– Video Doorbell G4 with Chime, HomeKit Secure Video

Excellent video quality, very easy to set up and as it works with both HomeKit and can record to an SD card, it means you don’t need an ongoing subscription unlike other video-doorbells. I choose this over the similar Eufy one as it is compatible with HomeKit secure video, and will be upgraded to support matter. In terms of privacy, all recordings are encrypted before being uploaded to he cloud, so there aren’t the privacy concerns that I had with the Ring or Nest doorbells. The Facial recognition works well, but relies on the data from your Apple Photos app (if using in the Apple ecosystem), so if you don’t have faces labelled in your photos it won’t work with the doorbell. The motion recognition also works well, but if people move past very quickly it will not always wake up in time, but that may be because I have mine battery powered. If it is wired I think it can be more responsive. The motion activation is easy to customise and I have not had any false alerts, and you can also set an activation zone, but I have not tried this. As for the battery life, it is too early to tell. It has dropped to 80% after 2 weeks, but I have been using it a lot more than normal during this time to check it and set it up. Firmware updates automatically install easily and the doorbell rings through my HomePod and through the chime which is fantastic. The night vision is excellent, and although my upstream internet speed is only 1mb/s the live view seems to work well.My only criticism is that the chime, which acts as the hub, needs to be plugged in which limits where it can be placed. I would have preferred if this had a rechargeable battery so it can be more freely placed.UPDATE - on high use settings the batteries lasted 4 months. Based on this they could probably last 6 months in less sensitive settings.

UPDATE 2:Customer support from Aqara is awful. Doesn’t reply to any emails after the initial one. Have initiated a refund. Avoid!UPDATE:As of the 1st Feb the doorbell has stopped working. Doesn’t connect to app or HomeKit, when you press the button it doesn’t do anything either. Thought it was a power issue as it was hardwired in, but even with batteries it doesn’t work. As many have stated on here, looks like it isn’t weatherproof…Have contacted Aqara for support. Hopefully will get a new one as I genuinely did like it, but if it breaks again I will be seeking a refund.——————- Original review below:Ordered this as it’s one of the few smart doorbells I could find that actually works with Apple’s HomeKit… This replaced a Ring doorbell.Setup was very easy. The doorbell was much easier to install vs my Ring one, I could use the back plate to line up the screw holes properly and it’s flush against the wall now. I’ve wired this in so I can’t comment on battery life, but even as someone with minimal DIY experience it was really easy to install! I think it also looks better than my previous Ring doorbell - while it’s bigger, it looks a lot more premium!After installing the doorbell, setting it up was very easy. Just installed their app to guide me through the process, and scan a QR code on the chime to add it to HomeKit.Thanks to having an upgraded iCloud plan, Apple stores 30 days of footage for me and doesn’t go against my storage quota! Clips are also super easy to save, which is reassuring in case I need to save them.Video quality is good, seems about on par with the Ring doorbell. Records and streams in 1080p.One feature this has that I don’t think my Ring doorbell had is facial recognition. This is really cool but I doubt it’s a feature I’d use much.Overall I’m really happy with this doorbell and I hope it lasts a long time!

Love this. Bought to use with HomeKit Secure Video and it worked straight away. It was simple to fit with the include fixings. The video quality playback is good. The thing I don't like is... No ding when the button is pressed for the presser, the people pressing it, don't think it worked and press it multiple times. The internal speaker always dings and I get a notification on all Apple devices.

The perfect addicting to my Apple ecosystem smart home. It has motion sensors, a wide view angle and integrates easily with your Apple HomeKit. It comes with chime. You can set it to record certain instances like if someone rings the doorbell. The video quality is bright and clear. It’s easy to use to and looks good. I bought an anti theft mount from Temu as it was the biggest one I could find and I was able to fit it in after a bit of adjustments made to the mount. I feel much safer now

Had a couple of other brands but this came up on Prime day and was an absolute steal. The Aqara app is OK but not much more than that. The hardware, however, is excellent. Good quality video and reliable motion detection. It works like a charm with Apple HomeKit. Using HomeKit does not require the Aqara app to be installed after set-up is complete. It has the advantage that you can use the Apple iCloud to store the video and easily access it on Apple kit.The two-way intercom with callers is a bit flaky and does not work at all well when away from home but aside from that, it’s a good piece of kit.

I've seen the scathing review left by someone who has owned it for a whole 5 weeks on battery presumably without devices in the Apple ecosystem that make sense for this purchase, like HomePods etc for chimes. so I thought it would be good to give some feedback as someone who knows what they are doing and has owned the device for 18 months and is well invested in the Apple ecosystem and my home network.To counter their points -- If you can't see who is who with this doorbell in day or night mode then you need a bigger screen to view it on or a trip to specsavers, sorry. Looks great on my 4K Apple TV.- Why you would want to use the manufacturers cloud features and HomeKit is beyond me, but yes you won't find any of Aqara's propriety cloud based AI on HomeKit directly. HomeKit itself supports various video detections and 7 day recording with an iCloud plan. Nothing stops you using both at the same time and you can record to the SD card to keep it local as a backup regardless, them claiming you can't is again user error.- The alarm function works perfectly. If you try and remove the device without disabling it, then it will go off. That's user error if you don't disable it prior, even if you think you did you obviously didn't.- The device has survived the UK rain on my uncovered porch for 18 months. What isn't waterproof? Oh wait, they are talking about the video based motion going off during rain. Yes, this happens with any video camera that uses video rather than an actual motion sensor. If you've set it up for alerts on any motion rather than people/packages/animals you are going to have a bad time with notifications. This isn't specific to this doorbell.- The batteries will die fast using 24/7 HKSV recording especially when you've set it up to record the motion of rain. It's a no brainer. Hardwire it in if you're doing 24/7 cloud based recording. Battery power is fine for the SD card recording setup with a bit of care into what you want it to do rather than recording rain and also battery will be massively affected by the below...- The chime has to have good wifi and be close to your doorbell to operate correctly. Using a router provided by BT over the other side of your house with the chime no where near the doorbell will give you a bad time. The manual is very clear on ideal conditions, but some people refuse to invest in their own network infrastructure. It will also cause more battery drain.- 720p stream is there for low quality connections so you can still view it rather than seeing nothing. If you're constantly seeing 720p stream remotely you need to look at your local networks upload and your current connections speed and wifi quality. I have never seen the 720p mode, so again points to the setup of device/local network being a huge problem for the reviewer!

For the most part, this doorbell did what it promised for two years. HomeKit integration was what I was after and it worked properly throughout — and still does. For anyone in the Apple ecosystem who needs a wireless setup, there's still no real competitor.There was one recurring issue throughout: occasional connection drops. When it happens, you get flooded with connected/disconnected notifications for hours. Crucially though, these episodes were infrequent — a rough patch every few weeks, then smooth sailing for a month or more. I never found a clear pattern, so interference seems as likely an explanation as a product fault. Annoying, but liveable.What pushed this to three stars is that the doorbell stopped ringing about a month after the warranty expired. Resetting and reinstalling changed nothing. The timing is hard to ignore.If this is just bad luck on my end, the product probably deserves four or five stars for most users — the connection issue is minor enough to tolerate given there's no real competitor for HomeKit + wireless. But if the hardware routinely gives out shortly after warranty, you're effectively paying a two-year subscription. Worth factoring into your decision.

TLDR - this doorbell literally works only when it feels like it.I should start my review by saying that I have a fairly smart home - Alexa everywhere, Lightwaverf switches, CCTV cameras, cloud enabled heating, in fact the only smart home gadget I didn’t have was a video doorbell. So, after seeing a flood of reviews recently for the Aqara G4 I gave it a try.It’s sadly another classic Chinese tech product, i.e. decent hardware spoiled by unintuitive and flaky software. I really struggle with the Aqara Home app, with its “boards” and “cards” and basic functions buried under several menu layers. When you do drill down to the menu items that actually relate to the doorbell, several basic obvious options just don’t exist. There are options like detection frequency, duration of stay, but with no help file to tell you what these actually do.Apparently Aqara gives you 7 days of cloud storage for free but nowhere is that shown in the Aqara app. I can replay 6 second clips but I have no idea if these are being held on my local SD card or in Aqaras cloud.The alert settings page has a menu title row that I only realised after several days actually scrolls sideways with lots more options! And this row is sited not at the top of the page, but below a mysterious menu called “associated event label” (I still have no idea what that’s for). I used to work for a software company and something this confusing should never have seen the light of day.Clips seem to get recorded at random, and often the Aqara app won’t show any clips less than a few days old.Given the shortcomings of Aqaras software I tried using Apple’s Home app to control and monitor the G4, which is better designed but still far from perfect and often just fails to record anything (just like the Aqara app). Removing and re-adding the doorbell seems to help but isn’t a practical fix. Maybe the fact that this doorbell camera works in Apple Home is the reason why Aqara seems to have made such a half hearted attempt with its own app.I tested the camera for three days indoors in which time the supplied batteries dropped from 100% to 40%. I couldn’t see any way they would last 4 weeks, let alone the claimed 4 months. With 6 AA batteries costing say £3-£5 that’s a fair cost over a year. So, I hardwired mine. Then I heard on various internet forums about the higher incidence of connection issues with hardwired Aqara G4 doorbell cameras, and sure enough the live view in Amazon Alexa no longer works. It worked fine during testing but mysteriously not now. I tried removing the batteries (I’d left them in as backup) but still no Alexa Live View anymore. Everything else does kind of work, so as of today it’s a keeper but I’ll update this review if that changes. (Edit - a few weeks on, and I wish I had returned this when I could). What does annoy me is that I have a bulky oversized doorbell because it’s designed to house 6xAA batteries, which I no longer use.I have found that rebooting the doorbell sometimes makes it work again so I have plugged the Camera unit and chime units into remote controlled sockets that are set to power off and on each night to reset the system. I really shouldn’t have to do that…In summary, my experience so far is that the Aqara G4 doorbell is flaky and untrustworthy. Luckily it still chimes when the button is pressed, so at least I haven’t taken a backward step from my old traditional doorbell…

OJO: si tienes una puerta de metal o de seguridad, es imposible que tengas buena señal entre la cámara y el repetidor. Lo mismo si tienes paredes de verdad (no tablaroca), pésima señal wifi hagas lo que hagas. En mi caso la única forma de que funcione medio decente es que esté tanto el repetidor como el módem afuera de la casa, lo cual no tiene ningún sentido. Está diseñado para las casas de madera de USA, no para tabique, concreto y metal como en la mayoría de las casas de México.

I tried another camera from a different company, which required high voltage doorbell wiring which is generally only installed in houses built since the year 2000. This doorbell works fine with my 12 volt wiring.It's working pretty well and does what I needed. I can clearly see when someone is coming to the door, and I can talk to a delivery person or neighbor if I'm away from the house when they come calling.The software is the biggest downside here. The AI facial recognition is not great and sometimes doesn't recognize people. It also is generally either too sensitive or makes you miss the beginning few seconds of a video depending on your settings. If you make it wait five seconds or so before warning of a visitor, you'll get very few false positives, but there's no look-back period, so you'll be missing the first five seconds of a video which may be enough time for a porch pirate to run up, grab a package and then turn their back to run away. The Android app is also fairly clumsy. It works, but it can be difficult to navigate and hard to guess what a setting does.

Llevo ya meses con ella instalada y funciona muy bien, decir que la tengo conectada de continuo a una fuente de alimentación, pero detecta perfectamente lo que pasa en la escalera, la app te avisa en pocos segundos. Yo lo tengo integrado dentro del Apple Home Kit que tengo instalado en casa y funciona sin ningún problema. totalmente recomendable.

Objectivement un produit fantastique que je recommande à tous, surtout et surtout pour ce prix.Compatible Apple Homekit, qualité d’image incroyable, reconnaissance faciale assez efficace (bien qu’il ne reconnaisse pas ma femme sans maquillage) et possibilité de parler à distance.Si je ne devais remonter que deux points un temps soit peu négatif :- Possibilité de l’alimenter par pile ou en direct, mais si en direct il vous faudra un petit transformateur (220 à 9 de mémoire), ça ne coûte rien (4 à 8€) et c’est petit, mais ça nécessite un espace vide tout de même et c’est à prévoir- Si vous êtes deux et qu’une personne sonne, vous recevrez tous deux une notification et serait peut être amené à parler en même temps, créant une cacophonie, rien ne préviendra que vous parler à deux en même temps sauf la tête d’incompréhension de votre interlocuteurMais ce sont de faux problèmes, le produit reste top !Il semble que la reconnaissance faciale puisse s’allier avec la serrure intelligente de la marque, j’aimerais tester mais je n’y suis pas encore.

The Aqara Video Doorbell G4 offers fantastic value with its extensive features and seamless smart home compatibility.Pros:Great HomeKit Support: Works flawlessly with HomeKit Secure Video, providing real-time notifications, two-way audio, and video storage within Apple’s ecosystem.Affordable Price: Offers many premium features at a more accessible price point.Flexible Storage Options: Supports local storage (via microSD card) and free cloud storage without subscription fees.Reliable Build: Durable design that performs well in various weather conditions.Cons:Limited Third-Party Ecosystem Support: Works best with HomeKit; limited compatibility with some other platforms.Video Quality: Good, but not quite as sharp as some higher-end options on the market.For anyone in the Apple ecosystem or looking for a feature-rich and affordable doorbell, the Aqara G4 is an excellent choice. Highly recommended for smart home enthusiasts!