Aqara G4 Video Doorbell! The ONLY Wireless HomeKit Secure Video Doorbell! Full Review!

**Aara Video Doorbell Review**

The Aara video doorbell is a battery-powered device that offers advanced features and seamless integration with Apple devices. For local storage of videos, the device uses an internal hard drive, which can be managed through the Home app. This feature provides users with complete control over their recordings, including the ability to customize settings for when they are home versus away.

The Aara video doorbell is powered by USB-C and can be mounted discreetly under kitchen cabinets or any other location of choice. The device does not require audio input from the camera itself, allowing users to choose whether or not to use the built-in microphone. For some users, this may be a welcome feature, while others may prefer to utilize their own Apple devices, such as HomePods, Apple TV, and iPhone, to receive alerts.

One of the standout features of the Aara video doorbell is its integration with HomeKit Secure Video. This allows for secure video recording and processing locally on the user's Apple device, reducing reliance on cloud storage. The camera can detect motion and record accordingly, even when no one is present. Users can also set up custom settings to trigger recordings based on specific criteria, such as only recording when people or animals are detected.

The Aara video doorbell also offers advanced facial recognition capabilities, which can identify individuals approaching the door before they come into view. This feature is available through the Aara app and can be useful for adding an extra layer of security to the home. However, it's worth noting that the device does not offer its own AI-powered facial recognition features within the Aara app.

In terms of compatibility, there have been some issues reported between the Aara app and HomeKit Secure Video. In one instance, users experienced difficulties filtering recordings based on specific criteria, such as people detection. However, this issue can be resolved by enabling all motion detection, which allows for more precise control over recording settings.

Another limitation of the device is its inability to provide granular control over automations triggered by motion detection. Users are currently limited to either having any motion detected trigger an automation or none at all. Apple has indicated a need to improve this feature in the future, allowing users to target specific types of motion for automation triggering.

Despite these limitations, the Aara video doorbell is a significant development in the world of smart home security. Its integration with HomeKit Secure Video and advanced features make it an attractive option for users looking for a reliable and feature-rich doorbell camera. At a competitive price point of $129, this device offers a compelling alternative to other options on the market.

For users interested in purchasing the Aara video doorbell, there is currently a discount available through a promo code. This code can be accessed by checking the description below or visiting the links pinned in the comments section.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enI am so excited there is finally a wireless smart video doorbell that works with homekit secure video let's check it out welcome everybody Welcome to Apple Insider it is Andrew here I have been testing the brand new aara G4 smart video doorbell that is the first the only video doorbell that supports homekit secure video that does not have to be hardwired in all of the others such as the uh the wio one from belon the Logitech Circle view they need to be hardwired in the accar G4 is the only one that will support HSV while being completely batterypowered so let's go ahead tell you how it works how to set it up and what I like and don't like about it I've been using the accar G4 for a few months now I installed it in January and here we are at the end of March installation was super easy you basically have the doorbell you can screw the plates onto the wall you could also use an adhesive if you prefer to go that route it runs off of six batteries that are installed right there in the back very common easy to install these batteries not something weird like a coin cell battery or anything like that a car says you should get about a 4mon lifespan on the door before this battery have to be replaced as I said it's been about three or so 3 months or so for me uh 2 to 3 months for me in my installation and I have not had to replace the batteries yet and it still says I have about 34 of my battery remaining which I consider really good I might be able to exceed that 4mon time span that aara had promised on the front you'll see the actual sensor itself it's a good sensor works with night vision um and it's also a 16x9 ratio and captures video in 1080P it doesn't have that kind of square ratio that others do like the Logitech so you can't see as much lower down like a package do placed in your doorstep you wouldn't be able to see that but for different purposes um for me I'm using this on the back of my house it actually works really great cuz I don't have packages and it gives me that wider field of view the bottom has this large big button that's really easy to identify as a chime button so you can press that to ring the chime the doorbell itself that brings me to the big second part of the accara G4 video doorbell and that's the chime the chime is actually a separate box that you install inside of your house this is basically the Hub it looks like a chime it acts as the chime but it's essentially The Hub so your doorbell is actually talking to this so you must have the chime plugged in to use the acara GeForce SM video doorbell with this installed you can also use it for local storage cuz there's a micr SD card slot on it so you can use that for local storage of your videos aara also offers a 7day period of free Cloud recording if you want to use that instead of iCloud the chime is powered over USBC I just mounted mine under the kitchen cabinets so I just took it I plugged it into your USBC Port rattle that cable up out of the way barely even noticeable and it hides there you also import ly don't have to use the audio from that chime for me I don't want to use that chime I use my homepods my Apple TV and my alerts I'm getting on my iPhone and Apple watch rather than this dedicated chime that I'm putting inside of the kitchen so if you don't want to use that audio you can turn it off inside of the a car app and everything else will still work just fine and that will just act as the Hub thanks to homekit secure video anytime motion is detected it can be recorded and processed locally on your Apple TV or your other Home hubs and saved sec purely encrypted inside of iCloud everything is processed locally for AI like facial recognition using your photos Library so can detect who is actually approaching your doorbell before uh you even have seen it it can tell you who is there which works very well uh a car also offers its own AI facial recognition that you can do through its own app but again I'm using iCloud primarily so I didn't get into that all that much your recording preferences can be customized inside of the home app for example you can choose to only record when people or animals are detected or maybe people and vehicles are detected uh it's up to you when you want to trigger recording or just any motion is detected after that you can control options for when you are home versus away maybe when you're at home you want to be able to stream but you don't want to record when you're away you want to record this is a doorbell so it's outside the house so for me I want to record all the time so if somebody's approaching the doorbell and I'm still home I I want to know that so all those things will be recorded at least in my case and you can control privacy permissions for other in your household you can choose to completely block them from viewing that camera they can view the live stream or they can view recordings it is all under your control for me the aara video doorbell only has a couple minor issues first up there seem to be compatibility issues between the aara app and the home app when I tried to filter my recordings by certain things like maybe only record when there was people I ended up with no recordings inside of the home app I had actually turn that off because there wasn't uh it wasn't getting recognized properly with the AAR app something funky was going on so for me I had to enable all motion to be able to actually capture those recordings in my situation that wasn't a big deal and I didn't mind but I can see that being annoying if you have a lot of errant motion going on uh animals or other stuff or trees getting kind of getting in the way fortunately you can still use use activity zones to filter down exactly what is being captured before those alerts are triggered the bigger thing is that Apple still has more to do with homekit secure video for example you can use motion from the doorbell to trigger uh automations maybe you see motion and your porch lights turn on the problem is I would really prefer if I could only turn on the porch lights when a car or person is detected if there's a cat walking across my porch I don't need my porch lights to come on but unfortunately it's all or nothing with those automations it's either any motion is detected and then your automation is triggered Apple really needs to make that more granular so you can trigger those automations based on what your camera is seeing the fact of the matter is this is the only battery power doorbell that works with homekit secure video and and that's a big deal it's also incredibly affordable this thing is coming to Market at $129 and for at least the next couple days there is a discount on it they did provide a promo code um to a bunch of media Outlets so that promo code is down below in the description so you can save even more on this video doorbell if you are interested but I'm very excited by it this is such a huge deal to have a video powered or a battery powered doorbell that works with HSV this is phenomenal there's a lot of stuff to love here all this tight integration with your Apple products your Apple TV your homepods all of it working seamlessly together let me know what you guys think check the description down below and the links pinned in the comments let me know your thoughts in the comments or on Twitter at Andrew U otherwise stay tuned I have a lot more videos coming your wayI am so excited there is finally a wireless smart video doorbell that works with homekit secure video let's check it out welcome everybody Welcome to Apple Insider it is Andrew here I have been testing the brand new aara G4 smart video doorbell that is the first the only video doorbell that supports homekit secure video that does not have to be hardwired in all of the others such as the uh the wio one from belon the Logitech Circle view they need to be hardwired in the accar G4 is the only one that will support HSV while being completely batterypowered so let's go ahead tell you how it works how to set it up and what I like and don't like about it I've been using the accar G4 for a few months now I installed it in January and here we are at the end of March installation was super easy you basically have the doorbell you can screw the plates onto the wall you could also use an adhesive if you prefer to go that route it runs off of six batteries that are installed right there in the back very common easy to install these batteries not something weird like a coin cell battery or anything like that a car says you should get about a 4mon lifespan on the door before this battery have to be replaced as I said it's been about three or so 3 months or so for me uh 2 to 3 months for me in my installation and I have not had to replace the batteries yet and it still says I have about 34 of my battery remaining which I consider really good I might be able to exceed that 4mon time span that aara had promised on the front you'll see the actual sensor itself it's a good sensor works with night vision um and it's also a 16x9 ratio and captures video in 1080P it doesn't have that kind of square ratio that others do like the Logitech so you can't see as much lower down like a package do placed in your doorstep you wouldn't be able to see that but for different purposes um for me I'm using this on the back of my house it actually works really great cuz I don't have packages and it gives me that wider field of view the bottom has this large big button that's really easy to identify as a chime button so you can press that to ring the chime the doorbell itself that brings me to the big second part of the accara G4 video doorbell and that's the chime the chime is actually a separate box that you install inside of your house this is basically the Hub it looks like a chime it acts as the chime but it's essentially The Hub so your doorbell is actually talking to this so you must have the chime plugged in to use the acara GeForce SM video doorbell with this installed you can also use it for local storage cuz there's a micr SD card slot on it so you can use that for local storage of your videos aara also offers a 7day period of free Cloud recording if you want to use that instead of iCloud the chime is powered over USBC I just mounted mine under the kitchen cabinets so I just took it I plugged it into your USBC Port rattle that cable up out of the way barely even noticeable and it hides there you also import ly don't have to use the audio from that chime for me I don't want to use that chime I use my homepods my Apple TV and my alerts I'm getting on my iPhone and Apple watch rather than this dedicated chime that I'm putting inside of the kitchen so if you don't want to use that audio you can turn it off inside of the a car app and everything else will still work just fine and that will just act as the Hub thanks to homekit secure video anytime motion is detected it can be recorded and processed locally on your Apple TV or your other Home hubs and saved sec purely encrypted inside of iCloud everything is processed locally for AI like facial recognition using your photos Library so can detect who is actually approaching your doorbell before uh you even have seen it it can tell you who is there which works very well uh a car also offers its own AI facial recognition that you can do through its own app but again I'm using iCloud primarily so I didn't get into that all that much your recording preferences can be customized inside of the home app for example you can choose to only record when people or animals are detected or maybe people and vehicles are detected uh it's up to you when you want to trigger recording or just any motion is detected after that you can control options for when you are home versus away maybe when you're at home you want to be able to stream but you don't want to record when you're away you want to record this is a doorbell so it's outside the house so for me I want to record all the time so if somebody's approaching the doorbell and I'm still home I I want to know that so all those things will be recorded at least in my case and you can control privacy permissions for other in your household you can choose to completely block them from viewing that camera they can view the live stream or they can view recordings it is all under your control for me the aara video doorbell only has a couple minor issues first up there seem to be compatibility issues between the aara app and the home app when I tried to filter my recordings by certain things like maybe only record when there was people I ended up with no recordings inside of the home app I had actually turn that off because there wasn't uh it wasn't getting recognized properly with the AAR app something funky was going on so for me I had to enable all motion to be able to actually capture those recordings in my situation that wasn't a big deal and I didn't mind but I can see that being annoying if you have a lot of errant motion going on uh animals or other stuff or trees getting kind of getting in the way fortunately you can still use use activity zones to filter down exactly what is being captured before those alerts are triggered the bigger thing is that Apple still has more to do with homekit secure video for example you can use motion from the doorbell to trigger uh automations maybe you see motion and your porch lights turn on the problem is I would really prefer if I could only turn on the porch lights when a car or person is detected if there's a cat walking across my porch I don't need my porch lights to come on but unfortunately it's all or nothing with those automations it's either any motion is detected and then your automation is triggered Apple really needs to make that more granular so you can trigger those automations based on what your camera is seeing the fact of the matter is this is the only battery power doorbell that works with homekit secure video and and that's a big deal it's also incredibly affordable this thing is coming to Market at $129 and for at least the next couple days there is a discount on it they did provide a promo code um to a bunch of media Outlets so that promo code is down below in the description so you can save even more on this video doorbell if you are interested but I'm very excited by it this is such a huge deal to have a video powered or a battery powered doorbell that works with HSV this is phenomenal there's a lot of stuff to love here all this tight integration with your Apple products your Apple TV your homepods all of it working seamlessly together let me know what you guys think check the description down below and the links pinned in the comments let me know your thoughts in the comments or on Twitter at Andrew U otherwise stay tuned I have a lot more videos coming your way\n"