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With a simple flip, you can turn on the nightstand. With a flip of a 180, You can
turn on the fan. And with a simple shake I can turn on the backdrop and that is
just a few things that this amazing device can do and it's called the Aqara Cube.
Welcome friends if this is your first time here and you're into smart
home automation and products and reviews you're definitely in the right place for
full disclosure Aqara did send this out to me for a full honest review but if
something is wrong I'm definitely going to let you know I'll be leaving affiliate
links down below and a link to my full pros and cons list on my website so definitely
check that out. Now currently the Aqara cube only works within the Aqara app is
not exposed to homekit so unfortunately it will only work with other Aqara
products currently but there are ways around it I'm going to have some friends
show you how you can get this to work with some home kit accessories in just a
moment. The Aqara cube is a ZigBee device which means that you will need their
Aqara hub to make this work unfortunately this is an additional item I think cost
like 50 or 60 bucks and it is required. To set this up, go into the Aqara app
press the plus on top right corner go down to plugs and switches scroll down
to the cube and it's gonna bring up your hubs the name of my hub is called
security system once you press this it will say ready to connect to child
devices you will have to open this up with the provided tool and hold down the
reset button for about five seconds and it will connect now once this is
connected you can go ahead and set this up with other Aqara products by going
to automations down to bottom press the plus in top right corner and this is
just a normal if this then that statement so go into IF and hit add and you
scroll down to the cube and you're gonna say what you want the trigger to be here
I'm just going to do a simple 90 degree flip and then then you can easily add
this command to any other core product so for
instance you have the Thorp which is called the family room lights I can turn
it on turn it off or do it on off statement which is a condition statement
meaning that if it's off if I flip it it's gonna turn on and if I flip it
again it's gonna turn off depending on the current condition which is really
cool you really don't have that in within the home kit you can also control
course switches which I reviewed last week if you haven't seen that video
definitely check it out but that's all you can really do within a core but to
get this to work with other home kit accessories is definitely a little bit
harder there is a easy way and a hard way so first up I'm gonna have my friend
Shane Whatley show you the easy way and how he got his cube to work with one the
trigger within homekit. Shane turn it over to you. Yo, What's up Eric
thanks for having me yeah man as you know I like to keep my home kit setup as
simple and easy as possible but that's why I was playing around with this cube
one day and came up with a really easy way to get it to control my home kit
lights so what we're gonna do in this one is basically use a Aqara smart plug
to act as a bridge kind of between this and our homekit lights. The Aqara smart
plug this cam is a part of that a car starter kit you know on Amazon or you
can just buy them individually as well but let's go ahead and set this up it's
really easy I'll show you how I did it first let's open up the car app choose
the automations tab and we're going to do a new automation here we're gonna
select the cube flip 90 degrees and then we're gonna choose what it does so we're
gonna have this control our smart plug here and now you can use any a car
accessory in here that you can control such as the hub light or if you have
some of the new wall switches basically anything you can control in here you can
then have it control and home kit as long as that's exposed to home kit as
well so we're going to do the smart plug and we're going to choose the turn on
and off that way we can create a toggle with this flip alright to save I'm gonna
name it cube 90 confirm all right there we go that's our
first automation in the car app that was easy now let's go to the home app go
over to your automations tab we're gonna do a new automation here choose
accessories control let's scroll down we're gonna find our smart plug that
we're controlling for me it's this one right here this is my car a smart plug
and I'm going to choose when this turns on and I'm gonna control these lights
back here these are some home kit lights and we're gonna have them turn on when
the outlet turns on okay easy enough now we're going to one more automation kind
of the reverse of that so when that outlet turns off cheese next we're going
to turn the lights off background lights turn off done alright and that's it it's
really that simple so now when I rotate this it's gonna toggle my smart outlet
on or off and then depending on whether that's on or off it's gonna change my
home kit lights behind me so let's give it a shot
rotate 90 degrees there you go the lights turned off let's rotate it one
more time and they're on there you go it's as simple as that that is a really
easy way to use the acara cube to control your home kit lights alright
Eric thanks again for having me man back to you thanks Shane that was really cool
I love the simplicity of how to get this into a home kit super easy if you guys
are into home kit you definitely have to subscribe to Shane Watley he does all
home kit products and reviews and how to's definitely go over down below check
out his channel they're linked down below now next up is a little bit more
advanced option if you guys want to have all the triggers to work with in home
kit it's a little bit more advanced but it can definitely be done so my friend
Shay she's gonna show you how to do that thanks Eric thanks Shane I'm going to
demo a different way to set up the cube and what you'll do is just work
eat this process for each gesture or action that you want to set up so let's
start in the acara app from the bottom menu select accessories then tap on
acara hub you'll see the color scenes at the bottom tap plus to add one then you
can just drag the circle to select a color and the outer dial controls the
brightness and then just type in a scene Ain wax on because I'm going to turn
this wax warmer behind me then confirm and save and back out of there then from
the bottom menu select automation tap the plus I'm going to add this is just
an if-then statement so from the if at the top select add then the cube and
let's just do shake and then in the bottom half but then there's also an add
tap that select a car hub turn on nightlight add a Cara hub and then at
the bottom set is the assignment scene we're gonna use that same adjust set up
so for me wax on I'm gonna add a small delay to make sure this setting happens
I'm just going to 5 you can do let's play around with it add and then we need
a default to set it back to so I'm going to select a Cara hub and then set is the
assign scene I just choose wake there's four default things you can use any of
them and then add another delay and then Carl hub turn off my light and then save
we'll name it and then just make sure that your nightlight is on on the hub
before you exit out we're gonna go into the evap and then from the bottom select
room select the room that your hub is in and let's make sure that it's set to
that color if it's not then back out go to the Apple home at pull it up in there
and that should reset it then you can come back into the evac okay so now that
I've verified that I'm going to select automation from the bottom menu let's
set up the scene first okay this is what we want to happen so let's like to edit
from the upper right and then add scene add
action going to select this room and then turn on the wax warmer add next and
you're just going to give it a name and then select an icon done okay
then go ahead and tap Done and then from the top menu select rules and then add
rule tap on trigger add trigger other value remember it's the nightlight
that's driving this scroll down to the room with a nightlight slide power to on
add next add value condition select it again and this time slide color
saturation and brightness to on it should pick up that color scene and tap
add next here's where you're going to select that scene next and then just in
our name for the rule this will show up over in the automations in the apple
home app and the scene we've set up will show up in the room okay let's go verify
this over in the Apple home app I can see the scene was set up so now I'm just
going to tap on automation and verify that I see that rule that I had set up
and then let's go on out and we will go over to the acara home app and I'm just
going to go ahead and set my hug nightlight back to my default scene and
turn it off before I try this okay I'm going to demo the actions I have setup
let's go with this shake turns on the wax warmer and then there's this gold
floor lamp back here a slide will turn that on and this is hard to see on me
this up a little bit then if I just do a flip 90 degrees that'll turn on the
smaller one next to it okay and then they Eve flare I'm going to do a 180
sometimes they eat this a little slow to come on
okay let's try it again oh there it goes okay so that's it just repeat those
steps for each gesture you'd like to set up on the cube thank you thanks Shay
that's really cool I love how you were able to get all the triggers and
gestures over to home kids even though that it's not natively exposed at home
kit you got it done so job well done if you guys are into a home kit smart home
automation advanced programming you definitely want to check out shades
channel I'll leave a card up there and a link down in the description to check it
out so overall the cube is pretty cool it's
definitely a very I would call it a novelty item it's not something you
should rely on to turn on you know smart home automation all the time
unfortunately there are hiccups from time to time maybe you just don't hit it
down hard enough it's not registering the right gesture it does happen so you
can't rely upon it plus the rotate gesture does not work whatsoever I'll
let a court know and if they do update that and fix that issue I'll update my
full person comes us on my website so definitely check that out oh I think
Shay and Shane from being in this video and showing us how to hook this up
within home kits if you guys want to check out their channels I'll leave
links down below if you guys want to see the next video in my home kit series
click that video right there and if you're brand new here make sure you hit
that subscribe button and I will see you on next video thanks for watch