I recently installed a wired Aqara G400 and am having a couple of issues with Apple Home/HomeKit and UniFi Protect. I’m trying to determine whether these are G400 firmware issues or compatibility issues with the other platforms.
Setup:
- Aqara G400 wired doorbell
- Currently connected over 5 GHz Wi-Fi
- Apple Home/HomeKit Secure Video
- UniFi Protect using the G400’s ONVIF/RTSP support
- UniFi Protect 7.2.105
- UniFi UNVR Instant
- RTSP enabled in the Aqara app
- G400 high-quality RTSP stream is /ch1
- Power supply is now 16VAC/30VA
Apple Home / HomeKit Secure Video
The G400 generally remains available for live viewing in Apple Home, but I am having significant problems with event detection, HKSV recordings, and notifications.
I am currently receiving no Apple Home notifications for activity at the doorbell, and events are being missed completely. For example, I had a delivery this morning where the delivery person approached the front door. The event was captured by another camera, but the G400 produced no Apple Home notification and no corresponding event recording.
This is particularly concerning because the G400 can still be viewed live in Apple Home, so the camera itself has not simply gone offline.
I have also previously experienced an occasion where the G400 became unavailable in Apple Home even though it remained accessible through the Aqara app and UniFi Protect. My active Apple TV Home Hub remained online. Apple Home eventually recovered on its own approximately 35–40 minutes later without rebooting the doorbell or Apple TV.
So there appear to be two different Apple Home issues:
- Intermittent loss of the G400 in Apple Home despite the camera remaining accessible elsewhere.
- More importantly, Apple Home is failing to detect, record, and notify me of activity even while live viewing of the G400 continues to work.
UniFi Protect / ONVIF
I also have the G400 adopted into UniFi Protect using its native ONVIF/RTSP support. I am running UniFi Protect 7.2.105 on a UNVR Instant.
Live video from the G400 generally works in Protect, but continuous recorded-video playback is unreliable.
If I scrub the Protect timeline to virtually any point, the recording immediately begins playing normally. After approximately 10–15 seconds, playback starts buffering and never resumes. I can scrub to another point in the timeline and it immediately plays another 10–15 seconds before buffering again.
Protect also repeatedly reports the G400 going offline and recovering. Large sections of the timeline show “Stream Recovery Successful.” I have even seen footage that was initially available for playback later become unavailable and appear as a Stream Recovery Successful section.
Importantly, Protect Live View can continue working normally while recorded playback is experiencing these problems.
I tested the G400’s high-quality RTSP stream (ch1) directly using VLC from a computer on the same VLAN as the G400, and the RTSP stream opened successfully. This suggests that the G400 is capable of supplying the RTSP stream independently of Protect.
Power and network troubleshooting
The G400 is currently connected over 5 GHz Wi-Fi @ -72dBm. I have also tested 2.4 GHz, where the G400 had approximately -59 dBm signal strength.
My original doorbell transformer was 16VAC/10VA which I replaced with a 16VAC/30VA transformer to eliminate inadequate power as a possible cause.
The Apple Home event/notification issues and UniFi Protect ONVIF/recording issues are what I am now trying to diagnose.
Questions for Aqara
- Is Aqara aware of G400 units remaining available for live viewing in Apple Home while HKSV motion/person detection, recordings, and notifications stop working?
- Is there a known G400/HomeKit issue where restarting the doorbell temporarily restores HKSV event detection?
- Has Aqara reproduced the G400’s ONVIF/RTSP stream with UniFi Protect 7.2.105?
- Are there known issues with the G400’s ONVIF implementation, RTSP timestamps, GOP/keyframe intervals, or stream profiles that could explain Protect playing approximately 10–15 seconds of recorded video and then buffering indefinitely?
- Has anyone successfully used the G400 with UniFi Protect for reliable continuous recording and playback, rather than just Live View?
- Are firmware updates planned to address either HomeKit/HKSV event reliability or ONVIF/RTSP NVR compatibility?
At this point, the G400’s live video works reasonably well, but I cannot currently rely on Apple Home to notify or record important events, and I cannot rely on UniFi Protect for continuous recorded-video playback.