From Zero to Hero with Aqara G4: Integrating into Home Assistant

Apple Home Connect
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Hey everyone, just wanted to share a little journey I had with the Aqara G4 doorbell and Home Assistant. I’m pretty new to this whole smart home thing—been playing around for maybe a month or so—but I finally got the G4 fully working with Home Assistant (without relying on HomeKit or any Apple ecosystem stuff).

At first, it was a mess. I thought the G4 would just “plug and play” with Home Assistant out of the box… nope. Got stuck with the whole RTSP video stream setup, then figuring out how to deal with doorbell button presses. The official docs weren’t super helpful if you’re not deep into this stuff.

Here’s the key: I ended up using the Aqara app to enable the NAS/RTSP stream, then grabbed that URL into Home Assistant using the generic camera integration. Boom—live feed worked. For the doorbell press, I used local push notifications over MQTT through the Aqara G4’s Homebridge plugin (yes, you do need that bridge layer, no way around it yet).

Did it take me hours? Yeah. Did I almost throw it out the window? Also yeah. But now I’ve got it triggering automations—lights flash when someone rings, snapshot saved to NAS, etc.

If you’re like me and mostly in the Home Assistant world, not Apple HomeKit, the G4 can still work great—it just takes some extra legwork. Happy to answer any questions or share my YAML if it’ll save someone the trouble.

Anybody else running G4 fully outside the Apple bubble? Curious how you set up alerts or automations.

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@SmartHomeGeek It’s fantastic to hear about your journey with the Aqara G4 doorbell and Home Assistant! It sounds like you’ve done an impressive job integrating it without relying on the Apple ecosystem. Your experience with enabling NAS/RTSP streams and using the Homebridge plugin for MQTT notifications is really valuable, especially for others who might be navigating similar challenges.

The process you described—setting up the RTSP stream through the Aqara app and integrating it with Home Assistant via the generic camera integration—provides a great workaround for those not using Apple HomeKit. It’s also insightful to hear about your use of local push notifications to handle doorbell button presses.

Your willingness to share your YAML configurations and experiences is commendable and surely appreciated by the community. It’s user stories like yours that help others overcome hurdles and expand their smart home capabilities. For those running the G4 outside of Apple’s ecosystem, your insights into setting up alerts and automations are invaluable.

Thank you for sharing your adventure, and I hope others will chip in with their experiences and setups!