Newbie - Aqara, general and hub recommendation

Devices & Integrations
1

Hi everyone,

Fairly new to the whole ST platform so please go easy on me!

To make things really clear, I’ve joined ST after the death of Groovy and the classic app etc. Just about 3 months in so far, I have an Aeotec v3 hub and use a mix of ST and Aeotec sensors for Zigbee and z-Wave, plus a number of Meross devices (WiFi) which are really rather good.

I’m in a pretty good place with everything and wanted to thank the community for taking the time to read my noob query and answer - it’s this (you guys!) thar can make platforms like ST work. So seriously - a huge thank you!

Now dear friends, onto business!

I’m a little frustrated with the lack of high end sensors for the ST ecosystem. The Samsung ones seem excellent in build quality, but clearly Sammy was intending for 3rd parties to do the heavy lifting. Aeotec seem to a.solid middle ground OEM/ODM with reasonable price/performance.

It seems to me that companies like Aqara appear to do a healthy range of sensors that look like they are of decent build quality. The catch (other than cost of course) is they need their own hub.

After a lot of research and even buying some Aqara sensors that just won’t bloody work with my Aeotec hub I’ve admitted defeat and am likely to just order one of the Aqara hubs.

Few questions if I may:

  1. Any suggestions on WHAT Aqara hub to look at? They have half a dozen or so… All I’m in the market for is for ST to be able to seamlessly view, manage and control the devices. No need for IR ports or camera to be integrated (no really that’s a thing!)

  2. I’m kind of assuming that this will all just work as needed… That ST can see the AQ hub and it’s devices and ST can manage the devices as if it was a device directly managed on itself.
    As an example of my fear - my Meross (WiFi) air humidifier/ aromatherapy pip burner is wonderful. Unfortunately, whilst ST can turn it in and off and set the colour wheel, it does not present an option to pick a “light spray” or a “heavy spray”, which is literally the only other option other than on/off and colour for the whole device. Minor point, but it is literally the only other option for the product and they didn’t include it for ST integration, meaning I both need to use the Meross app to set it and I can’t us it in automations.

  3. Running two Zigbee hubs in the same house shouldn’t - in principle - cause any issues?

My last general point… Is this even sensible? Is there an alternative solution I should be looking into? Not a fan of vendor lock, and it does feel kinda off to me that I need their own special Zigbee hub to control their Zigbee devices even though I own a perfectly good Zigbee hub.

As always, would not only (obviously) love answers to my specific questions, but general information, advice, guidance and tips as always. What makes this community such a great resource.

Thanks in advance everyone

Steve

2

Sadly, not at this time. You cannot add an Aqara hub to smartthings the way you can add it to, say, Apple HomeKit.

The good news is that this may change in a few months once Aqara has a hub that supports matter PROVIDED that hub is also able to act as a “matter bridge.” (No promises, it’s not required, so we will just have to wait and see what they do. For example, the smartthings/Aeotec hub supports a one-way integration in for matter, you can bring in matter-compatible devices from other brands, but it does not function as a “matter bridge” so you can’t add the smartthings/Aeotec hub to other matter compatible apps. :disappointed_relieved:)

for now, though, you would have to use an intermediary for integration like Alexa routines. :thinking:

3

Correct. Many people already have multiple Zigbee networks and don’t even know it. Cable TV boxes often use zigbee, smart meters, irrigation systems, even some appliances. And of course, lots of people in this forum use both a Philips hue hub and a smartthings/Aeotec hub. If you did run into issues, there are some things you can do, but it’s not typical.

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4

Can you tell us again what country you are in? The device selection does vary, and so far as it happens, you only mentioned brands which are available in multiple regions (aqara, Meross, and Aeotec).

5

I have successfully avoided buying anything made by aqara, don’t let me stop you though! :laughing:

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6

Personally I have Aqara devices that I ran directly on SmartThings.

For the most part everything was fine, with the odd sensor dropping off line. I didn’t dick about trying to reconnect them for long, as I discovered that some just don’t play nice whilst others do. As I had a box of many sensors, I just pitched the ones that didn’t stay connected and never really had an issue after.

Now, though, I have the M2 Hub which I bought in advance of Matter, and moved my devices across. I can say that right now I can add the hub as a matter device and it exposes one solitary humidity sensor, but then generates the memory error afterwards if I add anything.
My plan is to wait for it to get integrated via Aqara/SmartThings. Aqara have tweeted that they are working on it with ST, but I’m not holding my breath. I keep the M2 though as I like the alarm function.

I did setup Apple HomeKit via my iPad & Apple TV, and integrated via HomeBridge that I run in docked containers. Hopefully I can kill that and move just to Samsung in the future, but having notifications on Apple TV for certain devices is awesome.

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7

I use the aqara sensors with Apple HomeKit, and really like them in that configuration. I’m hoping that the future matter option will work in a similar way with smartthings. But we will have to wait and see.

8

Wow guys, thanks for such a quick response!

Appreciate the info, even though it’s not really the answer I was looking for…

To answer your specific question, I live in the UK, although don’t have any concerns importing from other countries if that opens up other possibilities!! :wink:

Neither me nor my better half like voice assistants, however I have adopted Google Home by virtue of buying our two kids Google Nest Mini smart speakers. So whilst I try to avoid using Google Home as much as I possibly can, that can (and is to an extent) be used as some awful middleware / integration layer.
I’m assuming that I could hook in the Aqara sensors into Home (where most my smart devices live, albeit as connected / linked devices rather than natively) and have relevant automations run from Google Home instead of SmartThings.

Certainly sounds like a solution, but I’ve noticed over the last 6 months or so that IoT / Edge or whatever the hell the latest name for these products are called now really has a disappointing number of vendor ‘walled gardens’. Really do not like having to have multiple hubs / engines / clouds / platforms jus to run two different bulbs in the same room! Anyway, I digress.

Are you suggesting it might be wise to wait for the newer model from Aqara which will be focused on Matter / Thread, and therefore given the rumours / noises online MIGHT have better ST integration? I’m in no rush so I’d be happy to do that. Can you advise on the model in question? Failing that, if I needed a hub ASAP what you might suggest?

Thanks again for all your help and insight everyone.

Steve

9

Unfortunately, at present, google home does not offer as many automation options as Alexa, although it’s been catching up and they plan to introduce more with matter. I’m just not sure what’s possible at the present time, hopefully someone else will post.

10

As far as Terminology, you can just say “home automation.“ IOT stands for “Internet of things“ and refers to a specific kind of technology that covers both residential and commercial uses. It was trendy a couple of years ago, but just not used as much now except by people on Twitter trying to keep the character count down. :wink:

Samsung is really really bad at naming things. It tends to use the same name for two or even three different things. And it will often use terms in a somewhat different way than the rest of the industry, which is confusing.

“Edge computing” was an industry term that’s been around for almost 10 years and referred to a design that moved as much computing as possible out of the cloud and running locally, while still having connections to a central cloud database. So, if you just Google “edge“ that’s most of what you’ll find.

About a year or so ago, smartthings decided that they would call their new architecture (which ran more stuff on the hub, rather than in the smartthings cloud 0) “edge drivers“. That’s OK, it’s similar to the basic existing concept of edge computing, but it is different. And nobody uses edge drivers of that type except smartthings, they are unique to that architecture.

It’s not that any of that really matters, it’s just that it can get confusing if you’re trying to do Internet research.

So, just say “Home Automation,” that’s the simplest and most widely understood term for what we’re all trying to do with smartthings, whether we have hubs or not. And use the term “edge drivers“ when you are specifically talking about the smartthings required code for devices that communicate directly with your hub.

As far as having multiple hubs/bridges, some people hate that idea. Me, I don’t care as long as it doesn’t add to my workload. I don’t expect my plumbing junctions to run through my electrical boxes, so I don’t care if there are two boxes on the wall. Same with hubs for home automation. I think I have about seven now, maybe more than that, but 90% of them I never touch except when I first install the devices. They sit there and handle that traffic, and I don’t have to worry about them. I just see them as part of the infrastructure. But that’s just me. I do know people who hate the whole idea of multiple boxes plugged into the wall, so if that’s a priority for you, that will affect your candidate selection choice is good. :sunglasses:

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11

Please give examples of the logic you want to automate.

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12

Yes. :sunglasses: but we have to wait to see exactly which models are going to have it. So far the first one out is the M3, but it’s not fully functional with matter yet, so there’s no reason to rush on that. Just wait until they have a couple of models using matter in the field and you can read the reviews and check this forum to see what the smartthings integration looks like.

13

Please give examples of the logic you want to automate.

It’s to control the lighting in my eldest son’s bedroom. There’s no neutral wire in this bedroom, so I can’t fit a smart light switch unlike most of the other rooms in the house. Therefore he has a smart bulb and a smart bedside lamp. Currently I have a motion sensor in the room to power off the lights if there’s no motion after 10 mins, but other than using his Google Nest Mini he has no other way to actually control the lights which is rather annoying.
Was looking at providing him with a cool little button, next to his bed to control the lighting.

A selection of buttons (or one button that can be pressed multiple ways) to set pre-made “scenes” such as “reading time” or “bedtime” or well as just “off” would be perfect.

14

Im in a similar situation - I have an aeotec v3 and aqara M2 - everything seems to highlight that you SHOULD be able to connect the M2 hub to ST as a matter device/bridge. Both hubs confirm they are matter compatible, running thread - but I cannot find an interface in ST to actually do that.

How do you manage it?

Is it country specific? Not released everywhere yet? I am in UK
Simon

15

Just checking my facts - and just saw that in the aqara app there is now an “activate” matter button, and a new matter QR code… will take me an hour to get home and try it… watch this space…

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16

This requires that the “matter bridge“ functionality be enabled on the aqara hub, and that “multi admin“ be enabled for both aqara and smartthings. And, as @Automated_House points out below, that smartthings be able to add a third-party matter bridge to its matter controller.

I’m pretty sure both companies say the functionality is currently in beta, so it may not be available everywhere yet.

@Automated_House might know more.

17

yeah, the M2 hub has Matter Bridge functionality in Beta. However, SmartThings still doesn’t support Matter Bridges. I think only Apple and Google do so far for Matter Controllers.

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18

I asked on my M2 and Aqara point the finger at Samsung dragging their heels.

I’d expect it to pop up sometime this year though.

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19

Disappointing… thought I had something there, but it doesnt work.
ST recognises the matter QR code, but fails to pair/connect to the hub. Shame…

20

Same thing happens here.
SmartThings can see the hub but when you try to add it, it just hangs and never completes the process.