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iOS 18 Brings Adaptive Lighting to Matter Smart Lights

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iOS 18 expands Adaptive Lighting support to Matter-compatible smart lights, The Verge reports.

matter-iot-standard.jpg

Adaptive Lighting was introduced in iOS 14, providing a way to automatically adjust the color temperature of smart lights throughout the day. The feature currently only works with HomeKit-enabled devices, but it will be extended to smart lights that are compatible with the Matter standard with iOS 18.

Matter, a smart home interoperability protocol developed collaboratively by Apple, Google, Amazon, and other smart home brands, seeks to create a unified, platform-agnostic ecosystem for smart devices. Adaptive Lighting is an exclusive feature of the Apple Home ecosystem, meaning it is not included in the Matter specification itself.

The expansion of Adaptive Lighting to Matter devices was discovered in the latest beta version of iOS 18. Users running the beta reported seeing a new toggle for Adaptive Lighting in the settings of their Matter-compatible smart lights within the Home app.

Confirmation of the feature's development also came from Nanoleaf, whose CEO Gimmy Chu stated that the company is "one of the partners that are part of the launch of Adaptive Lighting on Matter products." It is highly likely that other major smart lighting brands, such as Philips Hue, will also support the feature in due course.

In addition to the expanded support for Adaptive Lighting, iOS 18 brings a range of other smart home enhancements to the Home app such as improved guest access controls, support for robotic vacuum cleaners like the iRobot Roomba, and hands-free unlocking of smart doors.

Article Link: iOS 18 Brings Adaptive Lighting to Matter Smart Lights
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2024/08/09/ios-18-brings-adaptive-lighting-to-matter/
I’m not a fan of adaptive lighting. Maybe I’m old school and love 2700k or maybe I associate blue light with sterile cubicle work… I don’t know, but I wish HomeKit would stop pushing it and just set it as a toggle.
 
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And the original iOS 14 HomeKit version still isn't supported by LIFX lmao.
 
verniesgarden said:
i want to set adaptive brightness. let me say "after 10, make the lights default to 10%"
Click to expand...
That should be easy to do. My lights are set up something like that. But I forgot if you can do it using only Apple's Home App.

Apple has a problem with home automation. On the one hand, they want it to do many things, but on the other hand, they want it is be very easy to use so they have seriously dumbed it down. I don't think they will ever resolve this in one app.

Home assistant solves this by splitting the user interface. You can have a very simple"control pannel" for operating the system and then there can be a separate GUI-based configurations and finally for more complex stuff you can edit YAML files. It is not perfect but I think the idea of having multiple user interfaces is the only thing that will work.

A simple example is that I have a closet light and I want it to turn on only if the closet door is open. This is easy, I tie it to a door sensor. But I also want one of the living room lights to go on when the door is open because that light just happens shines into the closet. But this light should not turn off when the closet door shuts if it was turned on by a living room wall switch. The color of the light should be adaptive unless the reason it is in is because of the closet door the it should be set to 'white" and 100% until the closet door is shut and then revert to the last wall switch event.

Just TRY and do the above with Apple's Home app. But there are many cases like this 9and I have not even started talking about motion detection in an open floorplan home or detecting people by tracking their cellphones.


But "adaptive lighting" usually refers to color temperature.

I've
 
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verniesgarden said:
i want to set adaptive brightness. let me say "after 10, make the lights default to 10%"
Click to expand...
As another user mentioned, this can be done using Automations in the Home app. You could alternatively say 'in x minutes or x hours, set [the light] to 10%' - that's the closest you'll be able to get with voice at the moment.

I have many Automations configured for my Apple Home that make things very convenient, including..
- Close all of my blinds at sunset
- Turn on certain lamps at sunset
- Dim certain lamps to a lower brightness at 10pm
- Turn off certain lights at midnight (in case I fall asleep with them on or leave them on in another room)
- Turn on the hallway light when the Garage Door opens after sunset
- When Back Door unlocks after sunset, turn on the porch light
- When Back Door locks after sunset, turn off the porch light
- When the Front Door closes, lock the door
- When Laundry Room Door opens, turn on the light
 
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Great news, my Matter smart bulbs work better than other brands Homekit-branded bulbs, and there are a few lights I have I enjoy setting to adaptive lighting between certain hours.

I prefer not to use shortcuts because I had an issue where my iOS devices would work well with them, but my Homepod would have issues when I would change or delete a shortcut.
 
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Matter support just keeps getting better and better. It's really great in Home Assistant these days, with major updates every month of this year. Matter just added support for updates to device firmware without having to use separate native apps. This is a big step forward. Nowadays, I only buy Matter devices (real support, not like the pretend support that some companies put in their devices that still requires their proprietary hubs) that work with Home Assistant. I just click on the device in settings and tell it to share the device with Homekit, and it creates a notification with a QR code, scan that in HomeKit and voila! It works! HomeKit doesn't support a lot of stuff (like Chmberlin Garage Door Openers) but you can add support through this process and integrations in Home Assistant, and in the case of Chamberline via ESP Home, which is owned by Home Assistant.
 
HomeKit is lagging behind with hardware support, unless I missed something in iOS 18 HomeKit still needs to support higher than 1080p CCTV for one. Having upgraded to Netatmo weather the ability to see wind and rain data would be nice instead of "not supported" so I could also use that data to create automations if I want.

Same with garage doors and other types of devices above me. A new refreshed UI would be nice as well so I could see graphs of temperatures and humidity over time, like per day, week, month and year. So many improvements and features they could add but they seem to do sod all with the app, only real improvement they have done is add matter support which is a big one.
 
Are there lights that currently support Adaptive Lighting? Because this is news to me that it’s been available since iOS 14.

I looked for HomeKit compatible color temperature changing lights years ago but there weren’t any that were well thought out so I opted for a standalone system. Philips was the only option back then but all their lights were low CRI and unnecessarily expensive.
 
the.burn said:
Nice!
I just learned about this missing feature when I recently bought the Nanoleaf Matter strip. Happy that this downside will soon be gone :)
Click to expand...
Same here I bought 2 strips HomeKit 1 Matter and was disappointed if I wanted adaptive like feature on the matter version I needed to use the nanoleaf app they call it something else circadian lighting. Still waiting on nano leaf to update the damn strips so I can do color sync it’s been 8 months and it still says coming soon. When I reached out to nano leaf support they recommended I purchase the matter strips over the HomeKit ones. I will be upset if the color sink only comes to the matter strips and not the HomeKit strips, they have two different firmwares
 
McWetty said:
I’m not a fan of adaptive lighting. Maybe I’m old school and love 2700k or maybe I associate blue light with sterile cubicle work… I don’t know, but I wish HomeKit would stop pushing it and just set it as a toggle.
Click to expand...
The problem is the quality of the blue light you are used to.

Cri>98 and high Ra 5500k light is another world of lighting. But nobody cares about light so consumer doesnt push companies for this specs.

Light is the most importante but underrated feature our eyes can sense.

High quality light + adaptative light (mimic the earth rotation) is the wining system by all means but is a tech far from being polished, just because consumer doesnt know what they want. As jobs said

The idea of having interior lights that extend the light is entering through the window without the bad UVA spectrum is a dream. The day some company smart enough could mimic this, would make a non return point for consumer light

This is changing, few years ago it was impossible to know CRI for most companies, IKEA niw puts the CRI in all its bulbs as is proud enough to offer >90 (far better than the >80 CRI most Philips bulbs offer)

Philips Hue Natural light (adaptative) was introduced in 2022 (seriusly no body at philips cared enough to mimic the sun earlier??) but is so bad implemented users need to custom code it. So a big fail feature right of the bos.

In the past also, but CrI bulbs with light sensor was sold reflexting the day time temperature, but who wants a horrible blue light bulb? The good intentions are lost as soon as your eyes are crying for such a bad quality light.

Temperature is not about more blue or more red “filters” , that is how cheap (99% consumer bulbs) get their temperature.

Good LED light Is quite complex at the end

Another inportant thing is the light source. Indirect light is how we see in exteriors at daytime. But hard to find that kind of light in interiors.

Very complex topic that people is used to solve with the cehqper bulb in a stick wired to the wall
 
Last edited:
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McWetty said:
I’m not a fan of adaptive lighting. Maybe I’m old school and love 2700k or maybe I associate blue light with sterile cubicle work… I don’t know, but I wish HomeKit would stop pushing it and just set it as a toggle.
Click to expand...
Natural lighting was a pretty huge and welcoming innovation. Although without feedback sensors, it's hard to execute, different manufactures have variations in the color temperatures.

But anyways, isn't it always a toggle?
 
cocoua said:
The problem is the quality of the blue light you are used to.

Cri>98 and high Ra 5500k light is another world of lighting. But nobody cares about light so consumer doesnt push companies for this specs.

Light is the most importante but underrated feature our eyes can sense.

High quality light + adaptative light (mimic the earth rotation) is the wining system by all means but is a tech far from being polished, just because consumer doesnt know what they want. As jobs said

The idea of having interior lights that extend the light is entering through the window without the bad UVA spectrum is a dream. The day some company smart enough could mimic this, would make a non return point for consumer light

This is changing, few years ago it was impossible to know CRI for most companies, IKEA niw puts the CRI in all its bulbs as is proud enough to offer >90 (far better than the >80 CRI most Philips bulbs offer)

Philips Hue Natural light (adaptative) was introduced in 2022 (seriusly no body at philips cared enough to mimic the sun earlier??) but is so bad implemented users need to custom code it. So a big fail feature right of the bos.

In the past also, but CrI bulbs with light sensor was sold reflexting the day time temperature, but who wants a horrible blue light bulb? The good intentions are lost as soon as your eyes are crying for such a bad quality light.

Temperature is not about more blue or more red “filters” , that is how cheap (99% consumer bulbs) get their temperature.

Good LED light Is quite complex at the end

Another inportant thing is the light source. Indirect light is how we see in exteriors at daytime. But hard to find that kind of light in interiors.

Very complex topic that people is used to solve with the cehqper bulb in a stick wired to the wall
Click to expand...
This

I am so frustrated that nobody seems to care about light quality, like at all, here. Especially considering covid and WFH happened.
Lutron's highest end Ketra D2 boasts a laughable 90CRI on their $1000+ ceiling light..
Meanwhile, in China, consumers care so much about the lighting, most manufactures pushes out 95+ or 98+ lights, high flicker free PWM, with low blue light, at decently low prices around $50 each for smart down light units.
 
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McWetty said:
I’m not a fan of adaptive lighting. Maybe I’m old school and love 2700k or maybe I associate blue light with sterile cubicle work… I don’t know, but I wish HomeKit would stop pushing it and just set it as a toggle.
Click to expand...
Warm lighting looks awful in the day when daylight is coming in through the window.
 
tennisproha said:
Are there lights that currently support Adaptive Lighting? Because this is news to me that it’s been available since iOS 14.

I looked for HomeKit compatible color temperature changing lights years ago but there weren’t any that were well thought out so I opted for a standalone system. Philips was the only option back then but all their lights were low CRI and unnecessarily expensive.
Click to expand...
Yes, all of the original nano leaf bulbs, have it and strips. Most of my house is lit like that and I love it.
 
leicaman said:
Matter support just keeps getting better and better. It's really great in Home Assistant these days, with major updates every month of this year. Matter just added support for updates to device firmware without having to use separate native apps. This is a big step forward. Nowadays, I only buy Matter devices (real support, not like the pretend support that some companies put in their devices that still requires their proprietary hubs) that work with Home Assistant. I just click on the device in settings and tell it to share the device with Homekit, and it creates a notification with a QR code, scan that in HomeKit and voila! It works! HomeKit doesn't support a lot of stuff (like Chmberlin Garage Door Openers) but you can add support through this process and integrations in Home Assistant, and in the case of Chamberline via ESP Home, which is owned by Home Assistant.
Click to expand...
How are you getting Chamberlain garage openers into HA? I’m using HomeBridge and MyQ completely cut out API support.
 
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