The Aqara Camera Hub G3 puts the "fun" in highly "functional"

When you first unbox Aqara’s diminutive Camera Hub, you’re greeted by a tiny face with removable cat ears. It’s all very kawaii (Japanese slang for “cute”) if you’re into anime and such, but that cute little face belies a monster of a device inside. 

It does a lot and you’re going to wind up asking yourself, “Do I run this through HomeKit or their proprietary app Aqara Home, or a bit of both?” It may be overwhelming. Good thing the Apple Home and Aqara Home apps are both well-designed and easy to use. Let’s get into it!

Aqara Camera Hub G3: Price and availability

The Aqara 2K Security Indoor Camera Hub G3 is available through Amazon for $109.99 but looking over price tracking history, in December and January, the G3 was on sale in the 80-dollar range.

Aqara Camera Hub G3: Specs and features

The Camera Hub G3 is a nearly five-inch tall robot-shaped device that pans 340 degrees horizontally, tilts 30 degrees up, and 15 degrees down. It can do that automatically with AI-powered tracking, or manually via the Aqara app, but no manual control in Apple’s Home app. Pair that all with a 110-degree field of view; you should be able to capture everything in almost any room. 

The centerpiece of the unit, the high-resolution 2K 2304x1296P camera, and its infrared night vision LED module have a face on it, which is cute and functional. When the G3 is “live” you can see the camera, but for privacy, you can stop the live feed and the lens module rotates into the “head” housing, exposing another look, eyelashes. Yes, you can tell the camera is “sleeping” because the face shows that. 

If you’re still uncomfortable with that, you can store a preset viewing angle and send it there. To the left and right of the lens and LEDs are two microphones that allow you to have two-way conversations, detect abnormal sounds, stream audio, and record it. The audio recording is pretty good from the dual mic setup! 

The front also has a microSD slot which supports up to 128GB of storage. You access it by turning off the camera’s live feed and having the cute eyelash cover rotate into view. Below is a status LED that glows red when active, along with some subtle branding. The back of the camera is where you’ll find the speaker and the USB-C port which also supports video output directly from the unit via the UVC protocol, so if you connect the Camera Hub G3 to your computer for example, it should automatically recognize it.

You can set the Camera Hub G3 on a flat surface like a bookshelf, or mount it via the standard tripod quarter-inch threads on the bottom. It can be mounted upside down, then the image adjusted accordingly in the Aqara Home app.

Aqara’s Camera Hub G3 has a neural processing unit (NPU), powering some AI functions that don’t require an internet connection. A Zigbee 3.0 smart home hub on board allows you to connect up to 128 Aqara devices to the G3, though you’ll need to include repeater devices like a wall switch or smart plug in your setup to achieve that number.

The Camera Hub G3 supports both 2.4 and 5GHz Wi-Fi connections, and Wi-Fi Protected Access 3 (WPA3). There’s also IR blaster support for your home devices which still use that standard.

Aqara Camera Hub G3: Build and looks

The Aqara Camera Hub G3 looks like something you’d buy in a Sanrio store (Hello Kitty) until you remove the pre-installed cat ears accessory hood. You can set the Camera Hub G3 on a flat surface like a bookshelf, or mount it via the standard tripod quarter-inch threads on the bottom. It can be mounted upside down, then the image adjusted accordingly in the Aqara Home app.

Though it’s mostly plastic, the Camera Hub G3 gives the impression that it is well-made and will be long-lasting indoors. The pan and tilt motor is whisper quiet, and the different faces for the lens cover, though novel, put the “fun” in “functional.” It should look right at home with just about any decor, and you can remove those cat ears if that’s a bit too flamboyant for your feng shui.

Aqara Camera Hub G3: Ease of use

Aqara’s Camera Hub G3 does so much that it would take a few pages of a deep, deep dive article to address them all thoroughly, yet its features in the Aqara app are clearly laid out and easy to use. And since not all of those features are exposed in Apple Home, it’s even easier to use there. That was one of the hallmarks of all the Aqara cameras I’ve tested recently, ease of use. This G3 was set up in less than ten minutes and I thoroughly enjoyed the voice confirmations I received from the unit as I completed specific steps in the onboarding process.

I have the G3 connected to my 5GHz wifi network. Opening either app and connecting to its live feeds has been fast each time. I’ve even opened Apple Home on my Apple Watch Series 9 and held conversations with my wife, which was pretty cool! No glitching, fluid audio, and picture, all from my wrist.

Movement tracking is easy with the G3. You can set it to track humans, dogs, and cats, work with face detection, or gestures, and there’s a cruise option that will set the camera to pan and tilt to pre-defined positions for a period of time. Face detection from Aqara works by uploading pics from your phone, or snapping a pic of someone’s face right then and there. Then you can set automations like getting a notification when little Jamaal gets home from school. Gesture activation allows you to assign automations to five different hand gestures, but that disables the human and animal tracking functions.

Speaking of tracking, I really thought the G3’s ability to keep up with the humans it was tracking was admirable. If someone is running, or moving rapidly, it may lose them though. When the G3 is tracking someone and panning and tilting to keep up, you’ll see the video pixelate a bit until the camera settles, and then the video clears up and is solid again.

For the security conscious, using the Aqara Home app’s face detection requires you to upload those images to Aqara’s cloud servers. With the G3 having a built-in neural processing unit, I’d like to see facial recognition store images locally as well. 

There are some other minor issues I’d like to see improved. The graininess the camera picks up when it’s in motion isn’t ideal. I’d also like to see the manual pan and tilt features, as well as the predefined position setting available in Apple’s Home app.

Aqara Camera Hub G3: Competition

There isn’t a lot of competition at this price point with comparable features, considering the G3 has a built-in Zigbee hub. 

One alternative worth a look at is Eufy’s E220. It has a larger 125-degree field of view and an 8X digital zoom. The E220 is half the price but is 2.4GHz wifi only, has no privacy mode, and doesn’t include a built-in hub for connecting other IoT devices. 

Aqara Camera Hub G3: Should you buy it?

You should buy it if..

• You like Aqara and want to connect more devices
• You want a pan and tilt HKSV camera with a robust feature-set
• You want a camera with a physical privacy mode

You shouldn’t buy it if…

• You want a camera closer to $50
• You don’t need hub functionality

Aqara Camera Hub G3: Verdict

Besides being a cute camera with removable cat ears, Aqara’s Camera Hub G3 is a powerhouse of features at a fair price. Aqara has some great IoT devices in their offerings of motion sensors, window/door sensors, and automated blinds, so having the hub built-in is a great feature. 

With Matter support, HomeKit exposed alarm functionality, USB-C video out, local storage, and local AI processing, you have a winning package that is hard to beat in the indoor pan and tilt camera market. The Aqara Camera Hub G3 is easy to recommend.