Creating your own alarm system is easier than ever thanks to HomeKit and Aqara accessories, with which you can design a security system tailored to your needs, with no monthly fees and for very little money.
The purpose of home automation is to make our daily tasks around the house easier, and although it has a reputation for being an “expensive whim”, the reality is that it can help us save a lot of money. Did you know that you can create your own fully HomeKit-enabled home alarm security system? Well, it’s quite simple and it will also cost you very little money with Aqara devices which have excellent value for money.
Requirements
To configure your security system with Aqara, you must have, in addition to a HomeKit center (Apple TV or HomePod) that allows you to access remotely and be able to add devices to your home automation network, a Hub or a bridge to which the accessories of Aqara. Most devices from this manufacturer do not connect directly to HomeKit, but rather via this Hub. In addition must meet the requirement to support HomeKit security system functionality. To meet these two requirements, we have two accessories:
- Aqara M1S: Hub with built-in speaker and light. It is priced at $56 on Amazon (link). You can see the full review at this link.
- Aqara G3 Camera Hub: a camera with advanced features and compatibility with HomEKit Secure video. Its price on Amazon is 155$ (link). You can see the full review at this link.
As Aqara powerhouses, both devices are great and will make any accessories you connect to them compatible with HomeKit as well. As an alarm system, they are different. The Aqara M1S is a more powerful speaker with more powerful light. The G3 Hub camera in these two aspects is more limited, but in return it is a camera with very advanced functions with facial recognition, motion detector, motorized… It all depends on what you need.
Once you have the control panels, you only have to decide which Aqara accessories you can use as detectors that will activate the alarm if necessary. Vibration, water leak, movement, door or window opening sensors… For this analysis we will test the door and window opening sensor and the motion sensortwo fundamental elements of any alarm system.
- Aqara motion sensor on Amazon for 25$ (link)
- Aqara door and window sensor on Amazon for 20$ (link)
Setting
For the process of setting up the Hubs, I refer you to the opinions of each of them that I indicated above with their links. Once configured, we must add the Aqara accessories that we want to use, the motion detector and the door and window sensor. They must be added from the Aqara application and linked to the bridge that we have installed. Once added to our Aqara network, they will automatically be added to Home and HomeKitwithout having to repeat the configuration process.
Now we need to configure the alarm system, which we will also do in the Aqara application. On the main screen we have it at the top center, and Upon first entry, all four alarm modes will appear with four red marks, indicating that they are not configured.
- Guard 7/24: always activated. It is used for sensors that must always work, such as the water leak sensor. It cannot be disabled.
- Home Guard: system activated when we are at home. For example, the sensors we have in the garden.
- Away Guard: system activated when we are away from home.
- Night Guard: system activated at night.
We don’t have to configure them all, only the one or ones we are going to use. In this example, we will configure the Away Guard. By clicking on it, the configuration options will appear, including an activation delay to give us time to leave the house, the section in which we have to choose which sensors should work with this active mode, a delay in the alarm when something is detected, so that it allows us to enter the house and not ring immediately, as well as the sound we want to make. For more details on the setup, take a look at the video where you can see everything step by step.
HomeKit
And where does HomeKit come into all of this? So while we haven’t touched the Home app at all so far, everything we’ve done in the Aqara app has been mirrored in Apple’s native app for HomeKit, and not only will we have added the motion and door sensors, but the alarm system will be configured and we can activate and deactivate it in all the modalities that we have configured. All the configuration of the alarm system will have to be done in Aqara, all the modifications you want to add too, but the control of it can be done entirely at home.
Being in HomeKit we have all the advantages of its integration with the system, so we can use Siri on any device to activate the alarm, we will have remote access from anywhere, we can use automations , etc When the alarm is active and the motion sensor detects something, or we open the door with the door and window sensor, the the alarm will go off by emitting the sound we have chosen and with a flashing red light. In the event that we are not at home and we do not hear the alarm, we will receive a critical notification, which will sound even when the do not disturb mode is active. Our home alarm system will already be in operation. And we can add more devices whenever we want, without having to pay a monthly fee.
