I just received my first packages of the new year, a duff screen protector from AliExpress, some USB shelf-lamps from the same (more on that later) meanwhile from Aqara, my eagerly-awaited Aqara G4 Smart video doorbell and their FP2 Presense sensor products.
The G4 Video Doorbell
After recovering from the shock of reading the headline box instructions which suggested to me that the G4 video doorbell was an APPLE Homekit-only product (I don’t do Apple) I rushed off an email to Aqara to say a terrible mistake had been made.
Minutes later I got a reply to say that this was not the case and that it WOULD work on Android. Hurray.
Was I mis-reading the box which seems to focus on Homekit (Apple) – ok it mentions Google Home but the Google Home App doesn’t support video streaming yet. The Aqara Home App does, thankfully.
I opened the well packaged product which consists of a video doorbell, a USB-powered repeater and an (optional use) 30 degree back panel add-on for the doobell (see photo) – could be handy if you’re limited for space and need to point the fixed camera at the postman 🙂 The camera/pushbutton section can be powered by six supplied AA Alkaline batteries or low voltage, I went for the batteries.
Claimed battery life is 4 months – I think I may supply my own high quality branded batteries for that as this doorbell could be used in an unattended location for a few months. I’ll update this blog later in the year to report on how that goes. The alternative is 12-24vAC or 8-24vDC on 2 terminals on the pack of the door unit. UPDATE MAY 2024: In February 2024 I installed the doorbell in the UK and left it there… returning to Spain on Feb 5. I used decent alkalines but not Duracell. Every couple of days I take a look at the doorbell to check on the weather and history of traffic going past the house and it is now May 13 – batteries are around 70% capacity. I throughly expect they’ll still be going in July when I visit the UK again. Not bad.
The instructions suggest connecting the repeater unit to the Aqara Home APP first.. this needs an Aqara Hub (I tend to use Aqara sensors on Zigbee2MQTT but this is WiFi, not Zigbee and I have both the Aqara Hub M2 (simple round box) and the Aqara Camera Hub M3 – I plugged the latter in and the APP picked up on it immediately. See later however, it seems the hub is not essential.
Good start, my camera hub works – next ( all stop for a few minutes – the Camera Hub M3 wanted to do a firmware upgrade – always a good idea if testing something new). The auto-tracking camera Hub M3 updated and started tracking me on the App video window perfectly Next, batteries into the doorbell.
I almost panicked as the manual was utterly useless with no photos of how to get the back open – but then I noted that the APP was suggesting getting the online manual (preview or download) from Aqara’s site. I chose the latter and seconds later, I had a proper manual in English. Next – how to remove the back.
On the side of the doorbell unit is what looks like some kind of set-up button but in fact it turns out that it’s a lift-up water-resistant silicone cover with a screw underneath to remove the back for mounting!!
Good idea – weatherproof the fixing screw – my last UK Northeast video doorbell didn’t bother with that and suffered the consequences – right now back there in the UK (I’m in Spain) the weather is ATROCIOUS..
Aqara supply a suitable screwdriver with the product.
With the doorbell back off, I inserted the supplied 6 AA batteries.The doorbell button started flashing blue. I added the little USB-powered bell unit as an accessory, not to the HUB but to the home page. The device is called an 1EC0. I selected it and was told it supports only 2.4Ghz WiFi… pretty standard. The App went off searching – the internal bell unit told me the doorbell device was connected successfully “welcome aboard”.
By now it seemed (correctly) that I had a working Smart video doorbell, Easy. Next I could rename it – I left that for later. Done.
The doorbell entry appeared in the APP with a red dot next to it – this usually means another update. I was told that it was off to look for updates then saw “there are no devices to link. Only supports selected Aqara smart door locks” – So what was the point of offering an update then?
By now the new doorbell video camera was looking at me. Whee. The button was glowing red. I could not resist pressing it. Two nice doorbell rings on the separate, small internal bell unit. 1080p default (maximum resolution). I was told it would store internal videos for 7 days and offered the cloud upgrade plan after a trial. No, not interested so I went off to find a handy microSD card.
Interestingly the SD card fits into the internal unit, NOT the door push/camera module. I just happened to have a handy cheap 32GB microSD available.
Device settings – doorbell settings – SD card storage -I chose FORMAT. 5.6GB available – WRONG – I put the microSD into my PC and tried formatting it there. No. So I tried a good Sandisk 64GB microSD. 252MB – wrong – clearly doesn’t like pre-used cards – I’ve reported that back to Aqara. Then my PC started acting up – reboot – format SD card – looks fine – I’m not blaming the Aqara unit here – thank heavens for Windows Disk Management.
Card formatting on the PC – 59GB available. Correct. back to the original card which windows had now formatted to FAT32, popped it into the doorbell ringer unit – ready to go with nearly 32GB available… It seems I could have also saved videos to my NAS storage unit – but I wasn’t getting into that (update – the NAS storage is a future update). I’m happy with videos stored on SD – especially INSIDE the house. I can easily hide the ringer unit (my last doorbell had/has the SD in the outside doorbell – not a good idea).
I was ready to test the doorbell press to see what ended up being stored if anything. I moved out of the room for a couple of minutes after pressing the doorbell. I took my phone with me and sure enough – a video of me pressing the doorbell – stored in the bell unit.
I touched the download button and seconds later the video was in my gallery ready to WhatsApp it to the police (erm, my interested pal in practice). The red light around the button stayed on for a short while then turned off to conserve the batteries.
Reading the spec, I’ve copied Aqara’s web material in here (image above) – I note also that Matter compatibility is planned as soon as it’s available. I believe them. So there it is – working on any old crappy 32GB microSD I picked up from AliExpress – though I should really recommend using Samsung or Sandisk.
Ah, you can turn the fisheye off – good – my Reolink camera won’t let you do that. There’s a privacy occlusion area, custom ringtones – this is going to take a while to thoroughly investigate. And I finally got to the firmware version update for the actual doorbell. I think a little work is needed here given the earlier-mentioned message. Once I’d updated, I noted another upgrade option to an even later version (all within a matter if minutes – maybe Aqara could consider automating the chain of updates?) Finally – all updates done. This time around the quality defaulted to AUTO – i.e. lower quality – I pushed it back up to 1080p.
I’m still working on extending the 6 seconds default SD recording time after a button push.
I’ll try my Alexa Show soon – meanwhile, here’s a thing – I’m sure I must’ve read the instructions wrong as Aqara assure me a hub isn’t necessary – and sure enough I disconnected their G3 camera Hub and the doorbell works just fine both locally and remotely… just this minute I switched my phone to mobile signal only and I can still access the doorbell.
Finally the time watermark is turned off by default – quite the opposite to most security cameras/doorbells I’ve come across. Personally I like that.
One more thing: When viewing history on the phone – the timeline is VERY clear. I pulled up other companies about that, as some are difficult to see.
Jan 19, 2024: I just pulled in an authentic .MP3 doorbell from the web – works a TREAT and the battery level is still looking very good.
October 2024: Continued interest… I plan to take my Aqara Hub M3 with me to the UK for a planned trip in December at which point I’ll hook up the Hub M3 to use the doorbell as a child device – hopefully then I can (via the Homekit integration I think) finally bring the Aqara doorbell into Home Assistant. It looks likely this can be done – see this video from beardedTinker. I’ll also be putting new batteries into the doorbell, because in mid-October the doorbell battery state is quite low (quality AA alkalines) and I don’t think it will last to the end of the year.
The Aqara FP2 Presense Sensor
I’ve seen plenty of presense sensors, mostly like this – USB-powered. The Aqara unit is markedly different to sensors I’ve seen up to now.
So – initial impressions – I like the look and feel of this device including the mounting. Solid. There’s a single yellow light at the top which flashes during setup and when movement is detected. Once inside the Aqara Home APP, this is what you see, wandering past the sensor…
Note – I have already come across the so-called “ghost occupancy” issue where I discovered 2 “people” showing on the screen when there was only me in the room – this is a work in progress.
June 30 – 2024: That ghost issue is still there – two of us in my office – in fact there is just me. It comes and goes but it’s still there at “important” firmware update 1.2.7 (this morning). I have for the first time played with the light sensor – a handy aside. 98 lux in my office apparently. Also still no easy way into Home Assistant – come on, Aqara!!
Here’s a short accompanying video – please remember to LIKE on YouTube if you find it helpful.
Some feedback from Aqara:
“It’s not rare that the FP2 seems a bit inaccurate when it is first installed, and it usually improves with the optimized floorplan and device setup.
You will need to configure the FP2 floorplan (or say the map) properly to reflect your home environment before putting it into use. Some basic steps:
1) Exclude all the areas that are not part of your room (or say outside the walls) using ‘Edge’ areas.
2) Set up different monitoring zones on the floorplan. Presence/absence of each zone can be used as an automation trigger. You can also add some stickers of furniture to make the floorplan more intuitive.
3) Mark ‘Interference sources’ (that are anything moves in the room that can be seen as a person by mistake, such as curtains, fans, plants) and ‘Entrance/Exit'”.
More as I find our more. I’m not buying the comment about other interference sources – I have not reflractive items in the room apart from my PC screens – yet I’m still getting the presense ghosting.
Note, the help above wasn’t translated, they respond in (good) English. It is worth noting however that seemingly the FP2 does not have an API so for us non-Apple (hence non-Homekit) users, there appears to be no way to integrate this otherwise great device into Home Assistant.