Aqara M3 Hub - The NEW BRAIN for my Smart Home?

Aqara Hub M3 - geni.us/AqaraM... (Found a 20% discount code - HUBM3UK1)
Today I take a look at the Aqara M3 Hub, their newest smart home hub with support for thread, zigbee, matter and all manner of other protocols!
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[@joewhite4564]

Finally, a review that does not come off as just a prolonged ad. Thanks!

[@jongmans38]

Buy a product on what functions it has, not on what it promises in the future. Golden Rule...

[@StusReviewsUK]

Absolutely fair point.

[@gedgicat2063]

I've been looking forward to this hub since CES, but my order is on hold for 6 to 12 months by the sounds of things 😥

[@ABC589]

So true. You can buy for any feature that is upcoming *HOWEVER* you should make sure you feel like you get a good value from the functionality it happens to have when you purchase it.

[@dab42bridges80]

It's Mind over Matter, Aqara don't Mind and you don't Matter...

[@CarlRyds]

I'm sorry £130, I was expecting £99 tops since the M2 is £55 (£46 on sale). If it could take Zigbee devices from ANY manufacture, like IKEA (without a Philips Hue Hub), then maybe but as it is, it’s far too expensive in my eyes. I was hoping to ditch my IKEA hub and have everything run through one hub, the limited third-party Matter support is laughable for the price. It's a VERY disappointing product.

[@meyerwhite1427]

Just bought one… mainly because there was no way to get Aqara’s own wireless rocker switches to simply turn on or off my garden wifi lights connected to Smart Life… and there still isn’t. Alexa doesn’t support aqaras wireless battery switches, so that doesn’t work. IFTTT can see the switches - but I have two locations set up in Smart Life - home and Work. For some reason, IFTTT only shows the devices at work and offers no way to switch this to home. In this day and age, something as simple as having a bloody wireless battery switch be able to turn on and off a flippin’ wifi light is near impossible. That’s messed up.

[@seraphuziel]

This will help me divest from Amazon alexa, before they start charging.

[@StusReviewsUK]

God help us all when that day comes 👁👄👁

[@kevinroberts9287]

Has this been released yet? Not available on Amazon Spain, Germany etc. I live in Spain unfortunately

[@garyhenderson9303]

One thing no one is talking about is the WiFi standard this supports its only WiFi 5. The recent camera had WiFi 6 which they made clear on their page. This HUB I could only find reference in the .pdf User Manual which states its a 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac which translates to WiFi 5. I want to use Matter over thread plus Zigbee for my smart home, but my whole network is going to WiFi 7 this summer, this is disappointing that a new HUB is two generations behind in its Protocol support.

[@StevePhilpott]

I bought one and it will not pair with my IR fans. No fix from support so far. Very disappointed.

[@Badonicus]

Howdy ho. I have a few Aqara Blind shutters. They are a pricey brand though.

[@StusReviewsUK]

Depends what you’re looking at- a lot of the smaller sensors are extremely well priced!

[@RiceEater483]

It sounds like it could be a great Smart Home Hub....in 2025, maybe 2026. But definitely not right now or the rest of the year. For now it's just a really expensive Aqara Hub. Maybe worth the upgrade for some Aqara users. But definitely not a Home Assistant, Homey Pro, or Hubitat competitor. Not yet at least.

[@fightwinprevail]

Off topic but where might one get themselves one of those spiffing waistcoats?

[@StusReviewsUK]

You’re the second person to ask this question this week! It’s actually a custom piece of my own design, made by an independent moleskin clothing tailor here in the uk.

[@fightwinprevail]

@@StusReviewsUK really nice work!

[@waynemoate9401]

Matter is for live not just for Christmas. On a serious note i want one hub, gadgets from Aqara, Nanoleaf and Tapo and them all to work as one. Presently i have Alexa, Hubitat and Matter via Eero Wi Fi

[@Bigglare]

Hue is an excellent Matter bridge for Zigbee 3.0 devices. You can bridge any zigbee 3.0 light or plug to Matter to use with Apple, Amazon, Google, Smartthings, Third Reality, even Home assistant. And does it all locally. Oh wait, this is another proprietary Aqara hub that only works with Aqara's zigbee devices. Sounds like this is a solid skip.

[@leosedf]

is it compatible with home assistant?

[@Dexmo]

I just orded one. Side note, How are the temp sensors holding up battery wise?

[@StusReviewsUK]

They haven’t run out yet 🤞

[@2377shortie]

My experience with aqara is very hit and miss. The temperature sensors are great. The fp2 didn't work for me. To much ghosting. Motion sensor has a mind of its own. Sometimes it stays on when I'm in the room other times it will turn off after 5 seconds even though it's set for 5 minutes.

[@RodrigoBarbosaPhotographer]

Sadly no Z-Wave, will keep my m2 running parallel to hubittat for now.

[@AndrewDee]

Who needs z wave in 2024

[@joseg.5937]

This defeats the purpose of Matter and Tread logo as it leave it to customers to know if it will work or not

[@garethjones5068]

So close, yet so far 😒

[@garyhenderson9303]

This was the Smart Home product I was most looking forward to in 2024. But as with the recent Alexa HUB the launched product does not deliver what I expected. To much focus on what it can do if the Internet goes down, who cares I do not live in a cave and cannot remember having ever lost the Internet, unless the power is off in town in which case nothing works. At twice the price of the M2 it seems we have an early access product here and hopefully the M4 will deliver what I expected from the M3.

[@chrisedwards5447]

Bro that echo hub pissed me off so bad. They could’ve easily pushed that dashboard out as a software update to all echo shows and tablets. But no let’s make our customers pay an additional $180.

[@StusReviewsUK]

@chrisedwards5447 it was appalling

[@lucasefe]

This thing doesn’t support third party zigbee devices. That’s pretty terrible. Only takes aqara zigbee devices. What a waste.

[@anony-mousex]

We should be moving away from the nightmare of third party hubs and the problems they bring, not to mention the security risk factors

[@StusReviewsUK]

What would you consider a first party hub? 👀

[@anony-mousex]

​@@StusReviewsUK Apple HomeKit where the same devices you use can be also used as 'the hub' - I dont need some Chinese made hub to do all the brain work and also sell my data, no thanks!

[@AndrewDee]

Actually M3 is a first party hub 😅

[@anony-mousex]

@@AndrewDee To homekit? No

[@yamahawins]

I cant figure out how to bridge the m3 hub with smartthings

[@myutube6422]

I did get a M3 hub, I already had a G3 and E1 hub. Due to my lack of understanding and a bit of poor documentation, I messed up my Aqara setup. Trying to get help from Aqara was not available. I eventually figured out my issues and fixed it myself. I do not know if their support people don't understand English or they are trying to use AI to handle customer service, bottom line their email reply's just repeat what you have said in your emails. Like Stu, I think Aqara has a good product/s but like Samsung, don't expect much in the line of CS.

[@kwanizac]

Has it been 6 months yet?

[@StusReviewsUK]

its been 20 days... 👀 That said, they have increased support quite significantly - www.reddit.com/r/Aqara/comments/1cpi1aw/official_ama_aqara_m3_thirdparty_device_support/

[@radry100]

Wait you have to pay for an software upgrade to use it as "base" for other hubs or did I mistunderstand this?

[@StusReviewsUK]

Misunderstood - it acts like that out of the box (no extra software needed) 👍

[@thebrentfamily7602]

Okay... Did you fake the whiskey automation? If not what pressure sensor are you using for that because I want to know

[@StusReviewsUK]

Haha, yes it was indeed simulated… but if I wanted to I could use an fp2 sensor to trigger an alarm if it detects someone in the vicinity of my whisky 👀👀👀