Aqara Smart Hub M2 (2.4 GHz Wi-Fi Required), Smart Home Bridge for Alarm System, IR Remote Control, Home Automation, Supports Alexa, Google Assistant, Apple HomeKit and IFTTT

Been working on my smart home ever since the first echo dot was released. I wish I knew about Aqara sooner. As I’m now slowly changing each device over to theirs for the following reasons: easy set up, integration, ease of use and they just work. They do exactly what they are designed to do and the additional functionality of this hub being an ir blaster means I can also use it to control anything that uses a remote that does not have smart features built in. If you share starting out on your smart home journey. Do yourself a favour, save money in the long run and use Aqara. You won’t be disappointed

There's not much to say about home automation hubs really - you kinda need it whether you wished you did or not really, if you want that brand's equipment to be usable.I'm using some buttons, the presence detector and the door bell and it all just syncs up and works superbly.Let's talk about it as a whole system - the app is superb, everything basically just worked out of the box as described pretty much and integration with IFTTT is very good across the entire range of products.I've not got them working in Home Assistant yet (i'm just getting that installed), but will be doing that at some point and see how I get on, looks like it might work but we'll see - untested at this point.Definitely recommend Aqara based on what i've used so far - packaging is super, products work well and the app is slick.

Got this to enable me to install cost effective door sensors within my existing home setup (mixed HomeKit and Home Assistant). The setup was a little clunky but once it was setup (using the Aqara app), everything works flawlessly. It can be added to both your existing HomeKit and Home Assistant setups at the same time. Because it's a hub, any devices (additional sensors) you add to it will automatically appear in your HomeKit / Home Assistant instances. It's Matter compatible so responses from the sensors are super quick. It has a quirky voice feedback thing going on via the speak every time you add/delete a sensor, but you can turn that right down. Looks smart on the desktop. Bit of a dust magnet (minor point, obviously).

It's a good one.

Despite reviews stating that the hub doesn't work with Home Assistant, it does. using the Homekit Controller integration. I used a wired connection to the hub, it was detected by HA, the id needed to be entered using the 8 digits on the label on the base in the format XXXXXXXX, not as indicated by HA. It now works with HA and the Android phone app.

I got a bunch of different devices for my house. They worked well for a while; then, they started having issues. Some died, and some had the connection attachment broken, as other customers reported. Aqara's support is terrible. You can only communicate with them via email, which is OK, but their support response and quality are the worst. I invested a lot of money in their products, and I am now replacing them one by one, and I would never buy another product from them. It is a shame because they do have good products. It is just that they do not last, and you will pull your hair out with their support.

I know manufacturers like to lock you in to their products but in the days of Matter, Zigbee and Zwave, Aqara should support an open source and free system. Forcing another hub down our throats is the reason for losing two stars. Their smart kit is good but the proprietary hub is a real downer. It works but should not be necessary.

Very easy to setup