Aqara entered CES 2025 with a slew of new smart home devices and a focus on creating unique, connected controls for a wide variety of home tech, no matter who you got it from. That includes one of the most unique home gadgets we spotted at CES this year, the Touchscreen Dial V1, a multipurpose knob that can help out all kinds of smart homes. It’s not quite a smart thermostat, and not quite a light knob, but instead a general controller, a type of home hub you can connect to all kinds of things.
If you’ve seen the Nest Thermostat touchscreen/dial combination, you can see that the Touchscreen Dial works similarly, except it’s not a thermostat and isn’t wired into a thermostat’s heating/cooling controls. Instead, it’s installed into a common light switch, and is significantly smaller than a thermostat.
The haptic feedback dial is a neat way to control connected smart lighting, dimming or changing the color temperature at a touch, but you can also move it to adjust connected smart curtains or shades or to bump up the temperature on a wirelessly connected thermostat. And that’s only the tip of a comprehensive iceberg.
Aqara’s dial can manage individual lights or draps as well as whole home routines.
The Dial is equipped with both a temperature sensor and a humidity sensor so you can gauge the comfort of a room, as well as a proximity sensor so it only lights up with info once someone approaches. Additionally, you can program it with home routines like morning or evening changes and enact them with a touch of the dial’s 1.32-inch touchscreen. Even if you aren’t interested in routines, swiping the touchscreen allows the Dial to control the light or drape of your choice.
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Once installed, you can add accessories via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth from multiple platforms, including Google Home, Apple Home and Amazon Alexa. When you’re not using the Dial, you can choose a face such as a clock or a temperature reader to get quick info as you pass by.
Aqara’s Dial works with common smart home platforms and many different devices.
If buyers are in the mood for something larger, they can also wait for S1 Plus All-in-One Control Panel, a panel that takes up more space but has a larger touchscreen that can show views from cameras, allowing for two-way audio and other tricks. But we like the simplicity and unique style of the Touchscreen Dial and can’t wait to try it out with some of our other home tech.
To see what we thought of CES 2025, visit our hub and check out our picks for some of the best devices around.