Aqara Beta to Begin Testing Adaptive Lighting Functionality

With Adaptive Lighting introduced along with other new functionality for iOS14 at WWDC 2020, companies are slowly (like, really slowly) updating their products to make this option a reality. So far only Hue and Eve have brought this option to life, with many more brands yet to follow up on it. Now it seems that Aqara is launching a beta for Aqara customers in Mainland China to begin testing this functionality.

However, at this point, one of the only widely available Aqara branded product that uses colour temperature, is the Aqara Tunable LED Light bulb, although a quick look in the Aqara Home app shows both a Spotlight and downlight, both also capable of producing white colour temperatures. The bulb (and possibly the downlight and spotlight) are currently only available in regions that support 220-240v, which means they’re not suitable for North America, so if this update means they’ll eventually be making 100-120v lights, then that would be a significant step forward for the company.

Still, last year, Aqara create a partnership with Chinese lighting company Opple, that gave birth to a series of wireless switches that are both Zigbee certified and exposed to HomeKit, via the Aqara hub.

In addition, Aqara/Opple released a trio of ceiling lights that also use Zigbee and get exposed to HomeKit. These ceiling lights also have the capacity to alter their colour temperature, and as such are suitable candidates for Adaptive Lighting. The Aqara beta states that you’re required to have an Aqara account registered to Mainland China, the Aqara M1S hub, a HomeKit hub (Apple TV 4/4K, HomePod/Homepod Mini, or iPad) and at least one of the aforementioned Aqara or Opple lighting products, or the Aqara Dimming Controller. In addition to this, Aqara will provide the necessary firmware upgrade to test out this functionality.

As is already mentioned, this beta is ostensibly only open to their Mainland China customers, with it seemingly requiring an account with Chinese messaging app QQ. Given that many of these products – the M1S, and Opple lights – are only officially available in China at this point, it could still be a good sign of further international products to come from a company that has already made leaps and bounds in the smart home game in a relatively short space of time.

You can read our reviews of the Opple Wireless Switches and the Aqara Light Bulb below;

Aqara/Opple Smart Switch (review)

Aqara Tuneable White Smart Bulb (review)