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CES 2023: Aqara Announces Video Doorbell G4 With HomeKit Secure Video and Smart Lock U100 With Apple Home Key Support

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Smart home accessory maker Aqara today announced several new devices with support for features like HomeKit Secure Video and Home Key in Apple Wallet.

Aqara-Previews-New-Devices-for-2023.jpg

The Video Doorbell G4 is compatible with HomeKit Secure Video and local streaming to Amazon and Google smart displays, and will work with Matter after the specification is officially ready for cameras. The doorbell features local AI facial recognition, which can trigger specific automations, and optional local storage via a microSD card slot. It can be battery-powered or wired for continuous power.

The Smart Lock U100 is Aqara's first deadbolt lock and supports HomeKit and the Home Key feature in the Apple Wallet app on iPhones and Apple Watches. Other than Home Key, users can also authenticate using the built-in fingerprint scanner, a numerical password, the Aqara app, and NFC cards, as well as a mechanical key. It uses the Zigbee protocol and supports Matter.



Alongside the Video Doorbell G4 and Smart Lock U100, the company also today announced the Presence Sensor FP2 and the LED Strip T1 with HomeKit and Matter support.

Article Link: CES 2023: Aqara Announces Video Doorbell G4 With HomeKit Secure Video and Smart Lock U100 With Apple Home Key Support
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2023/01/05/aqara-video-doorbell-g4-and-smart-lock-u100/
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foobarbaz said:
Presence detection is really the key to non-annoying home automation. It should give you confidence to turn things off automatically with no more waving to the motion sense to show you're still there …
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Personally I’ve had more luck making custom sensors in Home Assistant and then adding them to HomeKit from there.

ESPresense is also a good option, ideally in combination with a custom sensor.

Edit, just saw the video demo of the FP2, very exciting bit of kit and sounds like it should be a lot easier to get our hands on than the FP1!
 
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Other than Hue and a Canadian brand thermostat, I haven’t used any smart home brands.

Is Aqara safe and trusty when using it with HomeKit? Thanks
 
Nice intro's but I suppose it's too much to ask for Aqara to start supporting Thread with their new devices. They seem to want to cling to Zigbee because of their hubs.....

I'm waiting for a Thread based Homekit smart lock..... I hope its not in vain....
 
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This is what I’ve been waiting for! Finally! A battery powered HomeKit doorbell camera!

Where I live has never had a doorbell installed, and as I’m renting I don’t want to pay to run wires in a place I don’t permanently live. I’ve been making do with the Wyze Doorbell Pro for now, and sacrificing HomeKit, so I’m really looking forward to when this lands.

Here’s to hoping their lock will also work well with my front door. The door frame is slightly screwed and the latch and deadbolt aren’t centered with each other, so some smart locks have had issues with my door, so I’m just not using one (doesn’t really even feel beneficial without Hone Key).
 
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MacRumors said:
Other than Home Key, users can also authenticate using the built-in fingerprint scanner, a numerical password, the Aqara app, and NFC cards, as well as a mechanical key.
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I like having the numerical passwords, but it seems like so many brands are going to touchscreen keypads instead of physical ones, which sucks in situations of sun reflection and sometimes pressing the wrong button.

Although, this one has fingerprint sensor, so maybe that might be worth it, and use the passcode as a back up.
 
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zachz said:
Other than Hue and a Canadian brand thermostat, I haven’t used any smart home brands.

Is Aqara safe and trusty when using it with HomeKit? Thanks
Click to expand...

I ditched all my Eufy products over a year ago. Got tired of the crappy software, detection, even under HK it still had to go through Eufy. Also despised the company, their practices, support and the constant release of BS products that nobody wanted. It's a diluted, crappy brand.

I had some Aqara items at the time - mostly the temp/humid sensors and loved them. I introduced a few cams. When I switched from Eufy, I finally jumped in and bought 7 more cams from Aqara. I have several hubs, TVOC sensors, water sensors, motion sensors. They have resolved every issue I had, the TVOC product was rocky when it released but has since been smoothed out. Everything else is fine. I had a camera that went dead, they swapped it no problems.

Their app is also much nicer. I don't user it a lot but mostly for updates. Everything is HKSV. The detection is perfect. I also use the Logitech Circle doorbell. I read the reviews and took a chance anyway. I've had no major issues. Occasionaly, once in a blue moon, I get a camera disconnected but I think that's something else as I also get other disconnect notices from my cams randomly every once in a while.

Other than that - no issues. Great company so far. Yes, another Chinese company. Most all are that make these things so pick the lesser of evils.
 
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ArchAngel713 said:
Finally a doorbell! About to ditch my Ubiquiti G4, but was holding off for a reputable HomeKit doorbell.
Click to expand...

I was going to get the Ubiquiti but it just felt too hard to get the power to it. So happy there is going to be a Battery doorbell, I'm in
 
zachz said:
Other than Hue and a Canadian brand thermostat, I haven’t used any smart home brands.

Is Aqara safe and trusty when using it with HomeKit? Thanks
Click to expand...
In my rather limited experience with an Aqara hub/siren and a few sensors the only thing that really sticks out to me was the fact I had to explicitly allow the devices network access to China in order for firmware updates to work within the aqara app. Perhaps (and hopefully) this has changed.

China is among the regions I have blocked by default at a firewall level, on top of having an IoT specific vlan for "smart" devices.
 
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Isn't this a chinese brand? The lock looks really cool and promising but idk if I would trust tho.

Lumi United Technology Co., Ltd.​

Headquarters location: Shenzhen, China
 
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TundraKing said:
Nice intro's but I suppose it's too much to ask for Aqara to start supporting Thread with their new devices. They seem to want to cling to Zigbee because of their hubs.....

I'm waiting for a Thread based Homekit smart lock..... I hope its not in vain....
Click to expand...
But in the video it says that the lock is using Matter technology not zigbee? Nvm.
 
mystery hill said:
Disappointed that the lock uses Zigbee instead of Thread.

At least we finally have a battery powered doorbell that supports HomeKit Secure Video.
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Zigbee and thread use the same hardware/radio and IEEE 802.15.4 wireless standard. Newer hardware released for zigbee in 2023 and beyond should all be thread capable, if the manufacturer builds the firmware. If the lock is ever going to have native matter support, I inferred this from the video, Aqara would have to use thread to do so. Not saying they will, but that is an option and Aqara has previously stated some of their devices (door and window sensors for example) will get the thread firmware for direct matter support, BUT those products weren’t discussed here (technically would not be new products though).
 
foobarbaz said:
Presence detection is really the key to non-annoying home automation. It should give you confidence to turn things off automatically with no more waving to the motion sense to show you're still there …
Click to expand...
my new echo bee thermostats has presence detection. I set an automation to turn on my nanoleaf elements when i enter the room and off when i leave… the off command never works… FAIL
 
Does anyone know how temperature sensitive the doorbell is? Here in Arizona, it gets too hot for most of them.
 
As much as I don't want Amazon cameras on my house, nothing beats Ring for motion detection. With so many other brands I would get so many false alerts. I still have occasional false alerts with Ring, but it is so much less annoying, especially once everything is dialed in since they have so many options. At least they are all on the outside of my house. I may have to reassess this later this year, but for now I'm sticking with Ring, unfortunately.
 
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