Govee Releases Updated BR30 Bulbs With Matter

Govee are a company that seems to have rapidly established itself as a major player in the area of smart lighting, and with this latest release they continue to show dominance. The updated BR30 bulbs with an E26 screw fitting now offer Matter over WiFi, whereas the original models, only worked with Google and Amazon.

With the Matter update they’ll now work with all Matter ecosystems, including Apple Home of course. The update has made some tradeoffs, however; The updated Matter model reduces the brightness from 1200lm to 850lm, which aligns with the lower power requirement of 9.5W compared to 11.5W.

The BR30 offers much the same features as before, but now within the ‘Matter-sphere’, which includes dimming control, 16 million colours, and warm to cool whites. Whilst Matter now supports Apple’s Adaptive Lighting technology, it doesn’t appear that these lights support this popular feature. These bulbs also support a music sync feature that works via the Govee app.

If you’re not familiar with BR30 bulbs whilst they aren’t downlights as such, they tend to be similarly recessed into ceilings, although due to the ‘bulged reflector’ (hence BR in the name) they do spread the light further than many downlights or spotlights, that also tend to offer lower lumens.

These bulbs do not offer Matter over Thread, so WiFi is the name of the game here, but they are all cheaper for it, with a 2-pack selling for just US$19.99 (when using the US$10 off coupon), US$30.99 for a 4-pack (when using the US$15 off coupon), or US$59.99 for a 6-pack (when using the US$10 off coupon) on Amazon.com