Do the latest Xiaomi Aqara sensors still connect to SmartThings via this method?
Or is there an easier way to get them into HA without the usb stick/Xiaomi hub?
My Xiaomi door/window sensors worked fine out of the box with hassio zha integration using a nortek husbzb1 stick (no ST hub required). That nortek stick works the same as a standard zha controller, so other hass compatible zigbee sticks should also work. It was very easy to do… no different than adding any other device through the zha integration.
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If you are just looking for door and motion sensors, I would get Wyze sense. It’s cheaper, too.
Ideally they would have temp/humidity/motion/light and I did find the aeotec one have a 6 in 1 sensor,
https://aeotec.com/z-wave-sensor/ but they are a bit on the bulky side and so is the Xiaomi one.
I like how slim the Samsung ones are but they’re missing humidity and light sensor.
They look pretty good but unfortunately only ship to US 
Do they need their own hub or can they be hooked up to my ST hub?
It has a usb bridge where you would plug it to your HA box/Pi. Yea, too bad it won’t ship outside US. Didn’t know.
The multisensors can be fine if you are just using them for lighting automations and such. They’re not too bulky if you consider the alternative of using several separate sensors in their place.
OTOH if you plan on using them to trigger an alarm, beware the reliability of your alarm will depend heavily on the quality of your PIRs. For example I have several very good PIR sensors around my house. By ‘good’ I mean they trigger every time there is motion and never when there is not. Unfortunately my cat triggers them and they can’t be tuned to work reliably otherwise. So I had to invest in some pricey ecolink pet proof motion sensors to make my alarm reliable.
I think the same could be said about lum sensors. Not all are equal… some are very insensitive and pretty much give a binary signal like sun up/ sun down (useless right?). So you have to ensure the multisensor you get has a decent lum sensor that will do what you will ask it to do.
Temp and humid… meh… I’d probably trust most devices in that regard… unless it’s like an input to a life support system for a tropical reef tank or something like that. That said, depending on the application, it may be hard if not impossible to find a multi sensor that has both a pir and lum that will work for your application. TLDR… point is if you do find something that ‘works with your hass’, don’t buy it until you first make sure it will ‘actually work with your intended automations’. 
Leaning towards a combination of the Samsung ST sensors and the aeotec 6 in 1 sensor for rooms where I need lux readings but they are on the bulky side (can be placed in the ceiling at least) and reviews on Amazon seem to say they don’t update ST as often as they should so I’m not 100% sure on them
Were you able to connect them via this method somehow?
I got 3 of the aqara temp sensors, and am starting to look into the integration into ST, but if it didn’t work, I might as well purchase the conbee and install them though DeConz
I ended up connecting using this method fine, the senors are appearing in my HA instance!
Yes I connected the motion sensor just fine.
They do drop off every now and again and must be reset unlike the Samsung ones
I just ran them for the past two hours, and they… don’t really update. Is that what you meant by dropping off? Not sure if I should stick with this way or just get the conBee stick
No, they work fine most of the time for me, but I did see them as Offline in smartthings and had to pair them again as per https://community.smartthings.com/t/how-to-reconnect-xiaomi-motion-sensor/158469/3
they update in real time in HA for you as they do in ST?
mine are stuck 
Not sure how to refresh or reset this
Yes they work fine using the Smartthings integration of HA