Just for fun I bought an Aqara camera/hub and a little vibration sensor, and had many a minute of hilarity when the camera's siren goes off because the sensor detected someone had moved in a room the other end of the house from itself!!
Anyway, now I have these little chaps working together, what if any ways are there to make them interact with my Hubitat system?
I do it with a RPi running Home Assistant, and a HA <->HE bridge app.
The Aqara system is solid, if you don't mind sharing your info with China.
With the latest Aqara hub firmware, I think they made it harder to use the special LAN mode to bridge with.
I definitely got the impression it was trying harder than ever to remain exclusive, yes
I started on the Aqara system and soon got rid of the hub. I have connected the vibration sensor direct to HE and it runs fine, although other users have reported issues if you use some repeaters. Not sure if you can do the same with the camera.
Sadly I have tried Aqara sensors direct to HE before and they don't stay connected for me. And I've got the latest camera hub, and before I had time to read the caveats about not updating to the latest firmware, I'd updated to the latest firmware.
Pity it doesn't send alert emails - coulda used it like I use my reolink cameras to send mails to my NUC which are forwarded to HE endpoints
This for sure. Best way available, with tremendous additional capabilities beyond Aqara. If you get more into it, I’d highly recommend Zigbee 2MQTT with it, versus ZHA. There is an unbelievably huge number of supported Zigbee devices with a lot of control and options.
Not sure if the camera is supported, but there are some integrations that allow the Xiaomi hubs (especially the Mijia Multimode hub) to be used as the Zigbee controller. This of course is not necessary, as you can use a ConBee 2 controller as I do, or a TI Zigbee based controller, but it is an option available.
The only other way to use the camera hub would be HomeKit automations synced to virtual switches, but this is significantly more limited and difficult to maintain.
Yeah too late for the camera/hub I bought as I updated the firmware straight away not realising it would ruin everything. However it's a lovely little camera I might be able to use it standalone.
Well, this might work for you. I don't know much about it. There's another version that sounds like it uses the cloud.
This integration from AlexxIT was the one I was referring to in regard to the Mijia Mulitmode Gateway, but he is planning to support the camera. What I know from personally testing it with the Mijia Multimode Gateway, is that there is no problem if you have updated the firmware. He and contributors have developed really simple ways to re-flash custom firmware or even move forwards and backwards within the manufacturer's firmware without any issues.
This is a bit of a climb to get to this point, but really only in terms of familiarity. It's not really that difficult, but takes time to learn the differences. Installing HA and getting it running is easy. Installing Home Assistant Device Bridge for HE is easy. Getting HACS (Home Assistant Community Store) installed isn't hard, but definitely more confusing the first time you do it. Much easier than it used to be though, and lots of good guides out there that explain it step by step. You need HACS to get the Xiaomi Gateway 3 integration from AlexxIT.
It sounds like you're having fun trying out the more advanced integrations to HE, so if you've got time and patience, I'd encourage you or anyone interested to try it out.
Thanks. It looks like a looooong project. Maybe some time 
For sure is. I tend to take these on and learn most of it in a day or two. That's not me bragging that I'm smart. Quite the opposite. I'll burn the midnight oil trying to get a full understanding with an exhausted brain. Not a smart move at all. Much of what I boast as being simple, I took forever to even try in the first place. It was @aaiyar subtly suggesting I try Zigbee2MQTT for at least a year or more before I finally did, but it was a really good suggestion. Love it.
For things that aren't critical by any definition, like control a robot vacuum, I'm fine with cloud integrations.
I decided I liked the sensor so much that I have now paired it with Hubitat hub and it's stayed on a few hours reporting battery once per hour. However it's nearer the hub than it is to any other repeater, so I'd not expect similar luck with any placed further away. Tempted to buy a second hub to make an Aqara-friendly network.
If you move the vibration sensor in another room, pair it again to HE hub. You may need to do this more than once me time, until it works. You can check the Zigbee routing table to verify if the sensor now goes through a nearby repeating device.
I have a half dozen of XiaomiAqara sensors that were felling off the network in the beginning, but after I re-paired them in place a few times (simply because they are glued at their final positions), now I can’t recall any problems with them in the last 2 years.
Where do I find the zigbee routing table? I can only see one for zwave. But anyway I do know for certain that some rooms will have the aqaras hopping through other devices as I tried those places before unsuccessfully with aqara temperature sensors
You can see part of the Zigbee devices here
http://he_hub_internal_ip_address/hub/zigbee/getChildAndRouteInfo
Not all Zigbee devices are shown here because of some restrictions on the number of table entries.
Oh no 
I have tons of things all trying to go through one of my dodgiest plugs, some Ajaxonline thing. Actually maybe it's dodgy cos it's busy trying to pass on everyone else's messages. Or perhaps the Aqara made it dodgy.... it was ok before
Sometimes it is better to see and know less... fewer things to worry about!
Download the Hubitat app
