Aqara’s affordable smart home lineup makes first jump to Matter
by Thomas Ricker from The Verge - All Posts on (#68G2C)
A selection of Aqara hubs. From left to right: Hub M2, Camera Hub G2H, and Hub M1S. | Photo by Thomas Ricker / The Verge After a brief delay, Aqara is taking its first tentative step towards supporting the new Matter home connectivity standard with the release of a beta firmware update for its M2 hub. Aqara is first targeting M2 hubs manufactured in 2022 and sold outside of China. The company estimates it will take four to six weeks for all M2 hubs to be updated to version V4.0.0 (beta). Other Aqara hubs will receive the Matter-enabled firmware in the following months."
Over 40 Zigbee-based Aqara devices will be accessible via Matter by anyone that activates it (by selecting Bind to Matter") after receiving the firmware update on their M2 hub.
Aqara, like many other smart device makers, is choosing to bridge its Zigbee-based devices - like lights,...