AQARA stability

I ordered FIVE AQARA 5 door sensors and three AQRA motion sensor. I am wondering if I'm headed for trouble as I have been reading Hubitat "chatter" from 1-2 years ago about AQARA door switches. The Hubititat hub and AQARA devices seem to have difficulty pairing and maintaining connections

Have these issues been resolved?

Would stability and connectivity be increased if i bought a AQARSA hub and integrated that with hubitat?

Thank you

Craig

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I believe that should work ok. One of their biggest problems is that other zigbee devices try to use them as repeaters and they're not stable enough on the hubitat mesh to use this way leading to knock-on problems throughout your mesh. Assuming someone has written an Aqara hub integration...

One of the earlier Aqara hubs could be connected to HE using this app and installing docker on an RPi.
I have used it and it works well.
I've since stopped using it and have the devices connected directly to my hub. They are staying connected using a user app.
You will probably need to have your zigbee radio on 15, 20 or 25 for best results.

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These issues arise from Aqara devices not being either zigbee 3.0 or ZHA1.2 compliant.

It isn't possible to do this. You have at least 3 choices:

  1. Make sure that ALL zigbee routers in your Hubitat zigbee mesh are Aqara compliant.
  2. Get an older Mijia bridge; pair the sensors to this bridge and then integrate it with Hubitat with a MiConnector setup.
  3. Setup a secondary zigbee mesh using a different coordinator (eg. HASS or zigbee2mqtt) and then import the sensors to Hubitat as virtual devices from that coordinator.
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Speaking only from my own experience. They are still unreliable. I thought I was lucky. Then after 1 year one of the sensors fell off. It is just unpredictable when it will happen...

Edit: Should maybe mention that my experience is with the temp/humidity sensor only

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I bought some aqara (and other) devices before I knew about the problem. And I hate to throw away stuff (or relegate it to a draw/box of shame) so I make every effort to find a solution.

I run hubitat and zigbee2mqtt and a zigbee2tasmota bridge (for crappy repeating bulbs only).

Aqara devices with zigbee2mqtt and proper repeaters is absolutely rock solid. I then use Node-Red & Maker API to communicate with Hubitat.

Zigbee2mqtt supports virtually everything zigbee.

I am at the other side of this. My Aqara devices have been rock solid since I installed them. Yes pairing can be a pain but you only do that once (or maybe twice or three times.....). Until recently I didn't need a repeater in my setup but I recently introduced one using the Silvercrest Smart Plug. Everything is still working fine!

I have had quite a few for many years. Battled them on ST for a long time and then on HE after the migration 12 months ago. Used Tradfri repeaters for a bit but a few would drop still. I read the IKEA radios are really low power so I swapped out to 3 Tuya 3.0 repeaters (thread here) and not a word since. I thought I did have a fail once but it turned out those darn batteries that last forever do die. :wink:

Had 4 of the Aqara motion sensors. They kept dropping off, but re-included easily. After several times of a light not turning on, and having to turn it on manually, they were removed and replaced with Zooz 4-in-1 sensors. Was able to return 3 of the Aqara sensors before the return window expired, but the first was purchased a month before the last 3. Unless you get the Aqara hub and pair it to HE, you will have unnecessary aggravation.

My opinion is that they are OK (not terrific though) with Hubitat, as long as you have the right type of repeaters and not too many of the Aqara devices. With just a few Aqara, I don't see any problems. In my case the Aqara seem to like the Gledopto LED controllers and similar cheap devices as repeaters.

Maybe more importantly, don't have ordinary Zigbee bulbs with Aqara, that seems to be the worst combination. I think you also might get away with a separate hub (Hubitat or other) and only have these Aqara devices and dedicated repeaters and nothing else.

That said, I wouldn't purposely seek out Aqara devices. I have them, and I am happy with the ones I do have, but I don't want to wreck the mesh with more of them. Too bad as they are small, they react fast to events, the batteries last forever (except the magic cube) and they are very inexpensive.

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I've got quite a few Aqara devices (motion, humidity, door/window, 1/4/6 way buttons) which have been pretty much rock solid. My repeaters are all Ikea Tradfri smart plugs, plus a couple of Samotech light switch modules. There are no bulbs on the Hubitat - they're all segregated on to a linked Hue bridge.

Personally I like the Aqara devices. As neonturbo said, they're cheap, react really fast and batteries seem to last forever.

I did a lot of reading on here before I bought anything and owe a huge debt of gratitude to all the insanely helpful (and sometimes just plainly insane!! :slight_smile: ) folks on this forum. I deliberately built my Zigbee mesh with a backbone of Tradfri repeaters knowing that Aqara/Tradfri play nicely together.

It's probably sod's law that now I've posted how reliable they are they'll all instantly die!! :rofl:

I gave up on the aqara stuff. I switched to sonoff and they've been very stable

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I have 2 temp sensors which are very stable and a button but my motion sensors would keep dropping this is even after using IKEA plugs for repeaters. I switched to sonoff motion sensors

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Mine are all incredible, never have problems, I have ikea repeaters only since I have ikea blinds anyway. I have Aqara temp/humidity, Motion, contact and a cube. All are more reliable than the few sonoff and linkind contact and motion that I have.

Aqara devices use a non-standard version of Zigbee. Thus, they are not fully compatible with other Zigbee devices. The can be used with Hubitat as long as ALL repeating capable devices in your Zigbee mesh are compatible with Aqura. When I first tried adding a couple of Aqua devices to my mesh, some would not pair at all and other would pair, but then drop off soon thereafter.

I resolved my issue with Aqara by replacing my older Smartthings and Centralite HA 1.2 outlet plugs that were serving as repeaters. I replaced them with eWeLink technology Zigbee 3.0 outlets from LUNTAK, but there are other similar devices. Having to do this negated any savings I might have realized by purchasing the Aqara devices, plus I lost the energy reporting capability of my older outlets. Bummer!

Although my Aqara devices do work with Hubitat, I have no plans to purchase additional devices. If I purchase new Zigbee devices, I want them to be Zigbee 3.0 compliant.

Do you use the aqara hub? I cannot even get my aqara vibration sensor to pair, hubitat sees it but never initializes

Zigbee - Aqara Vibration Sensor driver works OK for me.

gikjll,
No, they're paired with Hubitat; although I don't have a vibration sensor.
The movement sensors, window/door sensors & 1-way buttons use a driver called "Xiaomi Aqara Mijia Sensors and Switches" by waytotheweb.
The humidity sensor uses "Xiaomi Aqara Temperature and Humidity Sensor WSDCGQ11LM" by BirdsLikeWires.
The 4 & 6 way buttons (Opple) use "Zigbee - Xiaomi/Aqara/Opple Button/Switch/Remote" by oh-lalabs (Markus).

All the Aqara stuff paired quite easily. The Aqara Opple multi-way buttons were an absolute pig but do pair properly after several tries.

Finally got it paired, it even added it twice. Deleted one, it seems to be working

In my experience, it doesn't have to be ALL. It just has to be the routers closest to the Aqara sensors.

I have 5 Iris and 1 SmartThings plugs as repeaters, and these are definitely not Aqara/Xiaomi compliant. But I also have 4 Ikea (*) plugs as repeaters, and these make the Aqara/Xiaomi stuff happy. When I pulled the last of the plugs off SmartThings last month (I no longer have Zigbee devices there), I put one of the Iris plugs near where I have a Temp/Humidity sensors. A few days later the sensor fell off the mesh - but by then I'd forgotten that I put the plug there. I spent a week trying to understand why it wouldn't stay connected to the mesh until I rememebered the plug was there. I swapped it out for an Ikea plug and for the last 2 weeks the sensor hasn't had an issue.

(*) I have 5 Ikea plugs, but one of them seems to be misbehaving and falling off the mesh itself. I've tossed it in the electronics-to-be-recycled bin.

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