{"id":2342,"date":"2022-01-19T07:03:15","date_gmt":"2022-01-19T13:03:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/promincproductions.com\/blog\/?p=2342"},"modified":"2023-03-02T21:13:07","modified_gmt":"2023-03-03T03:13:07","slug":"using-aqara-contact-sensors-in-home-assistant-without-a-hub","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/promincproductions.com\/blog\/using-aqara-contact-sensors-in-home-assistant-without-a-hub\/","title":{"rendered":"Aqara Contact Sensors in Home Assistant without a Hub"},"content":{"rendered":"

My journey into smart home setup started with being gifted a Wyze<\/a> camera many years ago. Wyze makes nice devices and this gift was when Wyze was in it’s infantancy<\/em>. But as they grew as a company, they have been moving more into an “ecosystem” with (forced) subscription options. And my mindset has moved more into keeping my data in house as much as possible. So as I’ve leaned more on Home Assistant and keeping my data at home, the more the Wzye devices don’t fit into my long term goals. Additionally the Wyze equipment doesn’t play very nice with Home Assistant. There is an unofficial integration<\/a> that offers limited functionality at the time of witting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a very annoying flaw<\/em> with the Wyze Sense V1<\/em> (no longer offered, not sure if this affects V2 or not). If the battery dies, the entire device dies. Replacing the battery doesn\u2019t revive the sensor. I know this from first hand experience. [source<\/a>] To make matters worse, they now only offer Wyze Sense V2<\/em> which requires a home monitoring subscription. And with that – I’m out! This is just another strike<\/em> against Wyze. Sad as I really liked their products at first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This lead me on a venture to look for new options. I’ve analyzed many many options out there, done (far too much) research, and found Aqara<\/a>. This company feels like what I was hoping Wyze was going to be – cost friendly smart devices that aren’t part of a closed ecosystem and\/or subscription based. Aqara has a large offering of products which is great! So the next step is to give Aqara a test. This might be confusing as their products all say Hub Required<\/em>, but read on as that’s not true.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Aqara<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Why I Chose Aqara<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Why Aqara? First off, their name comes up over an over in the Home Assistant forums. Aqara seems to be well liked by the community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aqara uses the open Zigbee protocol<\/a> which is an open standard that other manufacturers use as well. This means that despite them saying you need to use their<\/em> hub, you can connect their devices to Home Assistant so long as you have a Zigbee antenna setup. If this is something you need to do, you can follow my tutorial on adding Zigbee to Home Assistant on a QNAP NAS<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Price was certainly a factor for Aqara. They offer good technology at a fair price comparative to the market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The size of their devices is another factor. They are small enough to not stand out in my house. Some of the competitors have rather large devices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aqara Contact Sensor<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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This is the Aqara contact sensor I am using – it’s called the Aqara Door and Window Sensor<\/a> <\/strong>[model MCCGQ11LM<\/a>].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the United States they are sold via Amazon, and when I purchased them you could find a bundle if you need more than one. The bundles seemed cheaper at first, but there was an Amazon coupon I could apply and it’s actually cheaper buying them separately with the coupon than in the bundle. So do some math and see if you can save yourself a few bucks like I did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Aqara Door and Window Sensors on Amazon<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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\"Aqara<\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Adding Aqara Contact Sensor to Home Assistant without a Hub<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There are many Zigbee gateways on the market. Below are instructions or adding the Aqara contact sensor using two popular Zigbee coordinators and links to tutorials on how to add those integrations to Home Assistant on QNAP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n