So I finally made the jump — moved my Aqara G4 Doorbell Cam over to Home Assistant. And honestly, it’s been smoother than I expected… after a few hiccups, obviously.
For context, I’m more of a smart home tinkerer than a pro. Not in the Apple ecosystem at all (in fact, the closest I’ve come to Apple is borrowing my girlfriend’s iPad once), so I needed this cam to work nicely with something more open — and HA was the obvious choice.
Here’s the quick version of how I got it done:
First off, make sure you’ve got the latest firmware on the G4. You’ll still need to use the Aqara app for some stuff initially. I set it up via the app on an Android phone and connected it to my 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi (never forget this part — the cam’s picky). Then got it linked to Home Assistant through the HomeKit Controller integration. Yup, even though I’m not using HomeKit, HA kind of tricks the cam into thinking it is.
The weird part? The pairing code lives in the Aqara app under device settings. Grab that, and boom — HA picks up the camera like magic. From there, I’ve got motion notifications, live feed, and snapshots all routing through my HA dashboard (using Lovelace and some YAML sprinkles).
A few quick tips:
- Make sure your Home Assistant is running on the same LAN, static IP helps
- Recordings will still depend on a local NVR or NAS — I hooked mine to frigate via RTSP
- If pairing fails, reset the G4 and curse slightly, then try again — it worked on the 3rd try for me
Anyone else running the G4 in HA without going full Apple? Would love to hear how you’re handling doorbell presses or voice announcements. I’m tempted to tinker with Alexa routines next. Let’s share setups!