I've read that you can pair an Aqara M3 hub with Hubitat using the Matter bridge. Can someone tell me what advantages would be gained by pairing an M3 hub to Hubitat? Would devices pair using their native drivers instead of Generic Zigbee drivers?
I like he Aqara product offerings and may get more at some point.
-Thanks
To use Zigbee drivers you must pair your Aqara devices and you can't use them with other platforms, unless you share them from Hubitat via third party integrations such as HomeKit, Alexa, Google, etc.
When connecting the Aqara M3 bridge to Hubitat, you make Zigbee and Thread devices connected to the Aqara bridge available to Hubitat as well as other Matter controllers without the need to use additional integration apps. When M3 is connected, devices use Matter drivers.
Personally I have a number of devices paired to "other" local hubs, including Philips Hue lights and accessories (paired to my Hue Bridge), shade motors paired to a Bond bridge, EcoWitt weather sensors, devices paired to a local Zigbee2Mqtt setup, amongst other examples.
All of these provide me with some key things I find useful in my setup:
C'mon, it's late.... for me...
The point is that while pairing directly to HE can add it's own benefits in terms of simplicity, other options (hubs in some cases) can provide some different benefits.
Not sure if that is what you were looking for.... but helped to service a periodic need I have to offer this kind of advice
Thank you, I'm still on the fence.
Would pairing an M3 with Hubitat provide more devices details in Hubitat itself, e.g., battery levels? For example now my Aqara T1 valve controller does not show the battery level.
I'm sure using the Aqara app on my phone I would get all of the device details via the M3.
-Thanks
Most people find that tracking battery levels in these kinds of devices is unreliable and essentially useless.
Which is why in several previous threads of yours, people have suggested alternatives like the Device Activity Check app.
That would be the most features you could get. I really like how they list even the type of battery you need in their app, for example. One advantage to use manufacturer specific app, is that usually, they offer details/features that they aren't sharing with others.
Yes!!
That is not to completely ignore @marktheknife 's valuable point(s)
Unless things have changed with the M3 you will not get battery percentages and those type items. The matter drivers at this point don't provide those. At least with my Aqara M2 hub.
As Bobby said the most information you will get is directly on the Aqara app.
If you really want battery statistics then you need to join the M3 hub into Home Assistant via matter and bring the battery entity back into Hubitat as a device using the Home Assistant Device Bridge App.
I actually do this just because I can but I will be the first to tell you it is not accurate or reliable due to the nature of battery reporting. It isn't an HA or an HE problem. I know fro experience as I recently had one where the battery showed 100 at its last check in. Dies shortly after and before the next check in, then continues to show 100 because that was the last reading.
Perhaps I will go against my own post now, but I would not put Battery detail so far up the list as to make a decision such as pairing based on it, over time if it is not likely to be the main feature of a device that will cause you the most benefit / grief
That seems like a tedious job just to get battery level, and shouldn't be necessary. We can certainly fix that. We are looking into the generic component devices to see why some are missing the battery level.
If I wasn't using Home Assistant for other things I would not invest the time strictly for a battery percentage. Lol
While you are looking into that the water leak sensors come over from the M2 via matter as contact sensors. Can you have that looked into as well?
I was using battery level as an example. The question was regarding seeing more device parameters, not just the battery level.
I only used battery level as an example because I don't know what other parameters are not visible in Hubitat. If you're not seeing more parameters to potentially act on in Hubitat, I don't see what the advantage of pairing the M3 with the Hubitat is. What are you gaining from a Hubitat perspective?
This post was flagged? Really?
many attributes that are available within a devices native integration be that homekit, Aqara ect are not sent over these hubs matter bridge integrations.
If there are specific attributes per a given device type that you would like us to look into then we would need more information to investigate the possibility of adding them.
The next beta release will include battery levels for the bridge integration (should they exist on the actual device) for the following device types:
"many attributes that are available within a devices native integration be that homekit, Aqara ect are not sent over these hubs matter bridge integrations."
Thank you, that's what I was looking for. So from a Hubitat perspective, I don't see the advantage of paring with the M3.
One possible advantage of pairing Aqara Zigbee devices to an Aqara Matter hub and then bringing them into Hubitat via the Matter Bridge is if you’re running into connectivity issues with some of the older battery-powered Aqara models. Some folks get stable connections, while others see periodic Zigbee dropouts.
These problems definitely aren’t on Hubitat’s side — the same disconnection issues are widely reported across other home automation systems (outside of Aqara).
So, if your Aqara devices paired directly to HE are working fine without periodic dropouts, there’s no need to change anything — just keep the system as it is.
Not the most elegant way, but the ̶n̶e̶x̶t̶ new update will allow you to select the Generic Component Water Sensor (comes with battery level fixes for all component drivers as well):
After updating to 131, go to the child device in question and manually change the driver from generic composite contact to generic composite water and you should be good to go.
There isn't a way to determine the actual device type within the bridge application.
Thank you. I am not concerned about elegant just that it works. I was never accused of being an elegant guy. 
I used them as contact sensors but this new update will clean that up. Just had to be aware of the attribute when I was setting up alerts and such. Thank you to anyone that helped get this cleaned up. Much appreciated.
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