I bought an Aqara Hub M2 and an Aqara Vibration Sensor about a year and a half ago.
I decided on the Aqara Hub M2 at the time because the Aqara Hub M3 was too expensive for me at the time, because I just didn’t have such a big smart home yet.
I chose Aqara devices because they support Apple Home, since my entire smart home was based on that at the time. In addition, Aqara devices are incredibly inexpensive compared to other brands. Today, most devices support Matter, which is why I can integrate them directly or via the Aqara Hub M3 in Home Assistant and Apple Home and will continue to buy and use them.
At that time it was so that someone liked to sneak up the stairs to my room. Most of the time it was too late to hear the person, especially if the door was closed or the HomePod was playing music.
So I looked for a solution that would warn me in time without anyone noticing.
An Aqara Vibration Sensor that senses the vibration of the stairs and sends a notification via Apple Home to my iPhone. Because the sensor is so small and compact, you can’t see it. The sensor works perfectly and has already helped me a lot to be informed in time.
The problem was that the Aqara vibration sensor was radioing via Zigbee and I didn’t have an Aqara Hub yet. So I bought the Aqara Hub M2 at the same time. I then put this on a cupboard in the dining room and disguised it as a “LED controller”. I have always said that it sends infarot signals to the lights behind the cabinet (which never lit up before because everyone was too lazy to look for the remote control) to turn the LEDs on and off. For this purpose, two scenes were created in the Aqara app and exported to Apple Home. Since then, the closet lights up almost every night 
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Once set up and it went perfectly. No questions, no trouble, no problems.
Half a year later I got a Matter socket as a gift (after most people knew that I love Smart Home). So I picked out a few old LED strips and glued them super professionally to the stairs or something like that.
Since then, the vibration sensor also provides light when climbing stairs when it is dark outside. Then my vibration sensor was discovered, of course, because they wanted to know where the light knows when it should shine.
On Black Friday 2025 I replaced the Aqara Hub M2 with the M3, due to the support of Matter and Thread.
And the Aqara Hub M2 has got a new location. Hidden with all the other cable clutter. There he now works as a communication bridge between Home Assistant and Aqara Home, so that I can also control my alarm system from there (thanks to @JohnD for the help and Iden).
That was my start in the Aqara Home System and I would say it was worth it. Since then, more and more Aqara devices have been added (cameras, doorbells, sensors,…)
That was my start in the Aqara Home System and I would say it was worth it. Since then, more and more Aqara devices have been added (cameras, doorbells, sensors,...)
Thanks to Aqara and the Community 
