I have an Aqara Cube T1 Pro connected to an M100 hub. The hub acting as a Matter bridge to Home Assistant.
Here is the problem while the Cube is set to “Action Mode” in the Aquara app, the only thing I see exposed to Home Assistant are six buttons. They seem to (after a long lag) receive events on the buttons as I set different sides up.
Two problems: (1) No events like shake. push, flip, or hold seem to be exposed, and (2) performance is poor.
Question: Should I try Zigbee2mqtt and not bother with the M100 hub? My desired use is to control some Philips Hue lights where the side up sets a scene, and rotate or push acts as a dimmer.
To answer. my own question, zigbee2mqtt does allow you to capture more actions, but the Cube drops data an lags horribly and then goes to sleep and does nothing at all and then takes minutes to wake. It fails to detect a change of which side is up about 1 in three times.
It’s to bad the cube seems like such a good idea, just very poor execution. I will try another couple days then I will return it to Amazon.
Interesting. I’m in the process of making an HA/Z2M events based blueprint for the Cube Pro and noticed the Cube was rather laggy. But you’ve observed it as far more responsive when paired to an Aqara hub? I wonder if there’s something going on between the two that the Z2M converter doesn’t take into account?
Don’t waste your time with this Cube. Even if you stay 100% in the Aqara ecosystem, it is laggy when working, then it goes to sleep after only a few minutes of non-use, and you need to twiddle with it for possibly over a minute until it wakes. Even then, it drops data. And all this is just using the Aqara app on iPhone, the Cube, and the M100 hub, all on the same desktop.
The thing is a great idea but very poorly executed. The worst thing is the lack of feedback when trying to wake it. You can place different sides up, shake it and get no events. You don’t know if you need to keep trying to wake it or if it is awake but dropping data. Then finally it works and notices 8 in 10 events.
I’ve found it okay at responding when viewing the actions through the Z2M interface, even the rotation angle is reasonably responsive, but the extra latency introduced translating that angle through Home Assistant and into a light dimming action is where it gets laggy.
What about the cube going to sleep? Does it wake quickly enough that you can use it as a light dimmer? For me, I had to play with the cube for quite a while before it became responsive. SO if I were to dim the lights and then later want to re-adjust the lights, “later” would be hard becuse I would need to move the cube some unpredictable number of times until it woke
I haven’t actual found that to be an issue. A rotate or a flip registers pretty instantaneously after the Cube has been left alone for hours. There’s a delay of about 500ms - 1 second.