Other Aqara hubs will receive the firmware in the coming months
After initially delaying its step into the Matter universe, Aqara has announced that Hub M2 users can now receive support for the smart home standard through a beta firmware update.
The company announced that the rollout should take around 4 – 6 weeks to complete, and, once downloaded by M2 owners, should allow it to act as a bridge for the rest of Aqara’s smart home devices.
Other Aqara hubs – like the Hub M1S (Gen 1 and Gen 2), Hub E1, Camera Hub G3 and Camera Hub G2H Pro – will be receiving the update over “the coming months”.
As we knew already, then, this means Thread support isn’t coming to individual Aqara devices – though some of the new devices Aqara announced at CES will come with Matter support out of the box.
But it’s not all as straightforward as it sounds.
Aqara has actually released a nice little how-to explainer, shown above, for those looking to integrate the M2 into their Google Home or Apple Home, but, as you’ll see, connecting to the latter via Matter isn’t recommended by Aqara just yet.
It’s not totally clear why – only that “Matter cannot provide full HomeKit functionality”.
And as for Alexa or SmartThings users, Aqara says that support will be coming when the ecosystems allow Aqara hubs to bridge to other devices.
So, if you’re an Android user with a Google Home that also features a Matter controller, you’re in luck – and iOS users will soon have the same privileges when the app receives an update.
For everyone else, the wait goes on a little longer for more seamless integration, but things are still heading in the right direction.