Aqara upgrades its S1 Plus smart hub with Siri support – Apple users should be excited

Attention Apple users! Aqara has just upgraded its Panel Hub S1 Plus with Siri, making it the first wall-mounted hub to come with Siri built in. This upgrade allows for more users to monitor and customise the smart home hub, and means you don’t have to have your iPhone glued to your hand as you do so – here’s everything you need to know.

The Aqara S1 Plus was announced during CES 2025 and launched officially a few weeks after the event. Described as a ‘high-end control panel’, the Aqara S1 Plus sits on your wall and acts as your main smart home ecosystem with touch, app and voice controls.

Measuring 6.9 inches, the Aqara S1 Plus has a similar concept and design to the Amazon Echo Hub. As a centralised hub, the Aqara S1 Plus keeps all your connected devices in one place so you can easily customise and control them via the dashboard. These devices include cameras, video doorbells, sensors and much more, thanks to its Matter and Zigbee support.

Now, this new upgrade means the Aqara S1 Plus comes with Apple’s Assistant Siri built in, so you can access Siri without having to have your phone or HomePod on or near you. While this might not sound like a massive update, it actually marks the Aqara S1 Plus as the first wall-mounted hub or controller that has Siri fixed to it.

What makes this such a good upgrade, especially for Apple users, is that more people can now use Siri and the Aqara S1 Plus to access and monitor your smart home. Before, Siri was tied to personal devices so only the owner could use it with their iPhone or tablet in their hand, but now, Siri on the Aqara S1 Plus is accessible to everyone.

Now as a shared assistant, people in your households like guests, kids and the elderly can use the Aqara S1 Plus and Siri to make adjustments to your home. This allows for your household to be much more inclusive, so if you’re not home, your teenager can still ask the Aqara S1 Plus to turn off the lights or check the video doorbell footage to see who’s at the door.

A firmware update is being rolled out in phases to existing users of the Aqara S1 Plus and has been since November. New customers can buy the Aqara S1 Plus now for £289.99, but unfortunately, it’s not yet available in the US.