Aqara used IFA Berlin 2026 to launch its biggest smart lighting expansion yet: five new Matter-certified products spanning indoor, accent and outdoor lighting. The lineup is the Floor Lamp T1, LED Downlight T2, LED Strip T2, Outdoor String Lights H1 and Permanent Outdoor Lights H1, and every one of them supports Matter over both Thread and Zigbee rather than picking a single radio standard. That dual-protocol approach means the lights can join Apple Home, Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Samsung SmartThings, Home Assistant or Homey without needing a separate Aqara-specific hub for basic control, which is the main reason this launch matters more than a typical bulb refresh — it's a direct pitch at buyers who've built a Thread or Zigbee mesh around a different ecosystem and don't want to add a new silo. Aqara has not confirmed UK pricing or release dates for the range yet.
What is the Aqara Floor Lamp T1 capable of?
The Floor Lamp T1 uses a side-emitting design intended to wash light evenly up a wall rather than pooling it directly underneath, driven by a 16-bit, 5-channel chip across 18 individually controllable zones. It outputs up to 1,000 lumens and covers a 2,000K to 9,000K colour temperature range, giving it more tuning headroom than most single-channel smart floor lamps for switching between warm evening light and cooler daytime white.
Does the Aqara LED Downlight T2 come in more than one version?
Yes — Aqara is shipping it as two variants. The everyday white-tunable CCT version outputs up to 1,200 lumens for general room lighting, while the RGB CCT variant adds access to 16 million colours for accent or mood lighting in the same downlight form factor. Both share the same Matter-over-Thread-and-Zigbee foundation as the rest of the range, so a household could mix plain white downlights in a kitchen with RGB versions in a living room without needing two different apps.
What is Aqara Builder?
Aqara Builder is a new community platform the company announced alongside the lighting range, aimed at smart home enthusiasts, installers, developers and other creators rather than casual buyers. It's designed as a place to share real-world smart home projects, automation ideas and design inspiration, and Aqara says AI-assisted tools will help users turn ideas shared in the community into personalised automation scenarios. It's a software and community play rather than a new device, and Aqara hasn't detailed exactly how deep the AI-assisted automation tooling will go at launch.
Will these lights work with Home Assistant?
They should, in principle — Matter-certified devices are designed to expose their functionality through the standard Matter fabric, and Home Assistant has built-in Matter support alongside its long-standing Zigbee integration, so a Thread- or Zigbee-paired Aqara light should show up without a manufacturer-specific add-on, much like existing Wi-Fi and Zigbee bulbs already do. As with any freshly announced Matter device, though, real-world compatibility is worth confirming once units ship, since occasional firmware quirks on brand-new hardware can lag slightly behind the spec on launch day.
