Lights, calls, control cubes and many innovations for a smart home. What’s happening at Interlight Russia 2023

From September 18 to 21, a major exhibition and conference, Intelight Russia, was held in Moscow |
Intellectual Construction of Russia.

This is an exhibition of professionals in the fields of lighting, electrical installations, building automation, smart cities and integrated security systems.

In other words, in its execution, all companies from Russia, as well as foreign organizations from 11 countries, demonstrated their solutions for smart homes. The event is aimed at designers, architects, urban planners, planners, engineers, electrical installers and integrators, but it may also be of interest to ordinary people.

What kind of exhibition is this?

Intelite Russia |
Intelligent Building Russia is one of the largest international suppliers of gadgets for lighting, building automation, smart cities and system security.

The event was attended by more than 450 participants from all over the world, including brands from Belarus, India, Italy, China, Turkey and other countries. Every year the list of participants grows, which means the choice among manufacturers becomes wider.

The exhibition itself took place at the Expocentre Fairgrounds in Moscow. In general, a familiar place for holding international events. This is a huge building with many pavilions, where it is very easy to get lost (I’m serious, there were so many passages through the territory that I personally managed to forget several times where I had already passed – this is a real labyrinth, where around every turn something really awaits you ) new).

What interesting things did you see?

The main part of the exhibition took place in the second pavilion, one of the largest on the territory of the Expo Center. Here, literally on every step, stands of various companies are installed.

Among them there are both unique Russian brands, like Sber, and foreign ones, in particular, the Chinese Akara, which is widespread in Russia.

One of the main highlights of the exhibition was the Smart Cube 4.0 trend, where visitors could see the area in action with lighting and smart home trends.

According to the organizers, this is “a conceptual interactive space that allows you to observe the capabilities of modern free automation systems in a modern style, must have technology and demonstrate automation solutions.”

An open educational platform for designers and architects, Interlight Design Academy, was also organized here. On it, lighting designers and interior designers are among the fashionable tech trends in the industry.

We decided to take a look at Akara’s stand, where the company demonstrated its new products and current solutions for the smart home. Why there? This is one of the largest manufacturers of equipment for smart homes in Russia.

What Akara showed

Electrical devices for a “smart” home were presented at the company stand. For example, the most unusual kits for protection against leakage with a hub, a leakage sensor, a single-channel relay, an electric drive, and so on.

Among the hubs presented, the actors are M2 and Hub M1S Gen 2. In extreme cases, it can be used not only as just a hub, but also as a kind of signaling. It has a backlight and a built-in speaker with loss of downloading its tunes.

Aqara says it is planning to release the M3 hub soon with the highest standard of Matter support for even more urgent HomeKit work.

In addition to them came the Aqara Cube smart cube. It is needed to control the device; it is a small switch. The gadget recognizes six gestures, including extension, double movement and four types of rotation.

In conjunction with the new LED strip, they can be conveyed with a couple of panel control gestures: change the color of the RGB set, warmth, and so on.

Below is an example of how this tape works.

The cube can be connected to absolutely any phone from the smart home set, and this is convenient.

By the way, a roller blind for the Aqara motor was attached above the tape. They are not on sale yet, but the company is already actively promoting them along with its newest motors. Some of these were even installed at the Sber stand opposite, with which the company actively cooperates. These devices operate from a 220 V outlet.

Moreover, the Chinese also have an autonomous motor for sliding curtains, Aqara Curtain Driver E1. It does not depend on the power supply and is equipped with its own battery, designed for six months of operation, depending on the frequency of use.

Among other new products, we see switches in different colors. Usually in “smart” houses they were made in a white body, and then the company decided to go further and start multi-level coloring them for different interiors.

Among the interesting gadgets, we also demonstrated a thermostat for the Aqara Smart Radiator Thermostat E1.

A useful gadget, for example, for a summer house. It maintains different temperatures in different rooms. It can be controlled remotely, for example to preheat a room.

Finally, the last interesting gadget presented was the Aqara Smart Video Doorbell G4. He himself detects movement near the door and sends push notifications about it.

And through the Home application you can view the peephole camera. There you can also chat with the guest.

These are not all the new products that the company is preparing or already selling. Aqara representatives said that many other devices were released before the end of the year, including new air contact relays, ceiling lights, various controllers and so on.

The cool thing is that they will all work in accordance with the Materia standard, and will be available in the Home application.

General impressions of the exhibition

Interlight Russia 2023 pleased with its scale. This is a huge territory with hundreds of companies from all over the world, where everyone shows their new products.

Of course, there the same organization is looking not only for ordinary buyers, but also for partners. Many people collaborate with each other right at the event.