Hey guys what’s the best place to purchase Aqara hub and sensors that isn’t going to try and triple the price. Also which hub is HomeKit compatible? Thx in advance.
AliExpress (online).
1 Like
Ok thx Angus
I used Ebay, They were cheap enough on there, and they came from China fairly quickly.
My personal preference is either Banggood or Gearbest. I've ordered Xiaomi stuff from eBay and it took forever and had no tracking of any kind. Kind of a pay and pray experience. Same experience with most AliExpress sellers. Plus I prefer the protection of PayPal purchases rather than handing my credit card info over to whomever at AliExpress.
Gearbest has the best deals on the Aqara hub right now. Honestly, the prices between the two fluctuate so much, I just check both and choose. You can also get a Mijia Multi-mode gateway for less. If you're just interested in getting sensors into HE via HomeKit, then you might try that one. I have the Aqara HomeKit Gateway, but just ordered a Mijia Multi-Mode HomeKit compatible gateway to try. It doesn't have the siren/doorbell/nightlight features of the Aqara Gateway, and it cannot use the Aqara app (has to be the Mi Home app), but it is Zigbee 3.0 and does have the bluetooth mesh capability, so that will be interesting for the future. It supports all the Mijia devices and all the Aqara sensors.
Only thing I'm not sure about on the Mijia Multi-mode gateway is, how many end devices can it support. Official docs and many listings say 32. But HomeKit news indicated that an update moved it up to 64. Not sure if that's correct for sure though.
2 Likes
Thx Smarthomeprimer, my daughter wants me to setup a system for her she likes what I have at home but she doesn’t want to do HE because of the no real app thing.
So she wants to go with something that can interface with HomeKit, her friend has the Aqara stuff and loves it she said she purchased from ebay but some of the prices she was giving I was like knaw too much from what I have been hearing on here so I think I’m going to go with your suggestion I’m kind a protective of my credit cards as well. Apparently some of my info is on the dark web so I’m limiting where I purchase.
1 Like
