. Hopefully that all makes sense, but you can also check out an overview of it via the video below, starting at 2’46”;

The top and bottom of the lock are pretty devoid of anything distinguishing, other than the top featuring the Switchbot logo. This all lines up with the distinct ‘less is more’ approach that I personally like. With the magnetic cover plate removed, you have access to the battery compartment, which instead of relying solely on ‘silos’ for the batteries to fall into, uses a sort of cradle that holds the batteries together. This cradle then slots into the space provided, and is held in place with two spring loaded tabs that you turn 45º in order to secure or release the battery cradle. I like this design concept, although if these tabs somehow break, there would be nothing to hold the cradle in place, as the space for said cradle is also spring-loaded (if that’s the right word). Without these tabs, the battery cradle wouldn’t connect to the lock properly, and the lock wouldn’t have power basically.

Speaking of batteries, the company do also sell an optional rechargable battery package, which is actually two separate packs. These take the place of the aforementioned battery cradle, but are still held in place by the same spring-loaded tabs. The difference with these – apart from the recharging option – is that the lock can run on just one of these, so you can recharge one, using the other to keep the lock online uninterrupted. They’re recharged via a provided USB-C cable and port, found on each of the packs, labelled A and B.

SMART INSTALLATION

Having been the happy user of a Nuki Lock 2.0 for a couple of years (review HERE, video HERE) before replacing it with the Aqara A100 Zigbee, I was already familiar with how a retrofit lock of this type worked, so installation was actually quite easy. The Nuki was fitted to my main door, that used a mortice lock with a Eurocylinder, which is not the case for the Switchbot lock I have here, as for the purposes of testing it out, it was fitted to an inner door with a deadbolt. the methods of installation vary slightly but they’re both easy, although it’s important to note that the Switchbot Lock Pro for the two regions (Europe or North America) do come with slighting different mounting plates, so don’t buy the European model thinking it’ll work with a US deadbolt lock, as it won’t.

The Switchbot Lock Pro, like almost all of Switchbot’s lineup, uses Bluetooth. This makes me shudder a bit, thinking that this wireless protocol is still considered a valid option in 2024, especially with Thread now well established. There is a caveat in my stance on this when it comes to smart locks, however, as Bluetooth is still the only option available when connecting a lock and phone directly to one another. The newest iPhones have Thread inside, but as far as I’m aware it’s not being made use of, whilst all smart phones come with Bluetooth as standard, so in cases where you need that direct connection, Bluetooth is still the only choice.

Still, this lock could have gotten HomeKit certification, as many other smart locks have in the past, which would have negated the use of the company’s Switchbot Hub Mini (w/Matter) or the Hub 2, which is required if you want to expose the lock to any smart home platform. I guess the reasoning is that the lock can only be bound to an Apple Home Hub for HomeKit, or their own hubs, not both at the same time. It’s clear that Switchbot has its own ecosystem in mind here, and if you’re an owner of many other devices by them, the lock does in some ways benefit from having it connected to their ecosystem via these hubs, just as Aqara offers certain functions exclusive to their ecosystem. Maybe they should have offered both options – HomeKit or Switchbot hub integration. just saying…

Manual control of the lock can be achieved by simply using the dial or thumb turn for locking or unlocking, but this dial also has a button built into it. Pressing the button can also achieve the same basic lock control, which is useful for people who may suffer from limited control over their hands or fingers.

You can add the lock to the Switchbot app without needing a hub, which allows you to control the lock as long as you and your phone are in Bluetooth range of the lock. Adding it to a hub exposes it to third party platforms, as well as allowing the lock to interact with other Switchbot devices, and devices on other platforms, using scenes or automations.

In the Switchbot app, you have a dedicated tile for the lock, along with a single screen to control its status, view usage logs, and see what other devices are connected to it. In the case above, you can see I have the Switchbot Keypad Touch connected to the lock (via Bluetooth). You’ll also notice that I’ve got a few other items set up in the app – an AC controller, a temperature and humidity sensor, the aforementioned lock and keypad, as well as a TV and the hub. Both the AC and the TV are controlled via the hub’s built-in IR blaster, which also exposes those devices to Apple Home and other platforms.

Ultimately, unless you already have the Switchbot Hub 2, the new Hub Mini with Matter is an essential purchase if you want to get the most out of the lock. The Hub Mini is useful in its own right, due the IR blaster though, so it makes sense to get it anyway.

In Apple Home, it’s a pretty standard affair, with a single tile to represent the lock for quick access to open and close actions. There’s a larger toggle control when you press on the tile (but not the icon). You also have basic settings for the lock. it doesn’t include an option to view the battery levels unfortunately, which is reserved for the Switchbot app.

THE SWITCHBOT APP

The Switchbot Lock Pro offers a respectable amount of customisation, including the basics, like Control over the LED indicator, and alert sounds from the lock. The button on the lock can actually be used in more ways than just controlling the lock, with options to restrict it to to just one of the two options. You can also assign actions to the button when performing a double press, so you can trigger scenes or automations, but only within the Switchbot app.

There are options that allow for triggering an alarm when the door is either ajar, or left unlocked. Even though the lock can be exposed to Matter via one of the company’s bridges, the app and ecosystem aren’t actually a Matter platform in the way that Apple Home, Amazon Alexa, or more recently Aqara Home, are. This means that if you want to connect to the lock remotely solely within the Switchbot app, you still need some form of cloud connectivity. If you want remote access from within HomeKit, you’re also essentially using Apple’s iCloud services to connect to your devices remotely anyway, so this isn’t as odd as it may seem. With this cloud connection option, you can still pair your devices to Google, Amazon, IFTTT, and even Siri Shortcuts using what I’d call legacy methods, which is how you would have connected to these platforms pre-Matter. Battery status, as mentioned earlier, is the preserve of the Switchbot app. As you can see from the screenshot above, I’m using the rechargeable battery packs, and with it I get to see the status of each of the two packs. If I were using standard batteries, it would show the collective state of the four batteries.

THE KEYPAD TOUCH

If you’re disappointed that this lock doesn’t support Apple homeKey, but still want to use the lock, the Keypad Touch is essential in my opinion. This optional piece of kit connects directly to your lock, and whilst at its core it’s a keypad, it has a built in fingerprint reader, as well as NFC capabilities.

There’s a ton of parts to go with the keypad, which includes a metal plate, screws, an adhesive strip, and a pair of grommets to affix it to the outside of your home/door. The keypad is IP65 rated for outdoor use and can function with the following temperature ranges; -25 ~ 66 ℃ / -13~150ºF.

The keypad is capable of locally storing up to 100 separate fingerprints, but it can also store up to 100 passcodes of course. These passcodes can be one of a few types;

• Permanent Passcode: This is a passcode that is valid at all times. This type of code need to set up a Permanent Passcode first before you can set up others.
• Temporary Passcode: This is a passcode that can only be available for a certain period. The maximum validation period is 5 years.
• One-time Passcode: This is a passcode that is only valid once. And can be set with a time limit between 1 to 24 hours.
• Emergency Passcode: Should you use an emergency passcode to unlock your door, this action will be recorded and a relevant notification will be sent to a verified email address.

In many cases, people have found that a fingerprint sensor for a lock – whether part of the lock itself or separately as in the case here – is preferable to Apple HomeKey, simply because it’s quicker and you don’t need to get your phone out to unlock the door. HomeKey on an Apple Watch is probably almost as convenient too, of course. Passcodes are slower due to the nature of having to type them in, but they’re a good back up and also the type you can pass out to people, and cancel at any time.

The one area that seems to be lacking options is for the passcode side of things, as you can set a permanent passcode with no restrictions, but you can’t set a permanent passcode that has time or day restrictions. This is something you’d typically see in other locks where such options would be used for a permanent visitor to your home that only needs access at certain times of the day, and days of the week (cleaner or pet walker for example). You can set a temporary passcode, but that just has a start and end date, with seemingly no option to select time periods or specific days.

In one sense this shouldn’t matter, as both passcodes and fingerprints that are used are logged for you to check on if required, but given this is somewhat of a standard when it comes to passcodes for locks, it’s surprising to see it missing here.

The other option to unlock your door is with NFC; The keypad comes with a complementary Switchbot NFC card, with the option to buy more. This is probably the closest you can get when it comes to a comparison with Apple HomeKey, as the latter is based on NFC, even if it differs in some important aspects. The advantage of the NFC card is it’s faster than tapping in a passcode, and it’s less likely to be misread, unlike a fingerprint sensor, although in fairness to said sensor, it’s pretty reliable, so the choice is yours – passcode, fingerprint, or NFC card. I have seen that standard writeable NFC cards can be used with the keypad, although when I tried with a standard NFC card, it wouldn’t work.

IN USE – LOCK | KEYPAD | HUB MINI

Starting with the central device, the lock, and it has performed well, and I really have nothing to complain about. Some have bemoaned the size of it, and yes it is bulky, but then it has to carry four AA batteries and house a motor surrounding a thumb turn or key in some cases, so I’m not sure if there’s a way around that. At the end of the day, this is a retrofit device, so you benefit from keeping your original keys, which means no re-keying of your locks. Initially I found that compared to the Aqara U50, which I reviewed (video) soon after this lock, it would often show as offline, before eventually showing as online. I mention this in the video too. The U50 always showed as online straight away, whereas this lock took in some cases as much as 10 seconds to get to its online state. Thankfully iOS17.5.1 seems to have fixed this issue, and it now shows as online as instantly as the U50, so I’m glad to be able to say this is a non issue now.

It’s a shame this couldn’t work directly with Apple Home, and although I can see why they probably went down this route, I think it would have been good to be able to offer consumers the option to have it connect to a Home Hub if they didn’t need/want/have one of Switchbot’s hubs, but that’s their prerogative.

A lack of HomeKey support isn’t going to win it many fans, but then as it’s a Matter lock (via their hubs), Matter doesn’t support HomeKey anyway, so there’s little to be argued about there. With the keypad, which I think is very sturdily made, and reliable, it does make for a compelling retrofit option, that dare I say is better than Nuki’s offering. Whether this lock is going to be overshadowed by the upcoming Aqara U200 remains to be seen, but given the U200 comes with a keypad as standard, which also offers Apple HomeKey, it’s safe to say the Switchbot option has its work cut out at trying to convince people they should be going for the Switchbot Lock Pro.

Finally, the hub, which was originally only going to be sold as part of a lock package is actually now available to purchase separately. However, at US$59.99 I think it’s a bit overpriced, given the price of much more capable Aqara hubs that are available in a range of price options. Still, it does have an IR blaster that actually exposes all IR devices connected to it (subject to a limit), and not just the AC controller in the case of the Aqara Hub M3. So, if you don’t already have a hub, but want these extras, it could be useful and is available as part of package that brings the total cost of lock, bridge, and keypad down considerably compared to the cost of purchasing them separately.

Am I using it now, you might ask. Well as it was tested over a few weeks on an internal door, it could sit there and not be noticed, but I’ve actually since fitted the U50 in the same location, so no it’s not in use. My main door, which used to have the Nuki Lock 2.0 is now home to an Aqara A100 Zigbee, so there’s nowhere it can be used right now. As it stands, with the A100 on the front door, the U50 on another internal door, and the U200 in testing on yet another door, I have nowhere for it to go. That doesn’t mean to say it’s not good enough, but considering it needs the hub for HomeKit integration, I could do without a hub that really only serves the one purpose in my case, so I can’t give it a home. Maybe you can though!

The post Switchbot Lock Pro (review) appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

PACKAGING

The packaging is the first thing to grab you, with badges for both Thread and Matter, which whilst not a ‘first’ for Aqara (their Contact Sensor P2 has that  honour), it’s certainly their first hub to boast such credentials. The back is all about the specs, which are admittedly pretty impressive;

• Wired or wireless connection
• 2.4 & 5.0GHz WiFi a/b/g/n/ac
• Zigbee 3.0
• Bluetooth 5.1
• built-in IR transceiver
• 95dB loudspeaker
• Power over Ethernet
• USB-C power port

As for the features, it’s a Matter controller for the Aqara ecosystem, which means their platform is moving towards being a viable competitor to others. It has a lot of catching up to do if we’re talking more than just with Matter accessories. By that, I mean third-party device is supported, but only for Matter devices.

It’s also a Thread Border Router, which means Matter over Thread devices can work natively in the Aqara app. Note that HomeKit over Thread devices are excluded, so they have to be Matter over Thread.

It also mentions something called ‘Edge’ computing, which offers local encrypted control, with no requirement for cloud connectivity, amongst other things. The M3 can also make automations that were cloud-based on other hubs in your Aqara setup, local.

So, this all sounds great, and it is for existing Aqara users at a minimum; You’re getting a Zigbee 3.0 hub, a Thread Border Router to finally use your Aqara Matter over Thread devices (all two of them…), and an IR blaster that can control your AC, as well as expose it to Apple Home, and a much louder speaker than you get on either the M2 or the M1/M1S.

Even though it’s Matter compatible as a Matter bridge for their Zigbee devices, it can also work with Apple Home, Google Home, and Amazon Alexa using what I describe as the legacy methods. For Apple Home there’s not much difference between adding the M3 using Matter or HomeKit, but for Google and Alexa users, local control instead of a cloud-based approach is the enticement here.

CONTENTS

The contents are minimal, but not unexpected. Aside from the M3, there’s a manual that comes with QR codes for Matter, Apple Home, and Aqara. You’ll initially need the Aqara QR code, but assuming you add it to HomeKit via Matter afterwards via the Aqara app, you won’t need the Matter code. You’ll still need the HomeKit QR code if you go down the HomeKit route, which may be for good reason, for which I’ll go into later.

You get a USB-C to USB-A power cable, but no power brick, which is the standard these days. There’s also no ethernet cable. You do get a mounting bracket, with included screws and rawl plugs though. This allows the M3 to be ceiling or wall mounted if required.

THE HUB M3

Like the M2 before it, the M3 uses the same textured plastic on top that isn’t entirely resistant to fingerprints, but it’s not something you’ll really need to handle often I guess. the edge of the M3 has translucent plastic for the ‘360º’ IR blaster to do its thing. The back of the M3 has a pairing/reset button flanked by Aqara and HomeKit QR codes. There’s no Matter code on the box, but in addition to finding it on the manual, it’s stored in the Aqara app. The underside of the M3 has a rubber base to stop it from sliding around, as well as holes for the aforementioned mounting bracket to click into place.

The underside also features a large cut-out ‘trench’ for allowing the ethernet and USB-C cables to connect. If you have a router or network switch capable of offering Power over Ethernet (PoE), you can dispense with the USB-C cable and simply power the M3 and connect it to your router with the one ethernet cable.

THE M3 IN AQARA HOME

The process of adding the M3 to Aqara Home – which I’d recommend doing first – is pretty straightforward; once it’s powered up, you go into the Aqara app and select ‘Add Accessory’ although it may also pop up on the screen before you even get there. This is in part due to Aqara’s own ‘EasyPair’ setup feature first seen in the Aqara Camera E1. Bluetooth in the hub transmits a signal that the Aqara ecosystem picks up via your phone, allowing you to begin pairing it. Even though it comes with a Matter QR code, you don’t need it, but instead you use the Aqara QR code. The former is used for adding it to other ecosystems, although when adding it to Apple Home (via the Aqara app), for example, you still won’t need to scan that code.

Once added, you can begin the process of adding it to other ecosystems. For Apple Home users, you get two options – add using Apple HomeKit, or add using Matter. Making this choice depends on what you want from the M3, as each option gives something but takes another thing away.

• MatterAdd using Matter allows you to expose the AC control option to Apple Home as a fully fledged AC controller.
  • If you have any Aqara lighting products that use Apple’s Adaptive Lighting, you’ll lose this functionality if the lighting is connected to the M3.
  • You lose the option to have the M3 act as a security system in Apple Home.
• Apple HomeAdd using HomeKit allows you to expose the security system to Apple Home.
  • Lighting products capable of using Adaptive lighting, retain this feature when connected to Apple Home.
  • You lose the option to have the M3 act as an AC controller in Apple Home.

So the choice is yours. You could actually add the M3 using both Matter and HomeKit, giving you AC control, the security system, and Adaptive Lighting, but you’ll have two instances of each Zigbee device connected to the M3, which could cause problems, or confusion at the very least.

The M3 offers a lot of features and options you would previously have not seen with their other hubs. For example, there’s a section to describe the function of the M3 as the lead hub in a ‘cluster’. This is in part the way that the M3, which has more onboard memory, can make scenes and automations local, even if they originate on another hub. This also includes devices that are not technically hubs themselves, like the Camera E1, the Presence Sensor FP2, and the Video Doorbell G4.

One thing to note is that whilst the integrated speaker is a lot louder than that of the M2, it still won’t replace a professional alarm siren, but at least for notifications etc, you can actually hear without straining now.

There’s a separate section that allows you to add the M3 to other platforms, check what platforms its connected to, and manage those connections. It lists Apple Home, as I added the M3 to HomeKit using Matter. Apple Keychain stores the basic data for that hub in relation to its Matter connection.

AC control in the Aqara app offers pretty much all the control you need, although it could depend on the capabilities of your AC too as to what options you get. Via Matter the AC control is exposed to HomeKit, although you only get the basic controls – off/heat/cool, and temperature control. In order for you to get more fuller features over the AC, you do need to add an Aqara temperature sensor to the M3, which in turn can be linked to as a climate sensor for the AC control. This then shows you the temperature as part of the AC control in both Apple and Aqara Home. Without it, the temperature will show the default zero degrees. You can’t use a temperature sensor connected to another Aqara hub, even if on the same account and WiFi network.

As the M3 has an IR blaster, it can control other devices besides the AC, although unlike products like the Switchbot Hub 2 (review, video), or the Nature Remo Nano (review, video), which can expose other IR controlled devices to HomeKit, the M3 cannot. This may not be such a big deal for a couple of reasons; The first is that although the two aforementioned products can expose more IR devices, they only appear in HomeKit with basic on/off functionality, much like a smart plug, so for a TV remote, you can only turn it on or off. The other thing is that with Aqara having all the controls for other IR devices in its ecosystem, you can still create scenes to trigger certain aspects of that device, and export those scenes to HomeKit, which may actually be better in a round about way.

The M3 has a plethora of other settings, like custom ringtones, so you can upload your own sounds to the M3, for use in automations, as well as the hub offering four different language options (Chinese, French, Spanish, English).

Possibly the biggest change is that you can now migrate devices and automations on one hub, to an M3. This feature effectively factory resets the M3, moves the data from the old hub to the M3, then factory resets the original hub. This migration assistant only works in the Aqara app, so when it comes to the old hub in Apple home, it’ll still be listed, along with any child devices, it’ll show as offline, so you’ll have to remove this instance of the old hub from HomeKit. This option also means that you’re better off doing the migration from one hub to the M3 before you add any child devices to the M3, or for that matter (no pun intended) add the M3 to Apple Home.

THREAD, MATTER, ZIGBEE, BLUETOOTH – CONFUSED?

It’s already a thing that many are confused about the hub’s capabilities, what the different protocols are for, and what can be added. This wasn’t helped by the fact that Aqara released the M3 with very limited Matter support, which added up to just a handful of brands and devices being compatible at launch. This is not how Matter is supposed to be of course, and to their credit, they did fully unlock this feature, allowing all supported Matter device categories to be used with the M3. They still should have done this before releasing the M3 instead of retroactively responding to customer complaints, but it’s done now.

However, initially, this issue was further impacted by the fact that neither of the company’s own Matter over Thread devices could be added to the M3, which is a pretty bad self-own. Again, this was quickly rectified – partially – but still didn’t allow these devices (contact, and motion sensors) to be used as part of Aqara’s own security system, need I say how bad this looked? So for the third time, there was an update that remedied this final issue. It really shouldn’t have been this way, and somewhat tainted the launch in many peoples’ eyes.

So, aside from the missteps mentioned, what are all these protocols supposed to be for? Well, The M3 is many things, and in some way’s these roles are equals. First off, this is a Zigbee hub, just like the M2, so you can add Aqara Zigbee devices to it. It can then be exposed as a standard Zigbee hub to Apple Home using either the Matter or HomeKit QR codes. However, it’s also a Matter bridge, which is much the same thing; the difference is that it exposes those child devices to the four main platforms using Matter. This is different to HomeKit for the previously mentioned reasons, and when it comes to the other platforms, adding the hub via Matter circumvents the need for a cloud connection, which Google and Amazon have relied on – they basically connect to your account on the Aqara server, allowing that server to communicate your instructions to Amazon or Google’s own servers. Matter does away with this, and allows communication between the Aqara M3 (or other Matter enabled Aqara bridges) and your smart home platform, without the need to connect to your account in the cloud.

So, it’s a Zigbee hub/bridge/gateway, and it’s a Matter hub/bridge/gateway for Zigbee devices…

It’s also a Matter Controller. This means it acts as a central organising piece of kit that allows your Aqara smart home devices to run locally and effectively within the Aqara ecosystem. For example, the Apple TV, HomePod, and HomePod Mini are all Matter Controllers too, doing the same thing in Apple Home. Basically speaking, each platform requires its own Matter Controller, and the M3 is such a device for Aqara’s smart platform. Google’s Nest hubs, and Amazon’s own range of displays and speakers are all Matter Controllers for their respective ecosystems too.

Thread – yes, it’s a Thread device, but not like a Thread motion sensor, no. This is a Thread Border Router (TBR). This allows Aqara and third-party Matter over Thread devices to connect to the Aqara ecosystem. If it didn’t have the TBR inside, it could still act as a Matter Controller, but only for devices that connect through a Matter Bridge (like the Philips Hue Bridge, for example) or with Matter over WiFi devices. The older Apple TVs, and the original HomePod are such devices – Matter Controllers but without a TBR inside.

Bluetooth – This is included in part due to the way Matter works when a device is ready for adding to a Matter ecosystem. Bluetooth is the initial connection between the device, your phone, and the Matter ecosystem in question. Although it’s unlikely it’s used for much else, it could be used for some Aqara locks that use Bluetooth, but it’s not clear if that’s an option.

THIRD PARTY DEVICES

I already had an M3 from China back in January, and once the international version of the M3 arrived from Aqara for review, things had moved on. By that, I mean that I was now able to add the Hue Bridge to the Aqara ecosystem. How, you might ask. The Hue Bridge can now be added to Matter ecosystems by simply going into the Hue app, and generating a Matter code. You then add the bridge to Aqara’s own newly Matter-enabled ecosystem using that code and the Bridge and all its child devices are exposed to the Aqara ecosystem.

As you can see from the screenshots above, I’ve added a Hue Bridge to Aqara Home using this method. the Matter icon appears in the corner of the icon to show that it’s added using Matter. Due to the Hue Matter update, some other third-party Zigbee devices that could be added to the Hue Bridge, but not show up in Apple Home, can now be exposed to Apple Home because of this. The same is true for the Aqara ecosystem, which in my case shows a standard colour Hue bulb (LCT016) alongside a Tradfri bulb added to the Hue Bridge. This is an instance of Matter over Bridge, which is less talked about than Matter over WiFi or Matter over Thread, but is equally useful.

As it stands now, pretty much all Matter devices should be able to be added to the Aqara app if you have the M3. There’s a caveat here in that Aqara themselves have said many devices from third parties haven’t been tested, so there’s the possibility some won’t work as intended or even fail to add, so you’ll just have to try and see what happens.

The one question some people might ask is why would one want to expose devices to Aqara via Matter, if they already work with HomeKit. For me, the simple answer lies in Aqara’s automation options. In many ways, they’re so much better than what other platforms offer, but if you want specifics, it’s the way in which Aqara allows a lights to be turned on or off, with one automation. If that doesn’t make sense, in Apple Home for example, if you have a smart button controlling a smart bulb, you can set the button to turn the light on with a single press, but you don’t have an option for the bulb to be set at the opposite state to its present one. In essence, I want to be able to single press a button, and turn the bulb on or off with that single press, depending on the on/off state of the bulb. Yes, it’s possible by converting an automation to a Shortcut in the Apple Home app, but you shouldn’t have to make a convoluted IF/THEN automation when Aqara do it quite easily. Their app has an option that allows you to set a light to “on/off”, so you can rely on a single press on a smart button to to act just like a normal switch. This something I’ve longed for in Apple Home, but I just can see it ever happening. Now, as I have a collection of Hue bulbs and wireless buttons from Aqara, with the Hue Bridge in Aqara Home, I can achieve this. But I can also have those bulbs remain in Apple Home for other purposes, so it’s a win-win.

WHAT’S WRONG WITH IT?

When I originally set up my Chinese M3 back in late January, soon after, I noticed that some of my Thread devices became very sluggish to respond, and at different times went offline for a while, before coming back. This at first seemed to be limited to HomeKit over Thread devices, but then it started to manifest itself with Matter over Thread devices  too. The products that showed these kinds of odd behaviour were some of my Nanoleaf bulbs, Eve Energy smart plug, Wemo smart plug, and Wemo Stage Scene Controller. These are all HomeKit over Thread. Additionally, the Matter over Thread devices that acted up, were the Tuo Smart Button, and SmartWings Roller Blinds. After this began to get tedious, I assumed there was an issue with the Chinese model I had, and removed it, boxing it up for another day. Soon after I did so, everything behaved like it had before, with snappy response times, and no offline devices.

When the international model arrived, I set it up, and yet again the same issues came to the fore, with the same set of devices, so I now could see this wasn’t a fluke. I once again removed the newer M3, and as before, things became stable again. I have spoken to Aqara about this, and the majority of their beta testers hadn’t experienced any of these problems. That said, I’ve been contacted by maybe 5 or 6 people that have had the same issues, so it’s clearly not totally isolated.

just until a day ago, I was considering removing the M3 again and just making do with what I have for the sake of my sanity, however I seemed to have stumbled upon a fix of sorts. at first, my M3 was wired to an network switch that was connected to the router, which is when all the issues surfaced. I didn’t have any free ports on the router itself, but I did have an ethernet access point in another room, so connecting the M3 to this AP was essentially the same as connecting it directly to the router (as far as I can see). After testing this method out for a day, none of the sluggish response times and offline issues plaguing my Thread devices have returned, so I believe the M3 being connected to a network switch was the problem here, even if that shouldn’t be the case. Either way, I’m sticking with the M3 set up this way now, and will monitor the situation further.  With this frustration seemingly solved now, I can say the M3 is actually a very good product in many ways, and possibly their most forward thinking product to date. I hope at some point they find a solution so I can connect the M3 in a manner of my choosing, but for now I’ll just make do with what I have.

Wrapping things up, there’s a lot to like, and considering the issues I mention with the lack of Matter support are largely taken care of, and assuming most people won’t be experiencing the issues I had with a problematic Thread network, then I do think this is a worthy purchase. At the very least, you’re buying into a device that expands the Aqara app to include more third-party devices, adds AC control, has a louder speaker, and unlike the M2, offers 5.0GHz WiFi and PoE. If that’s enough to sway you, then go for it.

The post Aqara Hub M3 (review) appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

PACKAGING

The Motion and Light Sensor P2 (henceforth referred to the P2) follows on from the Door and Window Sensor P2, which was the first Matter over Thread device from Aqara, and although it’s the same design as Aqara’s Motion Sensor P1 with Zigbee, it’s not a replacement, as not everyone has, or wants, a Matter smart home, or has a Thread Border Router that’s required for a device such as the P2.

It’s quite clear from the front of the box that this is a Matter over Thread product, so you will need a Thread Border Router to get full usage out of it, and you’re required to have a Matter controller. Luckily for the majority of Apple Home users, the HomePod Mini, some of the later Apple TVs, and the second gen. HomePod all contain a Thread Border Router (TBR), as well as acting as Matter Controllers. Even most of the older Apple TVs and original HomePod are Matter Controllers, they just don’t have a TBRs, but without the latter, you’re going to have to make do with the device using Bluetooth, which I guarantee is not going to be fun.

Aside from the P2 using Matter over Thread, as opposed to Zigbee 3.0 in the P1, the former also finally exposes the built-in light sensor to Apple Home, which may or may not be of use to you. As it stands, it might not, which I’ll touch on later.

The packaging claims a long battery life due to the P2 using two CR2450 coin batteries, although some have reported less than stellar longitivety in this area when it came to the P1. It’s difficult for me to put this to the test unless you’re willing to come back to this review in a year or so, so hopefully the claim – as vague as it is – is accurate.

PACKAGE CONTENTS

CR2450 batteries are included in the P2, so you don’t have to go on the hunt for them. If you’ve only ever owned the original Aqara motion sensor, this clearly has a larger ‘chin’, which is due to the battery compartment having to contend with two large coin batteries. The manual comes with a Matter QR code, but of course no HomeKit code.

The Matter code is also printed on top of the P2 itself. A code of this type is a departure from the Zigbee models, as they weren’t technically compatible with any platform, because it’s the hub that both allows them to function, and expose them to ecosystems like Apple Home, Amazon Alexa, Google Home etc. Because of this Matter code, and the deployment of Thread, no Aqara hub is required – sort of – which I’ll touch on later as well.

The mount is included, as usual, and is pretty much the same as the original. Above the sensor is a small blue LED that acts as a signal for letting you know what’s going on during pairing, although it is also supposed to flash when it detects motion, which is optional, which lead us to the points I was promising to go into later; as the P2 is a Matter device, this means that at the time of this review, it can’t be added to the Aqara app. Why? Because the only Aqara hub that supports Matter devices – the Aqara Hub M3 – is not available internationally yet. It has been released in China, and I have one here, but the Aqara app doesn’t list the P2 as a device to be added. This is also currently the case with the Matter over Thread contact sensor. Because of that, it means some of the features and options you’d normally get with the P2 are not accessible. I’ll come back to this later, but for now let’s focus on the P2 in Apple Home.

ADDING THE P2 TO APPLE HOME

I haven’t posted the process of adding a device to the Home app for a while, but for the benefit of new users I’m doing it here;

• Tap on the plus icon and select Add Accessory
• Scan the QR code or enter the digits manually
• Select Add to Home once it discovers the device
• Wait for it to add the sensor

• Choose the room you want to place the sensor in
• Change the name of the device if required
• Change the names of the individual sensors if required

That’s it! The sensor is added, just like you would any Apple HomeKit compatible device.

Looking at settings for the individual sensors, you get battery levels and the relevant info for each. What you might notice is that the P2 is identified as an Occupancy Sensor, which isn’t quite right. This means it’ll be listed separately from any other motion sensors you might have in the same room. As you can see above, Motion Detection and Occupancy are shown as separate things. In practice this doesn’t make a lot of difference, but it’s worth noting.

As you can see from the three light sensors – one by Philips Hue, one by QingPing, and the Aqara P2 of course. Whilst the Hue and Aqara are fairly close, the Qing Ping is way out, which is something I mention in the review for their product, which is a Thread device but not Matter compatible. So I would say on balance, the light sensor in the P2 is fairly accurate. Note: The light sensors from all three were tested in my studio, not in the corridor, as I wanted to make sure they were all exposed to the same amount of light from the same position and angle.

THE MOTION SENSOR IN USE

I admit I was a little concerned that the P2 would suffer the same fate as the P1 did, which for many people had some sort of ‘blind spot’; If you passed by the sensor, it was almost always triggered, but if you stood in front of the P1, you could wave your arms around, jump up and down, and generally look like a lunatic, but it wouldn’t trigger. This has been reported many times both in customer reviews and on social media, whilst surprisingly, it has barely been mentioned in any of the YouTube video reviews on the P1 sensor.

I’m happy to report it does NOT seem to be suffering from this issue, and so far (I got it around the start of the year but didn’t start using it until February) it has triggered every single time. What a relief!

Now to the issue of it being unable to be added to the Aqara app. As already stated, at the time of this review, it can’t be added, and even though I tried adding it to the Aqara app using my M3, it simply wouldn’t take. I attempted this by putting it into pairing mode from the Apple Home app, and manually entering the generated Matter code in the Aqara app. It could be that my M3 is Chinese and the P2 is International, but that seems like an artificial block to me, as I’m sharing a Matter device from another ecosystem, as opposed to attempting to add it directly to the Aqara app. Either way, I didn’t succeed, which means that I can’t set the cooldown period for the sensor, which is currently stuck at sixty seconds. This also has a bearing on the light sensor, as this doesn’t seem to change until there has been a motion event, so without access to the settings it clearly must have, you’re currently stuck with the cooldown period it’s set at by default. The motion sensor does have three motion detection settings as well (high, medium, low), but without being able to access them in the Aqara app, you’re stuck with the medium sensitivity setting, which is set at a 5 metre distance (high is 7m, low is 3m).

The good news is that once you trigger the motion sensor, it doesn’t become blind to subsequent motion events during this period. So if you triggered the motion sensor, it would begin its 60 second countdown, but any further motion events within those 60 seconds would reset the countdown. For example, if I triggered the motion sensor, and it started its countdown, and I triggered it again 30 seconds later, the motion sensor would not reset until 90 seconds after the initial motion event. This is useful for certain situations where you might be still for a period, maybe when you’re on the loo, or your putting on your makeup, for example, where you’re not constantly in motion.

Currently there are only a couple of Matter over Thread motion sensors; Eve Motion is one, and another is by a company called Avatar Controls. Both QingPing and Onvis Make HomeKit over Thread motion sensors, with the latter having a nice feature you can read about in my separate reviews, so if you like Thread but aren’t too concerned about Matter these might be other options.

One thing I will say about Matter over Thread devices compared to any Zigbee equivalents is that there is still some proving to be done. By that I mean that almost all of my Zigbee devices have been rock solid, which is something I can’t always say with Thread devices – Matter or HomeKit. They’re close, but I do find that when a Thread device starts acting strange or goes unresponsive, it’s harder to pinpoint the problem than it is for a Zigbee device. I’m sure things will improve with time, and so far the P2 is carrying the flag for Matter over Thread due to its good behaviour, but when my International M3 eventually arrives for its review, I hope I can update this review to reflect the optional extras available via the Aqara Home app.

The post Aqara Motion and Light Sensor P2 (review) appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

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.