Aqara G2H Pro: Local Camera Stream in Home Assistant (No Cloud, go2rtc + Frigate)
The Aqara G2H Pro is one of the few affordable indoor cameras that doubles as a Zigbee hub — and with the right setup, you can get a fully local camera stream into Home Assistant without routing a single frame through Aqara’s cloud. The trick is that the G2H Pro doesn’t speak raw RTSP by […]
Aqara Water Leak Sensor in Home Assistant via Zigbee2MQTT (No Hub)
Pair the Aqara SJCGQ11LM or SJCGQ12LM to Home Assistant locally via Zigbee2MQTT — no hub, no cloud. Full setup, automations, and placement guide.
Aqara Cube T1 Pro: Home Assistant Automations via Zigbee2MQTT (Full Guide)
Aqara Cube T1 Pro: Home Assistant Automations via Zigbee2MQTT The Aqara Cube T1 Pro is one of the most action-dense physical controllers you can put on a coffee table. One device, one hand, and you get 58+ distinct gestures — shake, flip, rotate, tap, hold — each mappable to a different Home Assistant action. That’s […]
Aqara Door Sensor in Home Assistant via Zigbee2MQTT (No Hub)
Aqara Door Sensor in Home Assistant via Zigbee2MQTT (No Hub) Aqara door and window sensors are some of the best bang-for-buck contact sensors in the Zigbee ecosystem — small, reliable, and cheap enough to put on every door and window without breaking anything. But Aqara pushes you toward their hub or the Mi Home cloud. […]
Aqara Hub M3 as a Matter Bridge for Home Assistant: True Local Setup Guide
The Aqara Hub M3 is sold as a local-first, edge-computing hub. The marketing is not entirely wrong — but it’s not entirely right either. “Edge mode” means something specific on the M3, and it doesn’t automatically mean your Home Assistant integration skips the cloud. If you set this up without understanding the distinction, you’ll end […]
Valetudo on Xiaomi Vacuum: Cloud-Free Local Control with Home Assistant
Your robot vacuum cleans your floors, but by default it also reports home — to servers you don’t control, in a jurisdiction you may not be comfortable with. Xiaomi and Roborock vacuums running stock firmware maintain persistent cloud connections. Map data, room layouts, cleaning schedules, usage telemetry, and even audio commands pass through cloud infrastructure […]
Aqara P1 Motion Sensor + Home Assistant: Full Local Setup via Zigbee2MQTT
The Aqara P1 (RTCGQ14LM) looks identical to older Aqara motion sensors, but under the hood it’s a different beast. Its predecessor, the RTCGQ11LM, hardcodes a 60-second re-trigger lockout — move in front of it at second 61 and your lights work fine; sit still at second 58 and they cut out. The P1 ships with […]
Does Aqara Collect Data in Local Mode? The 2026 Privacy Policy Explained
Aqara’s March 2026 privacy policy update explicitly addresses local mode data collection. Here’s what it says, what it doesn’t cover, and how to verify it.
Aqara Hub M2 vs M3: Which One Actually Works Locally Without Cloud?
The M3 is Aqara’s first hub with a real local automation engine. The M2 came before it and still gets sold beside it, often at half the price. If you’re weighing the Aqara M2 vs M3 for a privacy-focused setup, the spec sheet comparison misses the point. The question is: what actually breaks when the […]
Aqara E1 Hub with Home Assistant: Complete Local Setup (No Cloud Required)
The Aqara E1 hub costs less than a nice dinner and gets every Aqara Zigbee device you own into Home Assistant with full local control. No cloud polling. No subscription. The catch: the setup path is counterintuitive enough that most guides either skip over the hard parts or get them wrong. This guide documents the […]