Hey everyone, just wanted to share a bit of my own experience diving into the Aqara + Matter smart home rabbit hole. I’m a bit of a home automation newbie, but after weeks of playing around (and a few headaches), I finally got most of my stuff talking to each other—and I figured it might help someone out here.
So first off: YES, Aqara hubs (especially M2 and M1S Gen 2) do play nice with Matter, but only after you update the firmware. Sounds obvious, but I actually spent a whole day wondering why devices weren’t showing up in HomeKit or Google Home. Firmware update fixed pretty much everything.
Big lesson learned: not all Aqara devices connect directly to Matter. Most Zigbee sensors (like the door/window or temp sensors) need to go through the hub. But once they’re on the Aqara hub that supports Matter, you can expose them to other ecosystems through the hub’s Matter bridge. Worked great with my Echo!
Also, the process of adding devices to Matter can be a little unintuitive—make sure your hub is logged into Aqara Home and you’re on the same Wi-Fi when pairing Matter with your other apps. I had issues until I realized my phone had switched to 5GHz but the hub was stuck on 2.4GHz.
Anyway, if you’re trying to build a smart home that works across platforms—Aqara + Matter is actually a pretty solid setup once you get past the learning curve. Happy to answer questions or hear how you’ve got yours set up! Anyone else tried connecting to multiple platforms at once?
P.S. Don’t underestimate how satisfying it is when everything finally syncs up and your lights react faster than your brain. 
