Thank you very much for your quick response and useful information. I meant the Aqara door&window sensor and vibration sensor.

Hi, which Aqara sensors do you mean? The Aqara P1 Sensor contact and motion sensors aren’t compatible with Mi Home at all, so this means they won’t work with the Mi Smart Gateway 3 either. the E1 Aqara sensors will be compatible with Mi Home, and should also work with the Mi Gateway, although it’s almost guaranteed they won’t be exposed to HomeKit if that’s something you use.

Hi, the following devices will work with Mi Home – Aqara Hub M1, Aqara Hub M1S, Aqara Hub E1, Aqara P3, and Mi Smart Gateway. All other hubs will only work with the Aqara app and HomeKit etc.

Hei! Can you control those aqara devices with Xiaomi Home? I’m interested in buying some aqara devices too, but I don’t know if they can be controled with the Xiaomi Home app. I know for a fact that Google Home doesn’t control aqara devices (with some exceptions), so I decided to use the Xiaomi Home app instead.

Hi Richard, glad you found the article useful. Aqara smart plugs with the Type G (UK) pins don’t exist as far as I’m aware, even though Aqara sold the original Aqara hubs with a UK plug built-in. To extend the reach of your network, you’ve probably got three options, as well as a third option to use another hub like the E1, which is quite cheap. The first three options are to use either an Aqara smart bulb, an Aqara Smart Switch like the H1 (it has to be the version that uses neutral for use as an extender), or lastly, the Aqara relay T1, which also needs to be the one with neutral (even though there’s a no-neutral version). The E1 hub is probably your simplest solution, and although it doesn’t extend your network, you just need to connect the furthest sensors to that hub, and you can still use them together with other devices in the same account in the Aqara app or HomeKit.

Hi – great article. I have the Aqara hub M1S and need to extend the range to reach sensors that are further away. I can’t find UK type Aqara smart plugs online, do they exist? If not, what other UK-compatible device could I use? I’m in Dubai, UAE.

Hi Alex
It depends on the size of your home and whether it covers more than one floor, but I think if you can have the M2 as central as possible to cover as many devices as it can reach, that will then allow the G2H to be placed wherever you think it’s most suitable when used as a camera, but placing them far apart to cover as much space as possible is good generally.

As regards the alarm, even if you use HomeKit, all devices that have an alarm system (Abode for example) can only use and be triggered by their own sensors. In the case of Aqara, all hubs connected to the same Aqara account on the same server will be triggered if they have all four alarm modes available. You can’t control which alarms are triggered, although you can set the alarm volume to zero on certain alarms if you don’t want to hear them. You can choose which sensors will trigger particular modes though, so for example, when you set the alarm to ‘Away’ you can set all sensors to act as alarm triggers (motion, contact, vibration etc.) whereas, if you set the alarm to sleep/night, you can just set the sensors that are used on the entrance and windows of your home, so any person within the home won’t trigger the alarm when a motion is detected, but if someone opens a window or door that leads outside, then you can use them as triggers.

As the M2 connects to its child devices via Zigbee, whether the M2 is connected via ethernet or wifi should make no difference to the speed at which devices connect and trigger the M2. The only difference is that you tend to have a more stable connection, with less potential interference on the 2.4GHz wireless band, as it’s not being used. It also means one less device using up WiFi resources.

Should I put them as far away from each other meaning that I can blanket more of my home with Zigbee?
How does the alarm system work?
Would all sensors trigger the alarm, or only those that are linked to the M2 Hub?
Can I arm and unarm the alarm within the Home app or does it have to be done on the Aqara app>?

Finally if the M2 is connected via Ethernet, does it really make that much of a difference vs wifi, as it is only sensors?
Thank you once more!

Hi, glad you found the article of some use. regarding extending the range of the Zigbee signal of your hub, using the EU type plug may work, but it does also depend on the hub you’re using and which app (Mi Home or Aqara Home). If you’re using the original Aqara hub (M1), then in either app, you should be able to add the plug, even though it won’t be listed (assuming your hub is connected to the Mainland China server in either app). You have two options – select the Chinese variant of the plug when deciding to add the device, and just proceed with adding the plug, as though it were the Chinese version. It should just add it anyway, but I can’t guarantee it will, even though this method generally works with sensors. The other option is to add the plug manually – press the button on your hub three times, to get it into pairing mode, then long-press the button on the plug, until a Blue LED flashes a few times. You should then hear the voice prompt on the hub state that it has been added successfully. Note that both methods may be less successful with the newer hubs that use Zigbee 3.0.