Aqara’s New Matter Smart Home Camera Hub Will Have No Compatibility Caveats

Aqara has officially released the Camera Hub G350, a wired indoor pan-and-tilt camera with dual lenses. It also includes the Doorbell Camera G400 (Wired), a Power-over-Ethernet doorbell camera that also works with Wi-Fi and normal doorbell wiring.

Both cameras have extensive smart home support, but the Camera Hub G350 is the big show here. That’s because it’s the first camera to support Matter, which means that eventually, it will work with any major smart home platform. Why after all? Unfortunately, so far, only Samsung has adopted Mate 1.5, which introduced camera support for the universal smart home protocol in November.

Hopefully, Apple, Google, and everyone else will get on board soon, as you’re choosing a smart home camera with all the features you want. And One that works with your smart home platform of choice is nothing less than a pain in the ass. but I digress; Let’s talk about the cameras themselves.

As for the specifications, the Camera Hub G350 features two cameras: one with a 4K-resolution, 133-degree FOV wide lens and the other with a 2.5K telephoto with 9x digital zoom. You can talk through it with two-way audio, and it supports microSD cards up to 512GB for local storage. As far as I know, rabbit ears have no function. Maybe they’re there to take the edge off, but boy, would I ever design a pan-and-tilt camera like this to include in a dystopian movie about commercial surveillance.

The Camera Hub G350 is also a smart home hub that can act as a Matter controller and bridge, meaning it can bring Matter devices into the Aqara ecosystem and also connect non-Matter Aqara products to other platforms using the standard. Apart from Wi-Fi, it also supports Zigbee, Thread, and Bluetooth. The Camera Hub G350 still works with all major platforms the old-fashioned way – with direct integration. And it supports Apple HomeKit Secure Video, the smart home camera recording cloud storage feature that comes with an iCloud subscription.

As for the Doorbell Camera G400 (Wired), it’s a versatile sounding new doorbell camera that supports both Power-over-Ethernet and traditional doorbell wiring with Wi-Fi 6 connectivity. Without an Internet connection, the camera detects people and general motion, with Aqara saying that if it’s online, it can “identify faces, packages, vehicles, animals, and other events.” The G400 lacks Miter support, but it works with Google Home, Amazon Alexa, Samsung SmartThings, and Apple Home with support for HKSV.

The Aqara Camera Hub G350 and Doorbell Camera are available to order starting today for $140 and $100 respectively.