Aqara has released several smart home hubs over the years, and they have been a critical part of how the company has integrated with HomeKit. The company recently released the new Aqara M3 Matter hub, focusing on privacy and local automation capabilities.
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“Aqara is committed to creating the ultimate smart home experience that continuously adapts to users’ evolving needs,” said Cathy You, Aqara Senior Vice President of Global Business and Strategy. “The Hub M3’s edge computing capabilities will provide users with an added layer of stability and safety, while its Matter compatibility will significantly enhance interoperability and choice for users.”
Originally announced at CES in January, the new M3 hub sets itself apart as an Edge Hub by offering data privacy through fully encrypted, local storage and enhanced local automation features. For existing Aqara customers using a Zigbee hub, adding a Hub M3 significantly enhances the stability of their smart home networks by facilitating more local communication between Aqara devices.
Once integrated into your home network, the M3 aims to outperform other Aqara Zigbee hubs and Wi-Fi devices by allowing automation to run locally on the Edge rather than through cloud services, which ensures functionality remains uninterrupted during internet or other SaaS outages. Additionally, the M3 hub enables certain Aqara Zigbee devices with Repeater capabilities to serve as a proxy hub and manage automations when the M3 is offline. Future Aqara Thread devices featuring Mesh Extender capabilities are anticipated to be compatible with device pairing through the M3.
The Aqara M3 aims to become your single-purpose hub supporting multiple protocols, including Thread, Zigbee, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and IR. It quickly connects and controls Aqara’s established line of Zigbee devices while functioning as a Matter bridge for HomeKit support. Including a 360° IR blaster in the new hub enhances control over IR-enabled devices by directly syncing their status with the Aqara Home app whenever an IR remote is used. Additionally, the M3 brings into the fold the newest Aqara Thread devices and selected Matter-compatible devices from other brands, integrating them into Aqara Home app.
From a networking point of view, the Aqara M3 includes dual-band Wi-Fi (2.4GHz/5GHz) with WPA3 security and a PoE-enabled port. My big pet peeve with smart home products is when they only support 2.4 GHz, so I love that it includes a 5 GHz radio. I have one of them on the way to put it through a deeper test for HomeKit functionality as well.
The new hub can be purchased from Amazon or other Aqara retailers.
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