Disappointed with Aqara - Zigbee hub, but no 3rd party?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but...
Buyer Beware! Aqara hubs use the Zigbee protocol, but lock out 3rd party devices!
A few months ago, I bought an Aqara hub and went deep into their ecosystem. I saw their hub and sensors had good reviews, plus they were using the Zigbee open protocol, so I figured I'd stick with their stuff. I had no reason to try other devices until recently.
I picked up a tilt sensor for my garage door from a 3rd party. I made sure it was also using the Zigbee protocol, so I assumed it would be compatable. Unfortunately, when I tried connecting it to the hub, I was wrong and it wouldn't connect. Turns out, Aqara uses the Zigbee protocol, but locks out 3rd party devices. [source]
If anyone has a workaround to integrate a 3rd party device with an Aqara Hub (IIRC, I have the M3?), I'd love to hear about it. But until then - I'm looking for a refund. I would have never picked up their hub if I had known about their shennanigans; and consequently, I wouldn't have picked up so many of their sensors.
I just found this out too after buying a ton of them. I am looking at picking up a USB hub for zigbee and setting it up on an extra computer if I need other devices but I need to do more research. Replying so I can follow your updates!
do you know if they work the other way around, i.e. can connect Aqara devices to a generic Zigbee Hub/Coordinator? I have a SLZB and wanted to look into an Aqara Sensor.
If you are getting a dedicated Zigbee controller maybe you could switch all Aqara devices to it.
Pretty much every ZigBee hub will lock out third party devices, because due to how ZigBee works, either you need to provide a raw API to endpoints (which can be dangerous for the average person), or carry the device definitions yourself (some of those are covered by the standard Zigbee endpoint assignments per spec, but not all manufacturers follow them, many extend them - looking at you, Philips - or completely ignore them).
Allowing third party devices is also a security and stability risk. A good example would be the handful of cheap Tuya presence sensors based on cheap 5/16/24GHz mmWave radar tech. They're really inexpensive, small, and work over ZigBee. Awesome, right? Well, no. They literally spam the network with unnecessary updates. A single one of those was responsible for ~30% of all messages on my ZigBee mesh of over 30 devices. It literally sent as many messages as ~14 other devices (many of them relays, this Tuya sensor is endpoint).
Now imagine if Aqara allowed their hubs to connect with any ZigBee device. Imagine if someone bought a dozen of these presence sensors and installed them... And the ZigBee network immediately became so overloaded that a simple light switch event takes minutes to trigger. People would be upset with Aqara, not the manufacturer of the sensor.
Simply said it's easier to exclude third parties for sake of user experience that can be guaranteed.
However that doesn't mean Aqara isn't shitty about ZigBee. Most of their non-hub devices for example simply refuse to join other ZigBee networks because they use a proprietary pairing method that first talks to the device, phone, and hub via Bluetooth, exchange pairing keys and only then will it allow pairing between device and hub. And of course the phone app won't let you add a third party hub to do this with, so any Aqara ZigBee device that uses this approach (e.g. their T2 bulbs) won't work with third party Zigbee hubs.
(Fortunately the T2 is a dual mode bulb that can use Matter over Thread which I opted for in my installs)
buy Ukrainian SMLight SLZB