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The Aqara Voice Mate H1 is a new option for smart home voice control - The VergeThe VergeThe VergeExpandThe VergeExpandCommentsThe Verge

By Jennifer Pattison Tuohy, a smart home reporter who’s been testing connected gadgets since 2013. Previously a contributor to Wirecutter, Wired, Dwell, and US News.

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Smart home company Aqara has announced the Voice Mate H1 — a home automation voice control system activated by picking up a small puck rather than having its microphone constantly listen for a wake word. The company is also launching its first outdoor camera, the Camera Hub G5 Pro, which, like its other cameras, will work with Apple’s HomeKit Secure Video.

These products, along with a new garage door controller, smart valve shut-off device, and new smart switches (for Europe only), were announced at the IFA tech show this week. Aqara hasn’t provided pricing or availability yet.

While smart speakers and phones with built-in voice assistants are easy ways to control your smart home, they are always listening for their wake word by design. Aqara’s new Voice Mate H1 only activates its microphones when you pick up the small puck-like device.

The Voice Mate is integrated with Aqara Copilot, Aqara’s LLM-powered assistant, and the company says it can execute smart home scenes and adjust device settings using natural language commands. There are no speakers on board, so it doesn’t talk back. This is an interesting idea, and while it does sacrifice the hands-free nature of a voice assistant, you’re gaining more privacy.

It also requires Aqara’s Hub M3 to operate, and Aqara says all commands are cleared from the hub after completion. The Hub M3 is Aqara’s flagship hub for its smart home. It’s a Matter bridge and Thread border router and can work with select Matter devices from other manufacturers. Aqara is further expanding the hub’s capabilities with a new Advanced Matter Bridging feature that will let you port the Aqara app’s powerful conditions and actions to other Matter apps.

According to Aqara, this means you can integrate advanced features such as auto cruise for its pan and tilt cameras into other Matter-compatible platforms, such as Apple Home or Google Home. 

Speaking of cameras, the Camera Hub G5 Pro is the first outdoor Apple HomeKit Secure Video-compatible camera I’ve seen that can work over PoE as well as Wi-Fi (2.4GHz / 5GHz, with a USB-C power cable). The IP65-rated camera offers 1520p resolution (although it downgrades to 1080p if you use it through Apple Home), color night vision, a spotlight, a siren, and a 133-degree field of view. 

Interestingly, you can still benefit from end-to-end encryption if you use it outside of HomeKit Secure Video (which allows you to store recorded video in your iCloud account). Aqara says the G5 Pro is its first camera capable of this secure form of communication. It has encrypted eMMC storage that can be synced to clouds (Aqara’s for a fee and iCloud) and to a local NAS system (for free). It doesn’t have onboard microSD card storage, but it can record to a network video recorder using RTSP, making it Aqara’s first camera that’s capable of this.

The G5 Pro offers free on-device AI that can detect faces, vehicles, pets, packages, and motion and use them as triggers to start recording video.

Alongside Apple Home compatibility, the G5 works with Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and Samsung SmartThings. It’s also an Aqara Zigbee hub and a Matter bridge, making it one of the first outdoor smart home hubs I’ve seen.

Here’s a look at the other new products Aqara announced at IFA this week:

All of these new gadgets help round out the company’s offerings in the smart home, bringing it close to a complete ecosystem. Combined with its wide compatibility, innovative automation options, and increasing support for Matter, Aqara is making a very good case for itself as a major player in the smart home.

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