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Last week we posted about a clutch of forthcoming new products from Aqara, which included another new smart lock, a bathroom fan heater, a new curtain motor, and a brand new wall switch that’s also an LED display – the Magic Switch S1E. Now Aqara has added all the details for the latter of these products, which seems to be a slight departure for the company, but also one that adds more HomeKit ‘goodness’ to its feature set!

At its core, the S1E is a powered switch that requires a neutral wire. The switch is capable of controlling three separate sets of lights, with a total maximum load of 2200W. The switches are controlled via the capacitive touch screen.

As it’s designed as a wall switch, it can fit alongside other 86×86-sized switches, like Aqara’s range of switches (H1, H1M, E1, T1 etc), as well as the two current display switches – the Scene Panel S1, and the MagicPad S1.

One big difference between the S1E and the other aforementioned display switches is that the S1E is customisable, with 5 different styles to choose from (as seen above). Clearly, some of the more colourful designs are going to be better suited to a children’s bedroom, for example…

…but it doesn’t stop there, as the layouts are also customisable, with eleven different setups to choose from, not to mention options to change colours within each theme. As already mentioned, the S1E is a powered switch, so you can control three sets of lights, with each of these switches exposed to HomeKit.

What really takes this switch to the next level is that in addition to the three switches, Aqara has added in a six-button wireless switch that’s also exposed to HomeKit, so not only will you be able to control standard lights and Aqara devices with the S1E, you’ll also be able to control other HomeKit devices, as well as trigger scenes, all controllable within HomeKit.

The one thing that may well surprise you is that unlike many Aqara products that aren’t hubs or cameras (or both…) the S1E doesn’t use Zigbee, instead opting for standard 2.4GHz WiFi.

The Smart Switch S1E is currently on pre-order and only within Mainland China at the time of writing, with no word on whether this will be released internationally, but for those that can use it and also use the China server, it looks like an interesting device.

Editor - Musician, graphic designer and HomeKit aficionado.

This looks awesome. Any idea if it has Alexa support also? I run a hybrid system using Alexa for voice control but HomeKit for everything else.

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Hi! Any idea of where I can buy it from ? I checked on aliexpress , nothing yet ! Thanks

Hi! Ask you know where I can buy it from ? I checked on aliexpress , nothing yet ! Thanks

It’s actually not released in China until the 26th I believe.

Your article – and others, describe it as a switch or being a switch for three circuits, however a video I saw shows it controlling brightness of a light.

Do you know if the lighting circuits are directly wired to the S1E or is it wirelessly controlling other modules?

What about support for staircase style circuits which need a switch at both ends? (Or even also the middle?)

Can you configure how many circuits are connected to it – that is 1, 2 or 3? There will be many cases you don’t have three circuits connected to one and having a user interface that shows controls for non-existent circuits would be confusing and naff.

With Aqara having also indicated support for Matter this looks to have great potential and makes many bigger US brands look pathetic.

Hi John, it’s just like a regular switch when it comes to the wired connections, so you have wire connectors for live, neutral, and then three more for the three actual switches.

The dimmer control you see in the video would be for controlling a separate Aqara device – like their bulb or light strip. On all of their control panel type devices (Scene Panel S1, MagicPad S1) you can select devices in your Aqara account to be exposed and controlled.

It doesn’t seem to work with all devices however; my T1C powered roller shade motor is exposed to these controllers, but my E1 Roller Shade Driver isn’t, so maybe battery operated devices are excluded.

The S1E is fixed at 3 lights and can’t be changed I’m told. The Scene Panel S1 allows you to deactivate these switches so if you only have a single or double switch that it replaces, then you can set it to just show one or two toggle switches in the display.

It won’t work for three-way configurations.

As regards Matter, this is a curious one, as they’ve said they’re going forward with Matter via their hubs, yet this is WiFi, so it makes me wonder if this will be their first Matter compatible device that doesn’t access Matter via a hub.

And yes, Aqara is killing it. This even makes those ‘Brilliant’ smart switches with displays look archaic!

For those who are interested in this switch, it only works at 220V

Maybe, but possibly not. The Aqara Scene Panel S1 has the same specs in terms of voltage, but works fine on 110-120v, so hopefully it’ll be the case with this model.

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