Bought an Aqara M2 Hub

Devices & Integrations Connected Things
1

Hi,
I have a smartthings hub v2 at home with a zwave lock, several zigbee sensors, smart plugs, zigbee repeaters also some wifi devices that integrate with smartthings. ST is connected to Google Home and Alexa. I rarely use either voice assistant
Recently I got the opportunity to buy an Aqara hub M2 for $15 so picked it up. I got home and connected it to smartthings via matter over wifi. Worked
It was an impulse buy … I don’t really know what to do with it :grinning:
Are there any good use cases that I can take advantage of? Or save it just save it in case smartthings crapped out ?

2

A number of community members, including me, use an Aqara Hub as a matter bridge. I find that my aqara sensors, for example, example, are much more stable in this configuration, and don’t get marked as “off-line“ as much. And it means I can also use the aqara app, which has some additional features that I like, and I can use the same sensor in both Apple home and smartthings. So different things will work for different people. :sunglasses:

You’re unlikely to be able to add many of your existing smartthings-connected devices to the aqara hub, though, it doesn’t have zwave at all, it doesn’t accept a lot of third-party Zigbee Devices, so I don’t know how much of a backup it would be for you. :thinking:

1 Like
3

I purchased an Aqara M2 hub specifically to remove my ‎SJCGQ11LM leak sensors from SmartThings. I did it because during the early phase of the edge transition I could not keep them connected/online for very long and I also ran into the old 200 device limit. I have not even bothered to integrate it/them with SmartThings. They have never gone offline and the Aqara app notification works well.

1 Like
4

Thanks for the note, I thought that zigbee would be zigbee ? I do have some aqara sensors plus many others (zonoff, noname, etc)
I guess if you are on the apple ecosystem then it is handy. I am not so wouldnt apply to me
I may try to experiment and transition some devices to it when I have time.
The Aqara hub M2 has a speaker and I was hoping that the speaker would be available for smartthings but it is not. Also the speaker volume is a joke and can’t be heard so not too concerned

Thanks for the comments

5

Two separate pieces to that.

  1. The independent third-party Zigbee standard does allow for multiple profiles and lots of variations, including manufacturer – specific variations. For example, the Phillips Hue tap dial switch works with the Phillips Hue Bridge, but will not work directly with a SmartThings/Aeotec hub. That’s because it uses the Zigbee green power profile which smartthings does not support at the time of this writing.

FAQ: Zigbee Application Profiles, or why not all zigbee devices work with SmartThings

As a second example, Tuya, a major Home Automation device manufacturer, uses a lot of proprietary code, so their devices don’t work with most other Zigbee hubs. You can sometimes get them to work with SmartThings, but it requires a lot of custom code.

FAQ: Using Tuya Zigbee Devices Directly With a SmartThings/Aeotec Hub (2024)

  1. It’s up to the manufacturer of each hub whether they choose to accept third-party Zigbee devices or not. Many do not, because they don’t want the customer service headaches of having to support other companies’ devices. So you can’t add an IKEA Zigbee device to An aqara hub or an aqara Zigbee device to an IKEA hub at the time of this posting even if they use the same profile. But you might be able to add either to a SmartThings hub if the profile is right…
1 Like
6

Ok thanks sounds like despite some of the complains online SmartThings Hub is certainly better than some of those third party hub and some of the issues are related of it been more accepting of other devices
I have had drops of devices from the ST hub. Just recently havent had time to look into that.

7

There are always some local environment issues with any radio frequency devices, even Wi-Fi, so two different people might have exactly the same set of devices, but one will find things much more stable than another.

For many people, aqara devices are most stable with their own hub, Tuya devices are must stable with their own hub, IKEA devices with their own hub, etc.

One of the nice things about the new matter standard is that now we have the option to connect many aqara devices or tuya Zigbee devices to their own hub, and then bring them in to a SmartThings account via matter. I do this myself, and have found that my aqara sensors are much more reliable when connected this way. It also lets me access features which are only available in the aqara app.

But I understand that there are other people who just hate the idea of having multiple hubs, so want to get everything directly connected to their SmartThings/Aeotec hub.

Choice is good, and the smartthings platform does give us a lot of choices. :sunglasses:

1 Like
8

The M2 also has an IR blaster built into it, I did test it and it worked. If I remember correctly it was pretty basic.

1 Like