They have gotten better with the diva dimmer. I have two in my house and love them and I’m putting two more this weekend all with pico remotes

A tip for avoiding length issues on the roller shade - order the shade with more fabric than you need. You can set the max up and down points using the remote, so it's better to have extra fabric so you can have some wiggle room.

What about Aqara?

Great review. ❤ This will be my first hub. I’ve had a bad smart home experience with lots of wifi bulbs, probably because I foolishly didn’t use a dedicated hub. They were constantly failing, and dragged my wifi network to a crawl. (I think). What bulbs do you recommend with this hub? I’ve got both Apple and Alexa devices now. THANKS!!!

Does it still have the IR blaster?

Amazon just delivered my m3 hub, just now can't wait to play with it. But I'm kind of disappointed that the Aqara matter products don't have any settings on the m3 hub, well that's what I've heard.

In 2024 are you still using ring? If so what problems have you encountered? Maybe a follow up video shows different automations?

As many Aqara devices I may have along along with their M1S 2nd gen hub, I still have to have an old Wink hub for my ZWave Schlage smart lock. I was hoping the M3 would have to resolved that by including ZWave support. But given its Matter issues, it seems to have bigger problems.

Me, I am having problems with the eve cam connection being very unreliable. From Eve Tech support, The Eve cam needs to be less than 20 feet from the router and cannot have any walls or other obstructions between the cam and router. Me, Uh, it's an outdoor cam, how is that going to be possible? Eve Tech support, try moving the router closer to the cam and make sure there are no walls obstructing it. Me, Wow, I just got ripped off of $250.

Bought mine today

Can m3 hub bridge FP2 to smartthings and homey pro?

I use Aqara as home security system. It does show up in HomeKit. But I tried upgrading the M1S hub to Matter and link it to HomeKit, and the security system will not appear in HomeKit. All of the Aqara devices show up in HomeKit except the security system. Am I missing something?

Would you say homebridge or Scrypted is better?

NO!!! Emphatically, NO!!! This company is actively seeking a buyer which says a LOT about the company. They can't run their own business. I'm on my second control panel and support has been terrible IF they even respond! Over $400 for a "smart" device that doesn't work is NOT acceptable. Both panels are completely dead which means all the "smartness" is gone and they're $400 paper weights at best. Perhaps they were better years ago but NOT anymore. I've had mine since last year. TERRIBLE!!

Again, another wonderful and informative review. I was waiting this hub since CES, but knowing what I have learned from your review, I am pretty much decided not to upgrade from my current M2. With my over 100 aqara devices running in my Apple Home, not looking forward to having to reset or re-add all the device and automations in Home again. I am using both Home and Aqara automations, so far everything are working as expected. Will keep the m2 for now. Thanks again for the review.

The only truthful guy out here. ❤

I’m sorry…. HOW MUCH!… £130, I was expecting £99 tops since the M2 is £55 (£46 on sale). If it could take Zigbee devices from ANY manufacture, like IKEA (without a Philips Hue Hub), then maybe but as it is, it’s far too expensive in my eyes. I was hoping to ditch my IKEA hub and have everything ran through one hub, the limited third-party Matter support is laughable for the price.

Yes you should avoid it until they live up to the hype of supporting any and all matter and zigbee devices.

You should have mentioned if I can add a learned remote control to Siri and HomeKit or not

Hi there! Great video! Can you also try controlling IKEA's smart light from M3 directly? Thanks!

This is their homepod, doesn’t make sense to buy this if already commited to apple home eco system.

If you don't have an Aqara hub today and you need to buy one to connect devices to homekit would you buy the M2 or M3 today?

Great overview and honest appraisal. Thanks, Eric.

Failover haha - Honestly, if a smarthome device requires hub, I don’t buy it. They won’t close me in an ecosystem, I don’t need even more junk.

Would I be able to bring the Matter devices connected to the M3 Hub over to HomeKit or would it only show first party Aqara Matter devices in HomeKit?

👍

Is this the way you talk to people In real life

Great video man! Thank you very much Whar are your thoughts about fan noise?

I bought one of the Zigbee versions before the matter version was out and mine has been great, 2 minor complaints. The motor sound is a bit loud, doesn't sound stressed or weak, just that its loud. The motor does have a nice acceleration toward the bottom and top which helps make it seem nicer. And my zigbee signal was very inconsistent while other zigbee devices near it were fine. Once I placed a repeater near it, it has worked fine for months. Just charged it for the first time since the initial install and it opens and closes once every day since September (6 months). I loved the price and I would definitely buy more for a future house. You get like 80% of the experience of the Lutron for about 40% the cost.

I like these Eve Room devices. I have two. But now that I'm getting into Home Assistant, I'm disappointed that there is no easy way to integrate them into Home Assistant.

It uses a camera 🤔but why ?

This could be good in the kitchen. Turn on your coffee machine at a certain time. Turn on your toaster. Charge your phone from the USB port and turn it on/off after 20 minutes. Kitchen night light for your midnight snack. Turn your slow cooker on at lunch time while you’re at work, off at dinner time.

I prefer they get smart designs to flatten the wall instead you end up with bulky bunch of cables

So much room for improvement

Of all the great features, one it doesn't have that I wish it did would be to use the 2nd set of prongs on the outlet to detect the presence of voltage as a 'button'. Outlets in the US often have one (or the other) of the 2 receptacles tied to a wall-switch, aka "half-hot"; if these kinds of 'cover plate' units would plug into both outlets on a half-hot receptacle then the unit could inject even more "analog" hard-wired infrastructure (a traditional wall switch or 3-way switches) into the digital HomeKit realm. For bonus points, the 2nd prong-set could flip out of the body, similar to how Apple's charger-blocks work… you'd only need to use it if you wanted. The screw-in ground prong could even be kept in that scenario. Of course, some receptacles may be wired opposite (top switched, bottom always-hot), but it is trivial to switch that wiring by anyone moderately competent in dealing with electricity. The benefit would be that an existing wall-switch or set of 3-way switches could be used to control other loads (lights) plugged into other receptacles! In a living room, for example, an existing wall-switch could be used to turn on not only an existing traditional lamp plugged into an outlet on the TP-Link, but also LED backlighting plugged into a smart switch over by the TV. Further, implementing switch toggling (turning the switch on, then off, then on again within a short timespan) could be used to activate different Scenes: a single "on" to turn the light on, 2 flips for "All On", and 3 for "Theater Mode".

Tp link has a HomeKit dimmer switch but also a matter switch Which should a HomeKit user get?

I've found that the best Apple Home product is just Home Assistant. The best Homekit camera is Scrypted. I have 3 Reolink PoE color night cameras hooked up to an NVR AND Homekit Secure video. Best of both worlds and beyond any official HKSV camera. I wish there was a lever lock Homekey lock too. Zero options currently.

I won't buy anything that requires cloud access. Either the company goes out of business or starts charging a fee and all I get is e-trash.

I connect my internet modem+router to a smart plug. This does not work if your smart plug requires a cloud service. I use the TP-Link Kasa line which I can control directly on my home network without going thru a cloud service.

I like the Kasa versions, they have power monitoring

It’s just a shame that-as far as I can tell-this doesn’t seem to work with Home Assistant.

Most of my wyze cameras are on smart plugs so I can restart them if away fro home.

I’ve been using 2 meross strips for about 3 months now. It’s a very old model relatively, but it’s been terrific. I can threaten to shut the kids pc power, and have some automation over turning off their phone charge docks and monitors when they’re not home. Never ever needed any attention from me once it was setup

Last week i "discovered" the power strip from TP-Link and i find it very interesting (even in price compares to Meross for instance), but i'm a little bit struggling if i go to this or wait for a Matter version - but it will be used for sure with Apple Home!

Shame they didn’t make this Matter compatible.

attaching to a wall is only with double adhesive?

I’ve been looking at smart power strips for a while, just haven’t pulled the trigger on any yet. Mainly would like one for my two Sonos rear speakers, which, whenever I unplug my Sonos Beam, the surrounds go offline and I have to reset them (which, on the Play:1’s, means I have to physically unplug them). I like what Tapo is doing here, but it’s definitely overkill for what I need.

Wifi = no

I believe the "share" vs "blind" language may depend on which icon you've chosen for the device in Apple Home.

Not going to mention price??