Expert's Rating
Pros
- Support for Matter and Thread; plus, 5GHz Wi-Fi
- Failover features might be useful for smart home dwellers with large, complex environments
- Adds support for air conditioners
Cons
- Offline device support didn’t work for me
- Still no direct support for third-party Zigbee devices
- High price
Our Verdict
Aqara’s new hub is packed with new features, including support for Matter and Thread, but some of them still seem like a work in progress.
Best Prices Today: Aqara Hub M3
Aqara has long been one of the leaders in the DIY Zigbee smart home space, and now it has launched its most ambitious product to date. The Aqara Hub M3 expands Aqara’s ecosystem to incorporate Matter and Thread in addition to its existing support for Bluetooth, HomeKit, Wi-Fi, and—of course—Zigbee.
That leaves Z-Wave as the only smart home platform not supported. But if you’re moving up from one of Aqara’s earlier platforms, you’re unlikely to be using Z-Wave devices anyway. The Hub M3 also features a bevy of reliability features, though these will mostly only be of interest to diehard Aqara users with dozens of child devices and multiple hubs.
Let’s start with the hardware, which remains discreet and unremarkable, trading the hockey puck design of the M2 Hub for a slightly larger, squared-off form factor. The Hub M3 can be powered by an ethernet cable if your router can deliver power-over-ethernet (PoE), or via a USB-C cable and power adapter (you can also plug it into a USB-C power bank to improve its fault tolerance.)
The biggest protocol addition to the Hub M3 over the Hub M2 is support for Matter.
Both ports are inset within a channel on the underside of the device, which eliminates any exposed cables or connectors. Optional wall mounting hardware and a USB-A to USB-C cable are included, but not an A/C adapter. An internal speaker is still in the mix, primarily allowing it to be used with security systems.
The Aqara Hub M3 can be powered by plugging the provided USB-C cable into an AC adapter or via power-over-ethernet if your router supports that (or you have a PoE switch).
Christopher Null/Foundry
Setting up the hub is as simple as plugging it in and onboarding it through the Aqara app. I first needed to scan a QR code on the back of the hub, after which the app discovered it and had it onboarded in less than a minute. Both 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wi-Fi networks are now supported, in addition to the hardwired ethernet connection. Support for various third-party ecosystems, including Alexa, Google Home, HomeKit, and IFTTT, are all still part of the package once you’re up and running.
This review is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best smart home systems.
The biggest protocol addition to the Hub M3 over the Hub M2 is support for Matter, which means that third-party devices can finally be added to the app. There’s a catch, though, as it’s not every Matter device but, for now, “select device types” that “will be improved in the future.”
I’ve yet to find a canonical list of M3-compatible devices, except for a three-month-old Reddit thread listing categories of Matter-certified smart home products, including contact and occupancy sensors; smart light switches, thermostats, plugs, and bulbs; and Matter bridges.
The Hub M3 still doesn’t work with third-party Zigbee devices—unless those devices are connected to some other Matter-compatible hub or bridge. Philips Hue smart bulbs are a case in point: You can add the Hue bridge to a Hub M3 and control Hue bulbs by sending commands from the Hub M3 to the Hue bridge, which will relay those commands to the Hue bulbs.
Fortunately, compatibility still runs the opposite way: Devices connected to the Hub M3 can be shared across a Matter-compatible network, including exposing them to Apple Home on iOS. If you’re new to the smart home and you find any of that confusing, the Aqara Hub M3 is probably not what you’re looking for.
Christopher Null/Foundry
The incorporation of Thread border router technology gives the M3 an upgrade to its failover capabilities—but you’ll need multiple Matter controllers on your network to take advantage of this. If one Hub M3 goes down, up to 10 others can pick up the slack, as hubs can mirror automations stored on one another in their internal memory. I only had one Hub M3 for review, however, so wasn’t able to test this. Frankly, this is probably a rare scenario that only Aqara power users will ever really concern themselves with.
The Aqara Hub M3 is also designed so that if your internet connection fails (but your Wi-Fi router is still active), the hub should still be able to control client devices on the network. In theory, anyway: In my testing with my modem unplugged (but my Wi-Fi mesh network still active), attempts to control devices invariably timed out until the internet connection was restored.
Aqara says a small collection of products can (reportedly) perform automations even if all your Aqara hubs are offline, thanks to device-binding features, but I never got this to work with an Aqara T1M ceiling light, which is supposed to be supported. Whether these features simply didn’t work for me due to some vagary of my network or there are broader issues with the ecosystem—I’ve read about plenty on the web—is hard to say.
The Aqara Hub M3 can control your air conditioner, too, provided the appliance is withing line of sight of the hub.
Christopher Null/Foundry
At least one issue I encountered with a new feature was strictly user error: The Hub M3 can migrate all client devices (along with their automations and settings) that are connected to another hub; unfortunately, I didn’t become aware of this feature until after I removed my Aqara Hub M2 from my account, which took with it all the client devices I had connected to it. I ended up having to reconnect and reconfigure each of those devices, which wasn’t that big of a problem because I only have a handful. But I do wish I’d done it correctly from the start.
The Aqara Hub M3 includes an infrared blaster, as the Hub M2 did, but this one supports IR-equipped air conditioning systems in addition to televisions and other media gear. I was able to pair the M3 with a MrCool mini-split unit and easily control it through the Aqara app (though this is oddly buried in a special “Air Conditioning Mode” section that is separate from the rest of your client devices).
The process isn’t any more convenient than using MrCool’s own app, but if you like having everything in one place, or you want to create automation routines that incorporate your air conditioner—and you don’t mind ensuring a line of sight between your hub and that appliance—it’s a handy thing to have.
I’m hopeful that the kinks will get worked out of any lingering failover issues as Aqara pushes updates to the M3; but in the meantime, there’s no urgent need for Hub M2 users–particularly more casual ones–to upgrade.
The bigger problem is that the Hub M3’s $130 asking price renders it massively more expensive than the Hub M2, which is now down to $50. If you’re considering installing multiples of this hub in your home, your outlay will escalate quickly. I’d probably stall on upgrading until its street price comes down; unless you’re absolutely dying to control your air conditioner via Aqara.
Best Prices Today: Aqara Hub M3
Author: Christopher Null, Contributor, TechHive
Christopher Null is an award-winning technology journalist with more than 25 years of experience writing about and reviewing consumer and business tech products. Previously, he served as Executive Editor for PC Computing magazine and was the founder and Editor in Chief of Mobile magazine, the first print publication focused exclusively on mobile tech. In addition to covering a wide range of smart home gear for TechHive, he is a frequent contributor to Wired, This Old House, and AAA’s Via Magazine.