Hey everyone, just wanted to share a little win from this past weekend — finally got my Aqara devices running smoothly with Home Assistant and figured others might be going through the same rollercoaster, so here’s what worked for me.
First off, I’m no expert, just a smart home enthusiast trying to make stuff actually work without spending hours watching YouTube tutorials. I’ve got a mix of Aqara door sensors, motion detectors, and a bunch of automations going through Home Assistant. When I first tried linking them up, it was… chaotic. Devices dropping, automations ghosting me, all the drama.
The key (at least for me) was ditching the Aqara app once the initial pairing was done. I used the Zigbee2MQTT route with a SkyConnect dongle, and from there, once the devices popped up in Home Assistant, everything became way more flexible. The native integrations kind of did the bare minimum, but through Zigbee2MQTT I could customize way more.
Also — this might sound obvious — but placing the coordinator centrally in the house made a big difference. I was blaming the Aqara sensors when it was really their location and zigbee mesh that was the issue.
Bonus tip: for any automations reacting too slowly (like motion sensors triggering lights), shortening the delay settings through YAML config helped tons. Default wait times were too chill for my taste.
Anyway, just wanted to drop this here in case someone else is stuck in the integration loop. Anyone else have tips or found a better setup flow?