Aqara vs. Nanoleaf: Who takes the smart bulb crown?

Nanoleaf’s smart bulbs have been a favorite for years, so how do Aqara’s new bulbs compare?

Aqara’s US release of its T2 bulbs — available in both RGB and CCT white versions — provides for an interesting entry into the smart lighting market. For years, Nanoleaf has really been the lighting champion for Apple Home users, providing bulbs and other lighting products that offer cool, dynamic effects. The brand has taken on Philips Hue, without requiring a separate hub, and has created some really cool products.

But Aqara, on the other hand, is growing like a weed in the smart home space. And its showing at CES was nothing but extraordinary.

Reliability

The Nanoleaf app reguarly shows my bulbs switching back and forth between Bluetooth and Thread connectivity, which oftentimes results in No Response errors, or slow downs when turning on lights.

I’ve used Nanoleaf Essential bulbs for years. But their biggest downfall has been reliability. Myself included, several users experience issues with hung firmware updates, bulbs switching back and forth between Thread and Bluetooth, and more. For me, this has resulted in No Response errors in the Apple Home app, or slowdowns when turning on and off a bulb.

A quick look at the Nanoleaf subrreddit will confirm these issues. While I’ve gotten support to fix most of the issues I’ve had, other users haven’t been so lucky, oftentimes waiting months for replacement products.

It’s been so bad that Nanoleaf quietly introduced a Matter over Wifi bulb, which appears to now be its default bulb if you purchase on Amazon. I haven’t tried this bulb, but from other reviews, I’ve heard using the WiFi connection is much more reliable than the Thread versions.

While the Aqara bulbs are newer to market, I’ve been able to test both the color and white versions of their T2 bulbs for the last several months. I’ve used them on both the Thread and Zigbee protocol (their bulbs support both), and it’s been a breath of fresh air. Not once have I experienced a bulb disconnect or cease to work.

Winner: Aqara

Color and brightness

An Aqara Bulb T2 RGB showcasing a red color. Colors are incredibly accurate with the T2 bulb.

In my testing, both bulbs were incredibly accurate when it came to color. Aqara and Nanoleaf claim to have 16 million colors. The Aqara RGB bulb offers a color temperature of 2700K to 9000K, compared to Nanoleaf’s 2700K to 6500K.

I did notice a difference in reds, but then saw that choosing a red color from the Aqara app was more realistic than from Apple Home. This likely has something to do with the way the Apple Home app produces its colors, but it’s noticeable, as the Apple Home red swatch was almost a reddish pink. Rest assured, creating your own red swatch bypasses Apple’s default red and it looks much more realistic.

In terms of brightness, Aqara and Nanoleaf both offer a maximum brightness of 1100 lumens. However, when the bulbs are set to a color, Aqara gets much, much brighter than Nanoleaf. Depending on the color, Nanoleaf bulbs can be pretty dim, but they are still very color accurate.

When it comes to white light specifically, both the Nanoleaf and Aqara’s CCT bulb offers white light with a color temperature of 2700K to 6500K, and they’re both plenty bright.

Finally, if you’re a fan of Adaptive Lighting in Apple Home, rest assured that both bulbs support this feature.

Winner: Draw

Dynamic scenes

[embed]Nanoleaf has hundreds — possibly thousands — of different scenes that other users have built.

Aqara has a few scenes built-in via its app, which can sync with Apple Home. The options here are somewhat limiting, but you can build your own scenes. However, if you build an scene and hope to sync that to other bulbs in your home, there’s no way to do that, meaning you have to create the scene for each bulb.

The biggest drawback here is that there’s no marketplace for you to find what other users have created. Whereas with Nanoleaf, there’s thousands of scenes built by other users, and the customizability options within them are very, very unique. I’d love to see Aqara add something like this, as Nanoleaf has really done a stellar job here.

Nanoleaf scenes can be synced to multiple bulbs or rooms, and they can be favorited, too. However, grouped scenes with their Matter bulbs can’t be synced to Apple Home, which is more of a limitation of Matter than anything. That means you’ll only be able to trigger those scenes through the Nanoleaf app. Hopefully, scenes will be able to be synced over to third-party ecosystems sooner rather than later. If you have the old Nanoleaf Apple Home-specific bulbs, this feature still works.

Winner: Nanoleaf

Third-party connectivity

Photo courtesy of Aqara

Both Aqara and Nanoleaf natively support Apple Home, through the Thread protocol. Aqara also offers Zigbee support, through an Aqara hub, which unlocks additional features, too. Both can be connected via Matter.

Because of their Matter support, both companies really have unlimited options in terms of connecting to third-party ecosystems. But there’s one key difference.

In my testing, I’ve never been able to actually setup a Nanoleaf bulb outside of Apple Home. When you walk through the initial setup, it more or less forces you to use your phone’s smart home setup method, which in my case, is Apple Home. Because of this, the bulbs get put into Apple Home automatically. This won’t be a dealbreaker for most, but for me, I wanted to route them through Home Assistant first, instead of the other way around.

With Aqara, you can skip Apple Home entirely and just setup in Home Assistant, which you can then sync to Apple Home. This is really handy for some more advanced-level automations.

Winner: Aqara

Other controls

Both Nanoleaf and Aqara offer some custom controls in their app, to further the lighting experience. For instance, both apps allow the ability to keep their settings in memory. What this means is if your power goes out, it can remember the last state. Or you can opt to leave the bulbs off.

If you connect via Zigbee, Aqara also offers the ability to change the transition duration, meaning you can set the time it takes for the bulb to go from off to on. By default, this is set to 1.5 seconds, but if you want to turn your lights on quicker, you can speed it up (or slow it down).

Aqara also allows you to set the minimum and maximum dimming range for the bulb.

Nanoleaf is missing both options in their app, but I wouldn’t necessarily call that a deal breaker. These settings something that I usually never touch, but they’re worth mentioning.

Winner: Aqara

Which should you get?

If you value the creative scenes more than anything else, it’s a no-brainer to go with Nanoleaf. Just know that you’re only able to control grouped scenes via the Nanoleaf app.

For me, I value reliability more than anything else, and after dealing with Nanoleaf several times and trying to troubleshoot ongoing issues, I’m ready for a change. I’ll be moving all my bulbs over to Aqara.

Pricing and availability

The Aqara Bulb T2 is now available on Amazon for $22.99 (RGB) and $19.99 (CCT).

A 4-pack of the Nanoleaf Essentials Matter over Wifi bulbs retails for $49.99, but is currently on sale for $39.99.

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