Aqara’s smart home voice control system isn’t always listening

Aqara’s smart home voice control system isn’t always listening

The Voice Mate H1 is a small button-like microphone you lift to activate and then can issue smart home commands to. | Image: Aqara

Smart home company Aqara has announced the Voice Mate H1 — a home automation voice control system activated by picking up a small puck rather than its microphone always listening for its wake word. The company is also launching its first outdoor camera, the Camera Hub G5 Pro, which, like its other cameras, will work with Apple’s HomeKit Secure Video.

These products, along with a new garage door controller, smart valve shut-off device, and new smart switches (for Europe only), were announced at the IFA tech show this week. Aqara hasn’t provided pricing or availability yet.

While smart speakers and phones with built-in voice assistants are easy ways to control your smart home, by design, they are always listening for their wake word. Aqara’s new Voice Mate H1 only activates its microphones when you pick up the small puck-like device.

The Voice Mate is integrated with Aqara Co-Pilot, Aqara’s LLM-powered assistant, and the company says it can execute smart home scenes and adjust device settings using natural language commands. There are no speakers on board, so it doesn’t talk back. This is an interesting idea, and while it does sacrifice the hands-free nature of a voice assistant you’re gaining the feeling of more privacy.

It also requires Aqara’s Hub M3 to operate, and Aqara says all commands are cleared from the hub after completion. The Hub M3 is Aqara’s flagship hub for its smart home. It's a Matter bridge and Thread border router and can work with select Matter devices from other manufacturers. Aqara is further expanding the hub’s capabilities with a new Advanced Matter Bridging feature that will let you port the Aqara app’s powerful conditions and actions to other Matter apps.

According to Aqara, this means you can integrate advanced features such as auto cruise for its pan and tilt cameras into other Matter-compatible platforms, such as Apple Home or Google Home.

Image: Aqara

The Camera Hub G5 Pro is one of only a handful of outdoor cameras that work with HomeKit Secure Video. Others are offered by Logitech and Eve.

And speaking of cameras, the Camera Hub G5 Pro is the first outdoor Apple HomeKit Secure Video compatible camera I’ve seen that can work over PoE as well as Wi-Fi (2.4GHz/5GHz, with a USB-C power cable). The IP65-rated camera offers 1520p resolution (although it downgrades to 1080p if you use it through Apple Home), color night vision, a spotlight, a siren, and a 133-degree field of view.

Interestingly, you can still benefit from end-to-end encryption if you use it outside of HKSV (which allows you to store recorded video in your iCloud account). Aqara says the G5 Pro is its first camera capable of this secure form of communication. It has encrypted eMMC storage that can be synced to clouds (Aqara’s for a fee and iCloud) and to a local NAS system (for free). It doesn’t have onboard microSD card storage, but it can record to a network video recorder using RTSP (Aqara’s first camera capable of this).

The G5 Pro offers free on-device AI that can detect faces, vehicles, pets, packages, and motion and use them as triggers to start recording video.

Alongside Apple Home compatibility, the G5 works with Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and Samsung SmartThings. It’s also an Aqara Zigbee hub and a Matter bridge — making it one of the first outdoor smart home hubs I’ve seen.

Image: Aqara

The Aqara T2 Bulb is a smart bulb that can work with Thread or Zigbee.

Here’s a look at the other new products Aqara announced at IFA this week:

• The LED Bulb T2 is Aqara’s first line of smart bulbs that works over Thread and Zigbee. The T2 series includes E26/A19, E27, and GU10 bulbs with full color and tunable white options as well as white-only. It can work with an Aqara Zigbee hub or with Matter using a Thread border router.
• The Light Switch H2 series are Aqara’s newest in-wall smart switch for Europe. These are also Zigbee and Thread. Aqara appears to be hedging its bets here, offering users “the choice between the native Matter-over-Thread support and the wider, Zigbee-enabled feature set.” The implementation of Matter-over-Thread has been bumpy, so I can see why Aqara is taking this route, but it doesn’t help with the overall aim of simplifying the smart home. The good news is that you can switch between protocols and try each one out to see what works best in your home. The switches work with or without a neutral wire, which supports features such as power monitoring, overload protection, and a configurable LED indicator.

Image: Aqara

The H2 switches include up to four wireless switches that can control smart devices or scenes such as curtains or a security system, either through Aqara or a compatible third-party Matter platform.

• The Garage Door Controller T2 Kit is Aqara’s first smart garage door opener and the first to support Matter. It has wireless sensors and supports up to two garage doors. You can close and open them remotely in the Aqara app, or use geofencing to do this automatically based on location, plus there’s the option of app or voice control. The T2 works directly with Apple Home, Google Home, and other Matter-compatible platforms through an Aqara hub.

Image: Aqara

The automatic valve controller can be set to respond to automation, put on a schedule, controlled remotely by an app, or opened and closed physically.

• The Valve Controller T1 is an automatic shut-off valve that can work with water and gas pipes. It can be set to respond to any leak detected by a smart sensor by automatically shutting off a valve. The T1 is a retrofit device with no plumbing or wiring required (it uses 4 AA batteries Aqara says will last up to a year). It works over Zigbee and requires an Aqara hub, through which it works as a Matter device in supported Matter ecosystems such as Apple Home, Google Home, Home Assistant, and Samsung SmartThings.

All these new gadgets help round out the company’s offerings in the smart home, bringing it close to a complete ecosystem. Combined with its wide compatibility, innovative automation options, and increasing support for Matter, Aqara is making a very good case for itself as a major player in the smart home.