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’s joined as well by the Doorbell Camera G400 (Wired), a Power-over-Ethernet doorbell camera that also works with Wi-Fi and normal doorbell wiring.

Both cameras have broad smart home support, but the Camera Hub G350 is the big show here. That’s because it’s the first camera to support Matter, meaning that eventually, it will work with any of the major smart home platforms. Why eventually? Unfortunately, so far, only Samsung has taken up Matter 1.5, which introduced camera support to the universal smart home protocol back in November.

Hopefully, Apple, Google, and the rest get on board soon, because picking a smart home camera with all the features you want and that works with your smart home platform of choice is nothing short of a pain in the ass. But I digress; let’s talk about the cameras themselves.

Specs-wise, the Camera Hub G350 has two cameras: one with a 4K-resolution, 133-degree FOV wide lens and the other with a 2.5K telephoto with up to 9x digital zoom. You can speak through it with two-way audio, and it supports up to a 512GB microSD card for local storage. The bunny ears have no function, as far as I know. Maybe they’re there to take the edge off, but boy, would I ever dress up 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 function as a Matter Controller and Bridge, meaning it can bring Matter devices into the Aqara ecosystem and can also connect non-Matter Aqara products to other platforms using the standard. Besides 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 iCloud subscriptions.

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, Aqara says that if it’s online, it “can identify faces, packages, vehicles, animals, and other events.” The G400 lacks Matter support, but 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.