How can Aqara be "Works with ..." certified when they don't provide firmware updates via the DCL?

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To the best of my knowledge Aqara does not provide firmware updates via the DCL, which is why you need an Aqara hub if want to update the firmware on a device.

This has been brought up for multiple products over on the Aqara forums, but I think this post explains the situation quite well.

Now, one of the things that the “Works with Home Assistant” program promises is “Available to access firmware updates directly in Home Assistant”.

As explained above, Aqara does not do this, which is really frustrating.

Another thing that I noticed is that Aqara claims that (some) products not listed on the official list are “Works with …” certified.

Two products that I personally bought that have “Works with Home Assistant” printed on the retail packaging:

(Links go to Amazon, but you can see the logo in the product pictures)

To be fair, these products do work with HA …

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There’s a lot of Aqara firmware avaliable here:

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Nope. It’s a “nice to have”. Not a must have.
https://works-with.home-assistant.io/#whats-required

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That needs to be reported to the OHF. @MissyQ

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But outside of their own platform, Aqara does not provide firmware updates at all. Even if they somehow inform users about firmware updates, there is no (official) way to actually install them without an Aqara Hub.

It is my understanding that some way of providing firmware updates actually is required. If needing another hub fulfills this requirement, I don’t understand why it’s not listed for all certified Aqara products (under “Certified Connectivity”).

Yes you can manually (and without any official support) provide the firmware as @absent has pointed out, but surely that can’t be an acceptable way for a “Works with …” certified product.

I reached out to the OHF regarding the status of the W600 in January and was told that certification is currently ongoing. I don’t know if that’s still the case, but even if it is, I don’t think it’s okay for Aqara to put the badge on its retail packing while the certification is ongoing.

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One of the reasons why i try to avoid chinese brands, especially Aqara and try to stick to european manufacturers like EVE, Bosch, Nuki, Ikea, Philips, Wago, Shelly and so on …
Even though they are generally more expensive.
I know that most of the stuff is produced in China (except for NuKi), but they don’t need chinese clouds and the above brands do deliver firmware updates over Home Assistant.