Aqara’s new Zigbee light strip supports HomeKit Adaptive Lighting and Matter

Aqara has launched a brand new Zigbee RGB sensible gentle strip called the LED Strip T1. It prices $49.99, requires an Aqara hub, and is suitable with Apple Dwelling, Amazon Alexa, Google Dwelling, and IFTTT. When paired with sure hubs, together with the Aqara Hub M2, the sunshine strip can also be suitable with the Matter sensible house protocol.

The T1 is without doubt one of the only a few gentle strips that assist Apple’s Adaptive Lighting function — and the one one which helps each Adaptive Lighting and Matter. It doesn’t assist Adaptive Lighting by Matter, sadly; nothing does. Nonetheless, it’s good to see new, Matter-compliant lighting come to market utilizing the strong Zigbee commonplace. (No matter occurred to that Hue-to-Matter bridge, I ponder?)

The 6.6ft (2m)-long gentle strip’s Adaptive Lighting assist means you possibly can set it to routinely tune its colours all through the day to be hotter or cooler relying on the time. The one different gentle strips that assist Apple’s circadian lighting function in the mean time come from Hue and Eve (additionally the old Nanoleaf Essentials strip, which doesn’t, er, Matter).

As I mentioned although, connecting the Aqara Strip T1 to Apple Dwelling utilizing the Matter protocol as a substitute of the old school manner means you’ll lose Adaptive Lighting, for the reason that still-nascent “common” sensible house commonplace doesn’t at the moment assist it. The good factor is that — not like Nanoleaf’s Matter Essentials strip, which solely helps Apple Dwelling by Matter and thus doesn’t assist Adaptive Lighting in any respect — Aqara’s Apple HomeKit certification means you don’t have to present that up.

The T1 is an RGBIC strip, that means it could present a number of colours concurrently (versus older-style gentle strips that may solely present one shade at a time). Additionally, Aqara says every of its ten segments is addressable, so you possibly can management them individually when altering colours, although that doesn’t apply to the tunable white gentle portion of the LEDs, which applies to all the strip without delay.

Lastly, like different colourful sensible bulbs and light-weight strips from firms like Govee, you possibly can arrange customized results throughout the Aqara app if you wish to exhibit enjoyable snaking gradients or flashing colours — it could even sync to music utilizing a built-in microphone.

The trimmable, IP44-rated Aqara T1 LED Strip prices $49.99, and a 1-meter extension package prices $14.99. It’s obtainable at Amazon within the US, Canada, and several other European international locations and at different retailers listed on its “where to buy” web page.