These days, everything is connected, from our phones to our watches to our lightbulbs.
The next natural evolution is the smart home.
Aqara may not be the first name you think of when you think of smart devices, but it
should be.
Aqara is the smart home segment of Xiaomi, one of the biggest smart device manufacturers
in the world, making everything from some of the most popular smartphones in the world
to the scooters you ride on your city commute.
They offer an affordable, easy-to-use smart home solution, which they just launched in
the US for the first time.
They sent me a few of them to check out.
So let's get right into it.
Aqara sent over their wireless remote switch, wireless double remote switch, door and window
sensor, Aqara cube, water leak sensor, vibration sensor, temperature and humidity sensor, wireless
mini switch (it’s really just a button), motion sensor, smart plug, and finally, the
magic that powers it all, the all-new Aqara Hub.
Let’s start with that hub.
It’s pretty sleek, at just about an inch-and-a-half thick and only three inches in diameter.
It features a standard US wall plug and simply plugs into any electrical outlet.
Unfortunately, it does cover up the other outlet, so that’s something to keep in mind.
Inside that hub is a speaker, processor, Zigbee module, WiFi module, light sensor, and a ring
of LED lights.
The hub connects to your home wifi (unfortunately, it’s only compatible with 2.4ghz networks,
not 5ghz ones, so keep that in mind) and acts as a bridge for up to 32 accessories which
connect over Zigbee, a low power alternative to WiFi that’s common among smart-home products.
Its LED array is fully customizable, and can be controlled via the app, or using presets
on the buttons or Aqara cube.
To set everything up, you’ll want to download the Aqara Home app from the App Store or Google
Play Store, depending on whether you use iOS or Android.
From there, you can follow the step-by-step guide for the initial setup.
After that, adding accessories is super simple.
This process varies a little accessory to accessory, but I’ll use this vibration sensor
as an example.
First, head to the Accessories section of the app.
Next, press the plus and search for your device.
Then select the hub you want to pair it to.
From there, the hub will flash, and you have a minute to pair the device.
To do that, just hold down the little button on the side here for a few seconds.
The blue light will flash and the hub will announce that the device is paired successfully.
Now, give it a name and location and push OK, and that’s all there is to it.
This is what the app looks like once it’s set up.
On the main screen, you have previews of info about your home.
You can view the temperature, humidity, and status of the devices you choose, like whether
your door is open or closed.
Beneath that, you have access to basic controls.
Here, I have presets for my night light and a switch to turn on and off my fish tank.
The Accessories tab shows a list of accessories, allowing you to view detailed info for each
one and add new ones as I just showed you.
In the Automation tab, you can create custom scenes.
You could use scenes to sound an alarm if your door is open, or configure the actions
for your buttons, for example.
To make an automation, hit the plus.
Here, you can pick your condition, the if, and your result, the then.
As an example, you can push a notification to your phone when a water leak is detected.
Now just hit Save, name the automation, and you’re good to go.
Scenes allow you to create custom presets for your devices.
I have a custom night light mode for my Hub for example, which i trigger using the Wireless
Mini Switch.
Finally, in the Profile section of the app, you can customize your profile, check for
updates, manage your home, and view your logs.
There’s also information about pairing Google Assistant and Alexa, and a Help & Feedback
section.
The speaker on the hub is useful for playing alarms or one of the preloaded sounds.
It has a long list of sounds including popular hits like, *ahem*, “Orange” and “Childhood”,
and also some more, questionable ones, like “Missile countdown” and “Batte sound”.
Unfortunately, there is no way that I know of to play music from your phone or a streaming
service, or even to swap out the sounds that come preinstalled.
Hopefully, support for these things will come with a future software update.
Overall, I’ve found the smart home devices to work well, and the buttons and switches
are surprisingly reliable.
It’s not without its occasional hiccups though.
My door and window sensor refuses to stay on my door after I removed it and replaced
it (it, of course, refuses to fall off on video, but believe me, it does) and I sometimes
have issues with the hub reconnecting to WiFi after an outage.
Luckily, the latter of those issues can be fixed with a simple “unplug it and plug
it back in again” technique.
On the bright side, all of the Aqara devices sold in the US are compatible with Apple HomeKit,
and many of them work with Google Assistant and Alexa as well.
The app is relatively easy to use and contains the instructions necessary to pair your desired
assistant, and once I got mine up and running, it works well.
I can simply tell my Google Home to turn my fish tank on and off, connected to the Smart
Plug, of course, and it does so nearly instantly.
The lights on the hub can be controlled through Google Assistant and the Google Home app,
and the Temperature and Humidity Sensor is also compatible with Google Home.
Unfortunately, the other Aqara devices are not.
This means there’s no way to use a wireless switch to trigger an Assistant Routine, for
example, a feature I would have really liked to have had.
Also unfortunate; probably my favorite device in Aqara’s lineup will not be sold in the
US, at least at the time of writing, that being the Aqara cube.
It’s the most unique way of interacting with a smart home I’ve seen.
You can program different gestures on the cube, like a 90 or 180-degree flip, a shake,
a touch, and a drop to perform different actions, like turning the lights on and off, or playing
sounds on your Hub.
Also not available in the US: the Vibration sensor, Water Leak sensor, and Temperature
and Humidity sensor.
Luckily, they do have the motion sensor, a tiny, portable motion camera that can be put
anywhere and configured to send you a notification to your phone when motion is detected, sound
an alarm on the Hub, or more.
What’s also unfortunate is the lack of further third-party integration.
Unfortunately, support for things like IFTTT and proper HomeAssistant support are not currently
available, and while they’ve been promised, they’ve been nothing more than a promise
for months.
That means complicated scenes or those that require third party internet services are
impossible to do with Aqara.
I really wanted to use my Wireless Mini Switch to control my Lifx light, for example, but
after hours searching through forums and fiddling with it, it seems it just can’t be done.
As far as pricing for these devices is concerned, Aqara sells a Smart Home Starter Kit on Amazon
for around $130 to $140 (the price has not been finalized at the time of writing).
That’ll get you an Aqara Hub, Smart Plug, Mini Switch, Motion Sensor, and Door and Window
Sensor.
They’ll sell the hub alone for around $60-$65, and the estimated prices for the rest of the
available products are on-screen now.
For reference, a Samsung SmartThings hub, which supports ethernet, 5ghz WiFi, and far
more devices, costs $69.99.
I’m personally hoping the Aqara products’ prices lean towards the lower side of their
estimates come release.
So now for the big question: should you buy it?
As usual, that depends.
If you’re a smart-home power user and want access to advanced controls, configurations,
and third-party integrations, the Aqara smart home isn’t the one for you.
You should probably shell out the extra cash for a Samsungs SmartThings solution.
If, however, you’re looking for a simple, elegant smart home solution, and most importantly,
something that works well with Apple devices (as that can’t be said about much of its
competition), you’ll love the Aqara smart home.