Aqara T2 Light Bulb - Zigbee? Matter?

Hardware
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1

I bought a Aqara T2 in thought I could connect to my HA system via Zigbee but that doesn't seem to be the case. Do I need an Aqara hub too?

If I wanted to connect via Matter would I also need a special hub for that too?
When attempting to connect with Matter I get the message "Your device requires a Thread border router".

Seems kind of crazy Aqara says their stuff works with Home Assistant, Zigbee, and Matter and you need (?) extra stuff for it to actually work!

Or should I send the Aqara stuff back?

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No, you don't. OOB, the bulb is in Matter mode. You need to connect to it using the Aqara app, via Bluetooth, then initiate the change protocol to upload the Zigbee firmware to the bulb. It will then pair just fine. I'm using ZHA, but Z2M is also good.

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@Orange-GT3 Thnx! Worked perfectly. :slight_smile:

I also have an Aqara Presence Multi-Sensor (FP300) and a Multi-State Sensor (P100). Looks like these might be Matter only. Do you have any pointers on these? :slight_smile:

4

Here is what you need. The brand makes no difference.

  1. If the device speaks “Zigbee," you need a Zigbee Controller. You can buy a dongle and connect it to the Home Assistance server and make it into a Zigbee Controller, or you can buy some other Zigbee hub and use that. Clearly, if you already have HA, the dongle thing is easiest. Some Aqara hubs can "bridge" Aqara Zigbee devices to Matter, and then you import the device to HA using Matter.

  2. If the device speaks “Thread," you need a border router to move data between your Thread network and your WiFi/Ethernet network so that the data can get to a Matter Controller. You can buy a USB dongle to do this all with HA, or you can use an Apple, Google, or Aqara border router. They are very interchangeable.

You said that they sell something that doesn’t work unless you buy something else. That’s right. But here’s the thing: if a device uses an “X-type radio,” you should expect your computer to have an X-type radio, or they won’t be able to communicate. Today, we have four types of radio: WiFi, ZigBee, Thread, and Z-Wave. Over time, many of us end up connecting all four to our Home Assistant servers.

WiFi seems like a good way to go because you already have it. But they don’t make WiFi sensor that run on batteries. If you want even one battery-powered PIR sensor, you can’t until you set up Zigbee.

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I have this device connected to ZHA. Same method needed to change the protocol, then search for the custom ZHA quirk on Github.

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@Orange-GT3 Thanks again! I got the Aqara Presence Multi-Sensor FP300 connected to my HA ZBT-2 zigbee network. But, it only shows temp, illumination, and humidity. I can't find the "Presence" status anywhere.

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The P100 also has some strange values.

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You need to install the custom quirk from Github. There is a PR for it to be added to HA but it hasn't been merged yet.

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The P100 was only launched last month. It might take a while for someone to come up with a custom quirk for it to get it fully working in ZHA.
If you're impatient, you might want to switch to Zigbee2MQTT, but you're going to have to redo your entire zigbee setup from scratch. The P100 is already fully supported there Aqara DWZTCGQ11LM control via MQTT | Zigbee2MQTT

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I guess I'll wait.
Your Plan B looks a little more involved than I'd like to get into. :slight_smile:

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Just be prepared for a long wait. As an example, the FP300 was released last November & still requires a custom quirk to get the essential entities to show up in ZHA.

Meanwhile, Z2M had full support for it on the 1st of December...

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