Smart LED Ceiling Lights (4" Downlight (4PK))

These are the only downlights I was able to find that support Matter over Thread. They are great as lights, but unfortunately connectivity on thread leaves a lot to be desired. Oftentimes lights far away from the hub fail to respond, letting down the Thread expectation of a reliable mesh network connectivity among devices.

Update 08/19/2024: lowering to 1 star, would lower to 0 if it was an option. Trying to sleep, but the light right above me will not turn off and has no connectivity. I will have to eventually replace these with Phillips Hues. Update 08/03/2024: lowering this to 2 stars. These are actually terrible and I do not recommend them. I was able to connect them to a physical Hue remote to turn them on/off or set to different colors, which now gives me an alternative to just having to use the Apple Home app or Siri. But they have not improved at all, as far as connectivity or responsiveness. There is a significant delay when turning them on/off, dimming, or changing colors. Even within the set of 4, 2 will change, followed by the third, and maybe followed by the fourth. They are right above my appletv and linksys mesh node, so its not a connectivity issue. I occasionally have these types of issues on my Philips down lights, but with these, it’s every time on both sets of 4 I installed. Original Review: I give this a 3/5 stars because they installed quickly and paired with Apple Homekit very smoothly. Biggest negative is there is a significant delay when changing colors or dimming, unlike my Philips Hue downlights. The other negative is that the colors don't really match what I expect. For example, purple looks blue and there seems to not be a true purple. Generally look for warm yellow light and having a hard time getting a nice warm yellow. Its either very white or too yellow. The 4” size and flat format worked out really well for install and look way better than the big 6” cans. The main reason for purchasing these was because of the 4” size and matter compatibility. My install has them permanently powered on and not using a switch. Right now I can only change them using the Apple Home app. Need to find some sort of wireless remote that I can dim or change colors.

These are the absolute worst lights in the world. You get what you pay for. Updating all the lights via BlueTooth!?!?!? When it’s connected to WiFi and Thread over Matter!!! Light go out, change color unexpectedly, react slowly and are all around a bust. I say this a lot, but you get what you pay for. And forget customer care, more like customer forget! Now I am replacing all 45 in ceiling lights, I really wanted to like these!

I purchased 20 of these Essentials Matter down lights. I’ve got 4 units installed in 3 rooms, then a hallway with 4, and two other areas with the rest. After I began, I found out I needed to update my Apple TV 4K to the current version and I purchased a Home Pod mini to test in one of the rooms so I would be able to walk into the room and tell Siri to turn the lights on and off, etc.. It worked perfectly and now I have 2 rooms with home pod mini’s and I plan to add some other commands with some new scenes. One of the main reasons I bought them was to be able to change the color white throughout the day. Warm at night, bright white during the day time and so on. At first I had issues with delayed responses and some long delays waiting for the lamps to connect to Home Kit when I tried to set them up first through Apple alone. Prior to installing any of them in the ceiling I set up one unit on a countertop with a hardwire Edison plug which I tested until I was willing to put 4 in the ceiling and try to sync them up once installed. After a considerable amount of effort here is my findings and the 4 steps I did which got them working really well and incredibly quickly. What the directions won’t tell you… Step 1 - Once I installed all of the lights in the ceiling I turned them on and off 5 times at the light switch. 2-3 seconds on / 2-3 seconds off until they all flashed a few colors and reset back to factory. (I found this step to be the most important) If you only get a couple of them to reset (by flashing), I suggest come back in 5-10 mins and try again. Step 2 – Add each device one at a time using the Nanoleaf app BEFORE setting them up in Apple Home Kit. It will automatically detect them through Bluetooth. I tried it the other way around (Going through Home Kit first) and failed miserably with massive lag and connection issues that were aggravating. Even if you don’t use the Nanoleaf app in the future this is super important. And I bought these so I could use them exclusively with the Home Kit App, but you must go through this step first. Step 3 – Update all the lights to the latest firmware using the Nanoleaf app, which will minimize the lag time, disconnections etc… And get them working the way they should be working. It will also allow you to check that each device is connected to thread. When you look under the setting of each device it will show the thread connection and say “Connect to Matter”. Step 4 – Add each device by clicking “connect to Matter” and they will be added into the Apple Home Kit. Pro-Tip – When setting them up in Nanoleaf app, there’s a setting that states “power loss recovery”. I enabled that on all my devices so that it would return to the last setting once power is restored. Anyway, these lights are unbelievably awesome, the color rendering is excellent and the dimming sets them apart from a lot of others at this price. I’ve tried about a half dozen smart switches and think I may have found an excellent one to go with these lights that never actually turns the power off but rather “blacks” them out.

Estoy feliz con mis downlights porque funcionan bien en mi ecosistema Apple HomeKit y lucen muy bonitas. La única insatisfacción es que varias de ellas dejaron de funcionar cuando tuve un corte de energía en la red. Entre a la app del fabricante y vi que se habían puesto en bluetooth tras el corte en vez de thread pero pude arreglarlo sin problema pero fue incómodo. Espero que no vuelva a pasar pues por desgracia donde vivo la energía se va con frecuencia. Otra cosa que no me gustó es que no se emparejan directamente con Matter/Thread si no las emparejas primero en la app del fabricante y las enlazas desde allí.

These lights are great and cool with an amazing set of features. BUT Does not play well with dimmers at all. Even when you turn the dimmers all the way up - there may be a delay on power-on as well as there is a red blip as you turn them off (cutting power). These lamps works best when they have constant power and you control them via a smart dimmer or app.

Unreliable. Lighting colours are off

product package was open when i got it inside