The incredibly clever Aqara Camera Hub G3 makes your smart home even smarter

Wouldn’t it be great if you could get an incredibly clever smart home security camera without having to compromise? That’s what Aqara’s Camera Hub G3 delivers.

Buying a smart home camera can be tricky sometimes. The budget bargain might not work with your preferred digital assistant; the high-end model may demand a pricey subscription to unlock its best features, or the one that ticks all the boxes may only use the crowded 2.4GHz Wi-Fi band. Aqara’s Camera Hub G3 solves all of those problems and more.

The Camera Hub G3 is an AI-enabled smart home camera with a 360-degree view, crystal clear 2K video, dual-band Wi-Fi and a host of genuinely useful features. It makes your smart home even smarter.

AI power without the price tag

Many smart home cameras offer AI-powered object and people detection, but they usually charge extra to unlock it. Not here. The Camera Hub G3 has a powerful neural processing engine that can recognise faces, gestures and pets, and because it runs locally on the camera there’s no need for a pricey cloud subscription. Local AI also means improved privacy protection, as the faces of your family members are not stored in a server thousands of miles away.

The AI features here are very clever. The Camera Hub G3 can do more than just tell the difference between pets and people. It can also recognise specific individuals, so if sees a family member it can disarm your security system or send you a notification that the kids or your partner have arrived home. And it recognises hand gestures too, so you can use gestures to deactivate the camera, turn the lights on and off (with compatible Aqara switches) or even use the camera’s built-in infrared controller to turn on the TV or air conditioner.

It’s easy to customise the notifications too, so you can set the camera to sound a loud alarm and send a push notification to your phone if it detects abnormal motion or if a connected sensor is triggered, for example by a door being opened.

The Camera Hub 3 is sociable, too. Inside there’s a Zigbee 3.0 hub that enables you to connect up to 128 Aqara devices for home automation, remote control and more, and it also has full compatibility with Apple HomeKit (including HomeKit Secure Video), Amazon Alexa and Google Home. That means you can use your Camera Hub G3 with the digital assistant of your choice: Siri, Alexa or Google Assistant.

Smarter thinking for your smart home

There are lots of useful features here, many of which solve common camera problems. Thanks to the pan-and-tilt motor, the Camera Hub G3 has a 360-degree view and supports automatic cruising, human tracking and pet tracking to keep people or pets in the frame. And thanks to its dual-band Wi-Fi it can connect to the clearer, faster 5GHz Wi-Fi band as well as the standard 2.4GHz one. That’s particularly great if you’re using the Camera Hub G3 to connect to other Aqara devices: they share the same high-quality connection for smoother operation.

The Camera Hub G3 also solves another common problem: storage. Many smart cameras need you to subscribe to online storage in order to retain footage, but the Camera Hub G3 has a USB-C port with video out that makes it easy to connect your camera to external storage. The camera also supports local storage with a MicroSD card of up to 128GB.

One of the best features here falls into the “why didn’t I think of that?” category: the IR transmitter in the Camera Hub G3 can send signals to compatible infra-red devices, so if something has an IR remote the Camera Hub G3 can talk to it. And because the connection is infra-red, the pre-set IR automation works even if there isn’t a Wi-Fi connection.

Aqara has also given some thought to privacy. The Camera Hub G3 has a built-in security shutter that you can activate manually or automatically. When you do, the lens rotates into the housing and is covered completely.

The core of your smart home security system

If you’re new to smart home security, the Camera Hub G3 makes it easy to expand from a single camera setup to a complete smart home security system. That’s because its Zigbee hub enables you to connect all kinds of Aqara devices including the wide range of sensors: Aqara makes a whole range of door and window sensors, motion sensors and vibration sensors, all of which connect wirelessly to your camera hub to create a very comprehensive home security system without any subscriptions or other fees.

While the Aqara Camera Hub G3 delivers lots of features, it doesn’t cost a lot of money: it’s just £99 with no hidden charges or sneaky subscriptions.