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Yeelight Announces HomeKit Support For their Bulbs and Light Strip

Yeelight, one of the companies under the Xiaomi umbrella, has announced via the Weibo Social media platform that their 2nd gen colour and tuneable white smart bulbs, as well as the Mi LED Smart bulb and Yeelight Light Strip are all HomeKit compatible. The Mi Bulb, despite having the Mi logo, is actually manufactured by Yeelight, as are many other lighting products branded Mi or Mijia. Although compatibility isn’t available yet, this is the first time that Yeelight has officially announced their intention to add HomeKit support to these devices, with mention of the updates to these products projected to be released in Q3 of 2019.

All the aforementioned products have actually been showing signs of getting HomeKit support for the last few months; when you add these devices to the Mi Home app, the first screen states that the product you’re adding is homeKit compatible, and although it asks if you’d subsequently like to add the device to your HomeKit Home, nothing happens.

Yeelight is probably one of the best light bulb manufacturers in China right now, with an excellent build quality for their bulbs and brightness and colour rendering that can give Philips Hue a run for its money (IOHO), so if HomeKit does arrive as is claimed, the field is open wide again for low-cost lighting.

We’ve got some Yeelight bulbs, as well as a strip and a Mi LED bulb, already installed, but as expected, there are currently no firmware updates available. We’ll be doing regular tests on the off chance HomeKit support is released earlier than promised and will update this post as necessary.

Eric Yao

Occasional HomeKit reviewer, HomeKit addict, and Apple fanatic.

36 thoughts on “Yeelight Announces HomeKit Support For their Bulbs and Light Strip

  • Super info, maintenant reste à savoir quel modèle il faudra acheter pour pas se tromper et que celui-ci reste moins cher que les concurrents…(Koogeek, Osram, iHaper…)!

    Good information, now remains to know which model it will be necessary to buy and sell (Koogeek, OSRAM, iHaper …)!

  • Im so confused and thats the way we buy and it’s not easy. And put it back in the box. And it sits there!

    • Even though they’re not HomeKit compatible yet, you can still control via Siri Shortcuts.

      • I have a few more questions before i buy these… could we have a chat??

  • Wow it will work within Mi.home app too?

    • 🤩 Yes. Yeelight firmware runs MiHome SDK. So I can work with MiHome.

  • is this only for the new yeelight light strip, or does it also work on their old light strip?

    • Hello Liam, I can’t be certain, but I believe the updates will only apply to 2nd gen Yeelight bulbs and the Yeelight Light Strip Plus, sometimes referred to as ‘Aurora’.

      • So does this mean that homekit will definitly be supported with the Yeelight Aurora light strip? I’m thinking of getting another one too so I wouldn’t mind if it came to both. But is there any chance I could end up buying a Yeelight Aurora and it never working on homekit?

        Thanks for the help

        • Yeelight have said they would, but companies always have a cover story in case things don’t work as expected, where they state that they reserve the right to change specs and functionality without prior notice, so essentially there’s no 100% guarantee. But, in theory, there’s every chance you could buy a strip now and they go and change their minds. It’s probably best to wait ultimately.

  • So does this mean that homekit will definitly be supported with the Yeelight Aurora light strip? I’m thinking of getting another one too so I wouldn’t mind if it came to both. But is there any chance I could end up buying a Yeelight Aurora and it never working on homekit?

    Thanks for the help

    • Sorry just realised I posted this twice…

      • Today I got a new Yeelight color led bulb of the second generation. I’m not at home but I wanted to try it anyway. I installed it with My home app and asked if I wanted to include it in Homekit. I said yes but at Home it does not appear. Is it because I’m not on my Wi-Fi network or because it’s not compatible yet?

        • You’ll see a few lights from Yeelight that will show HomeKit compatibility during and after installation, but they’re not actually compatible just yet. Yeelight have said Q3 will be when they update the firmware for these bulbs and strips, as well as some ceiling lights, and new bulbs.

  • I waited since first day Of this post/news until today to see how do I connect my bulbs to HomeKit, yet no update.

    Have you managed to figure it out?

    I tried but failed and I checked their forum and nothing either .

    Would appreciate if you share if you figured it out as I’m keen to test home kit and move on with my project

  • I just received an email from Yeelight Singapore saying that they will have stock for Homekit compatible lightbulbs by the 3rd week of August.

    • Hi Derfner
      thanks for the info. I’m guessing that means the newer models that should come with HomeKit out of the box, as opposed to the current models, that will have a firmware update for HomeKit. Either way, good news – thanks!

      • I doubt they will keep selling the old one. They’ll probably launch some new devices with slightly update. Also the old one gets new firmware to support HomeKit.

  • Hi

    What about Yeelight YLDP06YL RGB ?

    Are they now HomeKit compatible? or in the future?

    • The update has been issued, which means all four of the devices Yeelight said would get the HomeKit update, have now been given these updates, but for some reason, these updates are being rolled out very slowly. They should be available in the next week or two hopefully.

      • Yes, Yeelight official website haven’t issued anything about HomeKit support yet. And it’s slowly process. Other companies like Aqara is going to issue their own version of smart light system. They need to speed up a little bit.

        • Ok thank you. I intend to buy aqara products for homekit. I have already bought 3 yeelight RGB bulbs. I did not know that aqara bulbs were expected … I should have waited? but if the ones I bought will be compatible homekit in the future … it’s ok

      • I got the update today on my Yeelight strip but there’s no way to add it to the HomeKit app.

        At the moment of adding the accessory and and adding the 8 digit setup code there’s no code that works. Serial number doesn’t work, and there’s no other code either in the lightstrip itself or the packaging. Any ideas on where to get this number?

        • Do you have the light strip in the Yeelight app or the Mi Home app and which server are you using?

          • Nope, I have the lights on the Yeelight app. I do have the Mi Home app using China server but I don’t have the lights there.

          • Make sure you login the same account on both app. All the lights will appear on the MiHome app. And hold down the device thumbnail on MiHome app. Add to HomeKit button will pop up from the bottom.

          • Thanks so much! I totally missed that article. In all fairness the way to add devices to the Home app is a bit weird hehe.

            Thanks!

          • No problem. It’s a new way of adding stuff to HomeKit, as before the Xiaomi system devices still required a HomeKit code, so this is new, but as it doesn’t have the code, going through mi home is the only way. It’s pretty painless though.

          • Yes, it’s new way to add older devices to HomeKit. It’s weird but you still have to install the third party app course Apple doesn’t release HomeKit devices update through home app.

        • searching through internet I found a “default code” which is 11122333 but this one doesn’t work either. I’ve also tried 00000000. Both gives me “Accessory not ready” so it seems the code would work but the accessory for some reason isn’t.

          Tried also to power cycle but no luck so far. I’m on iOS12

  • Hi Simon!

    How do I connect the Yeelight bulbs, through the Aqara hub? Or do I need another hub?

    Thanks

    • You don’t need a hub. Your bulbs work via WiFi.

      • That’s awesome! Thanks for the reply.

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