The Aqara M3 - how useful is it? Pretty Useful. Probably not in the way expected.

 

I seem to have buying a few Aqara devices recently. They are certainly prolific, and they seem to tick many boxes. However, Aqara early adopters have to put up with what I'd call beta firmware, even though it is official. It seems to take them a while to get the product sorted, whilst we all run as beta sites for them.

So, I hung off on the M3 for a while. Sure, it looked good on paper. All of those protocols, and a Matter controller and bridge to boot. What was not to like? Well:

1. Initially, as usual, the firmware wasn't up to its full potential. e.g., the Matter support was very limited. That has gone away, to an extent, but it seems it supports Matter V1.1, and V1.3 is the current release at time of writing, and it won't be too long until V1.4 is out.
2. Zigbee is actually just Aqara Zigbee devices. 

Still, there's a lot to like.

1. I've replaced my E1 and the migration was seamless.
2. It runs on PoE (Power over Ethernet) if you want it to.
3. It is a Matter and HomeKit bridge
1. if you go with HomeKit you can run the M3 as a security device
2. if you go with Matter you can run an A/C unit
4. It is a Matter Controller
5. It supports Matter over Thread
6. It enables you to remotely manage the U200 lock, if you have one (I do)
7. It has redundancy if you want it.

The killer app? It's That Security Device.

This is the reason I did the upgrade to the M3.

When I lived in California, I had a Honeywell Lyric Alarm System. It was monitored and it, mostly, integrated with Apple Home. I had no choice than to have it monitored, because that was the only way to get the integration with Apple Home and, I must admit, I found the monitoring to be next to useless or even worse, just annoying. I often already knew before the monitoring centre contacted me and they wouldn't call the Police, I had to do that. So, really, what was the point?

When I moved to the UK, there wasn't really an Apple Home security system where you could see all the devices passed through, such as the door and window sensors. What there was, also bound you to their ecosystem, and I didn't want that. It's just a damn contact sensor, why can't I use the sensors I have?

Aqara was just the same. You had to use their Zigbee based sensors.

Matter to the rescue.

Since the early days of Matter I realised that one of the beautiful things about it was not just the interoperability for me, but for even some vendors. If a security hub supported Matter and the sensors were Matter, then the hub could use sensors I already had.

Well, I had Eve Door & Window sensors and I had already changed them to use Matter rather than Apple Home protocols. I did that, because I was curious if it would work and it did.

But the M3 is a Matter Controller, so I could now pair those Eve Door and Window sensors in with the M3, and then present the M3 as a bridge to Apple Home, and then it would appear as a security device, couldn't I?

The Eve door and window in the Aqara app.

My Eve Door & Window is already in Apple Home, so I had to put it into pairing mode. Here I'm showing putting a door into Pairing Mode.

then I could add the contact sensor to the M3. Below, you can see it in the Aqara App.

Now, actually adding it is a completely different matter. This is quite possible the least intuitive method I have ever seen for adding a device, and I had to ask my friend Simon, at HomeKit News on how to do it. For the life of me, I couldn't work it out! I also couldn't find any documentation on how to do it.

How do you add a non-Aqara Matter device to an M3?

It starts off just fine, you press the + in the top right hand corner, and select "Add Accessory".

Then you go into the "Add Accessory" page, and now it get s confusing. Towards the bottom, there is a category of "Others". I thought it might be there..... but no. The link for "Can't find a device?" doesn't help as it is all about Aqara's Magic Pair capability, where it can find its own devices.

If you look in the top right hand corner, you can see something that looks like a burger. You press that! Obviously!

This now gets you into the scanner, which is for scanning the QR codes that Aqara devices have on them, and are specific to Aqara. You'd think it could do Matter QR codes, but it can't.

You now press "Enter Manually".

And it asks for a Pairing Code, but again it is Aqara's pairing code. Finally, you see "Matter Pairing Code >". You press that.

And, finally, This is where you enter the pairing code either of the Matter device provided with the device if it has not been already paired, or the pairing code provided by the other system, in my case Apple Home.

You are then taken through a set of steps to add it to your Aqara Home, very similar to adding it to Apple Home.

So which eco-system do you put your sensors in first.

It doesn't really matter. Each eco-system, or Fabric in Matter speak, is equal. The pairing code out of the box can only be used once. Then the first fabric then has to be used to put the device back into pairing mode and a new code is issued. The only issue comes if the first fabric breaks, then you can't put the device in pairing mode, and you'll have to reset and start again.

As I have multiple Apple Home hubs, and only a single M3, I'll use Apple as my primary fabric.

However, what I did find was that I could put my Eve devices from Apple Home into Aqara. I could not put my Aqara devices into Apple Home and then Aqara, they had to be Aqara first then Apple Home.

Setting up the Security System in the M3.

You can see that you have 4 different options:

• 24x7 Alert is on all the time, and would be for something like leak detectors or smoke detectors. Both of these already have alert capabilities in Apple Home, so it is a tad redundant. However, you may want to concentrate all your alerts in a single place. I can't as some of my water leak sensors are Eve Water Guard which does not, at time of writing, support Matter.
• Home Alert I personally find for the paranoid, or if you live in less safe countries like America. This would be where you have on most of your perimeter sensors except frequently used doors, and you wouldn't use your motion/presence sensors. If it is a hot day, you might want to open windows and so you would have to turn it off. It's that turning off of frequently used doors and needing to turn off windows that makes it next to useless as far as I'm concerned.
• Away Alert is the one I'm interested in. This is where you set all your perimeter sensors and motion/presence sensors to set off anything. You do have to make sure your pets don't set off sensors though.
• Night Alert, again, interesting. You'd probably set all perimeter sensors. Possibly motion/presence in certain parts of the house, depending on if people get up for a mid night snack or not. I'm interested for the garage. 

You can see that I've already started setting up the "Away Alert". It isn't complete as I writ this because I'm replacing my Windows, and I don't want to set up twice.

Still, you can get an idea from what I've already done.

You press where it says "Edit >". AT least that is obvious, but not standard. Why isn't there the cog that you normally get for settings or maybe a long press on the mode you want to set up. I really think Aqara needs to rethink their UI design because now all it does if give you a choice of which Alert mode you want to edit. An unnecessary step.

It then takes you to the setup page for the mode.

For a security system, Exit Delay and Entry Delay are usually to do with a keypad.... which Aqara does not have, so I see little use for the Entry delay option. Exit delay is a little different, but I see having a button just inside the door and the back door which you can press to arm the system when you go out. 

The "Trigger Devices" are what are interesting. These are the device that will set off an alarm depending on if a status is true. Doors and windows are fairly obvious, but you do get options of:

• Open
• Open for
• Closed
• Close for

So you can do it on time. For Away, though, it's obviously just open. What I'd like to see, though, is an ability to ignore windows that are already open when you set the alarm. You might have them slightly open to air the house so it isn't stuffy when you come home. That may sound counter intuitive, but you can often lock windows so they only have a small opening.

In the above screen shot, you can see 2 of my Aqara P2's and 2 of my Eve Door 7 Window sensors, which are showing as Matter Devices.

You can also see my U200 door lock. Here you have options of:

• Lock
• Unlock
• The Bolt is not Fully Extended.

You can see that I have chosen Unlock and the bolt not fully extended.

Scrolling down....

You get more options on what to do.

I have not set up any automations in the Aqara App, but I have got the Siren going off on the M3 for 10 minutes. I'll have Apple Home notify me.

The Security system in Apple Home.

I have it as the first item on my Favourites, you can see it marked as "System". When you open it, you get the four different modes.

Automation.

I have 2 at the moment.

When the last person leaves home I've shown it here as a standalone automation, but the reality is it is part of a much larger automation that controls 22 accessories.

And similarly, when the 1st person arrives at home, except it disarms the system.

So what about that redundancy?

The M3 has the ability to build a mesh of Aqara hubs and, if you have 2 M3's, then you get built in redundancy. I haven't a 2nd M3 and can't see the point for me, yet. It is an interesting feature though.

Summary.

Sure, the M3 can be many things and it has improved. great deal since launch, especially with its support of Matter. However, it is stuck at V1.1 and there is no communication about it supporting a later version of the spec.

The Zigbee support is limited to Aqara Zigbee devices, so pretty much just like any other Aqara hub.

Yes, it gave me remote support for the U200 lock, but there's still an awful lot of things I have to go and hit the keypad for before it will let me make changes.

I see no point for the IR control. I'm guessing it is because so much of my home is connected either natively to Apple Home or via home bridge or, increasingly, Home Assistant, that I don't need that IR control at all.

So, that left me with the security system. For me, this is a whopper. Aqara have had this capability for a long time, but that ability to be a Matter Controller is what now sets the Aqara M3 apart as I can use the tech I've already invested in. That is a beautiful thing.