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Nanoleaf's Matter Essentials Lights Now Available for Pre-Order

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Nanoleaf today began accepting pre-orders for its Matter-enabled Essential lights, which are designed to work with HomeKit, Google Home, Amazon Alexa, and more through the Matter cross-platform smart home connectivity standard.

nanoleaf-matter.jpg

Matter-compatible Essential bulbs that include the A19 and BR30 are available, as is the Essential Lightstrip that works with Matter. Matter is a new smart home standard and is still rolling out, so these are some of the first lighting products that have native Matter support.

For HomeKit users, Matter works the same as HomeKit devices, but it connects through Matter instead of HomeKit. That doesn't mean much for someone who has an all-HomeKit setup, but for households with multiple smart home platforms or different smartphone brands, it means the Matter lights can be controlled from any device. Both Android and iPhone users can control a Matter-enabled Nanoleaf light from their respective devices, provided the proper hub setup is available.

The new Nanoleaf Essentials lights work with Matter over Thread for an improved connectivity experience with other Thread devices. Nanoleaf's bulbs and lightstrip can be set to any one of 16 million colors or can be used to provide different shades of white lighting.

Essentials lights with Matter support can be controlled from any smart home app, such as the Home app or the Nanoleaf app. The Nanoleaf app offers useful scene setups for working, evening ambiance, and more, and it provides an option to have the color temperature of the light shift throughout the day.

Matter-enabled Nanoleaf lights can be ordered from the Nanoleaf website, with prices ranging from $20 to $50. The A19 bulb and Lightstrip are available for preorder today, while the BR30 is coming in April. Later this year, Nanoleaf will provide a GU10 light and a Recessed Downlight.

Nanoleaf is also working on an over-the-air update to add Matter to its existing line of light panels and light bars.

Article Link: Nanoleaf's Matter Essentials Lights Now Available for Pre-Order
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2023/03/22/nanoleaf-matter-preorder/
This is all very good and great, but when will the WiZ bulbs (from the same group as Philips hue) finally add Matter/HomeKit support?
They promised by the end of 2022 and… It’s almost April 2023.
Emailed support, they don’t know.
They’re some of the most affordable smart bulbs available, only flaw is no HomeKit… Yet
 
Rychiar said:
makes no sense why they can't just firmware update the bulbs they have... though I guess it doesn't really "matter" since the current bulbs already have thread so this update really changes nothing for HomeKit users.
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If I recall there was some poor excuse about requiring a different chip or something.

just another way to get you to buy more products if want matter support lol
 
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I'll probably be looking at ordering some more A19s when Amazon border router devices support Matter over thread.
 
podycust said:
If I recall there was some poor excuse about requiring a different chip or something.
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They built the essentials with an embedded chip that did not have enough memory to support the extra code required for the final version of the Matter spec.
podycust said:
just another way to get you to buy more products if want matter support lol
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Doubt it. No one who bought them has any reason to upgrade. They already support HomeKit and Matter actually takes away features (at CES Nanoleaf said the Matter versions would not support HomeKit’s adaptive color feature, one of the nicest things that their bulbs currently do).
 
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The app for Nanoleaf is garbage. The lights un-pair themselves so frequently that I just stopped using them via Wifi and just manually click the button to change colors. Better off with a 5 Below cheap-o light bar
 
SolarSailer120 said:
The app for Nanoleaf is garbage. The lights un-pair themselves so frequently that I just stopped using them via Wifi and just manually click the button to change colors. Better off with a 5 Below cheap-o light bar
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Probably because nanoleaf bulbs don’t use wifi they use thread… If you don’t have a thread border router in your home they’d be stuck on Bluetooth, which is a terrible technology for smart home products…
 
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I bought some of the original A19 essentials bulbs and while I like the price, they haven't been very reliable. I've had a few that have gone none responsive. Does anyone know if the more recent bulbs are more reliable?
 
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Jarrodbcall said:
I bought some of the original A19 essentials bulbs and while I like the price, they haven't been very reliable. I've had a few that have gone none responsive. Does anyone know if the more recent bulbs are more reliable?
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I have had the same issue, but they usually fix themselves by end of the day. I'm just glad I bought them refurb on Amazon for cheap (10 bulbs for like 40 bucks on sale)
 
CapitalIdea said:
I have had the same issue, but they usually fix themselves by end of the day. I'm just glad I bought them refurb on Amazon for cheap (10 bulbs for like 40 bucks on sale)
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Wow, that's an amazing price! I'd risk losing a few at that price.
 
AbSoluTc said:
Will never buy another Nanoleaf product again after my Aurora problems. Plus their app is now pure crap.
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The problem is that therevis really little choice when it comes to GU10. I bought LyfX and while the app is great and the lights are perfect they are 3cm longer than standard GU10 and dont fit in my fixtures. And i refuse to buy philips hue with their hub.
 
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Jarrodbcall said:
I bought some of the original A19 essentials bulbs and while I like the price, they haven't been very reliable. I've had a few that have gone none responsive. Does anyone know if the more recent bulbs are more reliable?
Click to expand...

How are they connecting in your house? If it’s over Bluetooth that would be understandable as the range is not great. I only have one of their bulbs, and while at first it took awhile to get acclimated to my setup and off Bluetooth, once it did it has been rock solid. But those first few weeks were a little rocky when it kept wanting to default to Bluetooth. Thread is weird in that it seems to take awhile to sort itself out. I don’t know why it is not near instantaneous like I would expect, but my experience is that much like homekit itself, it’s part voodoo or witchcraft.

But I have been so happy with the one bulb I have that I just preordered 6 of the new ones for the rest of the house. Hopefully they will work good for me too.
 
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This is disappointing to hear! I’ve got Wiz bulbs that I hate because the app is terrible and they are not HomeKit compatible, but it seems like these new nanoleaf bulbs aren’t as good as the ones they replace?
 
Had my two Nanoleaf bulbs go “No Response” in HomeKit after several months of excellent service. Have tried unscrewing the bulbs for awhile to “reboot” them but no joy. After several days, still “No Response.” Not happy.

Have about a dozen other Thread devices (WeMo smartplugs) plus support from my eeroPro network. All of those are working as intended. Still not happy.
 
SalisburySam said:
Had my two Nanoleaf bulbs go “No Response” in HomeKit after several months of excellent service. Have tried unscrewing the bulbs for awhile to “reboot” them but no joy. After several days, still “No Response.” Not happy.

Have about a dozen other Thread devices (WeMo smartplugs) plus support from my eeroPro network. All of those are working as intended. Still not happy.
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Are you sure the Nanoleafs are still connected over thread? The only time I have gotten “no response” is when they were using Bluetooth instead.

If you haven’t already, you can download the Eve app and see your thread network to determine what is connected to what. It’s helped me a lot.
 
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MadeTheSwitch said:
Are you sure the Nanoleafs are still connected over thread? The only time I have gotten “no response” is when they were using Bluetooth instead.

If you haven’t already, you can download the Eve app and see your thread network to determine what is connected to what. It’s helped me a lot.
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No idea how the Nanoleafs (Nanoleaves?) are connected…just screwed them in and the worked…at one time.

Thanks for the “Eve” suggestion…will try.

Assuming the Nanoleafs dropped their Thread connection in favor of just Bluetooth, any idea how to make them revert back to Thread?
 
SalisburySam said:
No idea how the Nanoleafs (Nanoleaves?) are connected…just screwed them in and the worked…at one time.

Thanks for the “Eve” suggestion…will try.

Assuming the Nanoleafs dropped their Thread connection in favor of just Bluetooth, any idea how to make them revert back to Thread?
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Unfortunately, thread and homekit issues are a bit like witchcraft and not the perfect science like they should be. I’ve seen a variety of solutions out there for this problem and different things work for different people.

One thing that has worked for some (and I think worked for me too when I first got my lights) is to turn off Bluetooth on your phone until after they connect to the thread network. It seems that sometimes the lights get locked to the phone and just refuse to recognize any other device or protocol in the house. And since phones don’t have thread, they remain in bluetooth mode.

Other people have rebooted their routers or made some firmware updates to them that helped. You should make sure your bulbs have the latest firmware too (assuming your phone and Nanoleaf app can find them…do they?).

Also, what are you using for your border router? A recent homepod? A recent Apple TV? What? And what version of OS are they on? And where are they located in relation to the bulbs? Is your home upgraded to the new architecture that Apple released and then pulled when people had problems with it late last year?

Don’t necessarily expect instant results with any fixes though. It took my thread network just over a week to sort itself out. And that seems to be quite common with not just Nanoleaf bulbs, but thread in general. For better or worse it’s an automatic protocol that does it’s own self-healing thing and sometimes it just seems to make the wrong decisions. Same with Apple randomly deciding which device should be your home hub. If it all of the sudden HomeKit decides to make a border router on the other side of the house the hub, then a Bluetooth device might be out of range when it was not with the previous closer hub. This is a common problem too.

So it would be helpful to know what potential border router hubs you have in your home and where they are located. For instance if you have the lights and only one border router in the house and they are close to one another, they should find each other. Again your phone’s Bluetooth should be turned off though so that variable is taken out of the equation.

I wish we could directly tell devices what specifically to connect to, but unfortunately we can’t.
 
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