Aqara Smart Video Doorbell G4 review: A no-subscription video doorbell with some hiccups

Aqara’s Smart Video Doorbell G4, on paper at least, appears to do everything you’d want a video doorbell to do. It can connect to multiple smart home platforms, including Apple’s HomeKit, or be used on its own through Aqara’s app – if you prefer. It captures video at 1080p, has a wide field of view, and is designed well – if a little bit bulky.

I tested the G4 to see if it could keep a reliable eye on my home, and while it did the job and packed in a couple of big wins over its competition, it’s not without a number of issues and quirks that are worthy of consideration before you buy. Here’s my full review.

Aqara Video Doorbell G4

$91 $120 Save $29

The Aqara Smart Video Doorbell G4 offers plenty to like on paper, with wide smart home support, local storage and the biggie – subscription-free usage. However, some connection and reliability quirks, its bulky design plus so-so motion detection do mean there are more rounded options available.

Pros

• Good quality video
• Google Home, Amazon Alexa and Apple HomeKit support
• Free cloud storage, with support for local storage

Cons

• Bulky design
• Inconsistent motion alerts
• Some connection and reliability issues
• Only IPX3 rated

Design and installation

The Aqara Smart Video Doorbell G4 has a unique design for a video doorbell. It’s tall, wide and is hard to miss once it’s mounted next to your door. In total, it measures 141.5 × 65 × 30.4mm (around 5.57 x 2.56 x 1.2in). On the front of the housing, stacked vertically, is the doorbell button and camera. The giant circles that encase both features stick out of the doorbell housing, with a light going around the perimeter of the doorbell button. The light turns on when the doorbell detects motion or after the button is pressed.

Included in the box with the doorbell is all the mounting hardware you’ll need, including screws, a wedge to angle the doorbell if needed, and six AA batteries. Also, inside the box is a Chime Repeater, which essentially acts as a hub for the doorbell to connect to your home’s Wi-Fi network. The Repeater also has a microSD card slot that lets you set up continuous recording when you have the doorbell hardwired, instead of relying on battery power.

The Chime Repeater requires a USB-C cable (included) and a wall adapter (not included) to be powered. You’ll also need to place the Repeater within five meters of the doorbell.

The doorbell’s housing slides off the mounting plate to reveal two screws you can use for hardwiring it to your home’s electrical system if you’re replacing a hardwired doorbell. Below this connection, you’ll find a place to install six AA batteries to power it for a wireless installation instead.

Similarly to Ring’s doorbells, there’s a small security screw on the side of the doorbell’s housing that needs to be loosened before you can remove it from the mounting plate. The screw is covered by a small rubber door, and even though it’s a standard Phillips screw – so not quite as secure as the Ring version – it’s an extra layer of protection from someone stealing the doorbell.

There are a few downsides about the design. Firstly, the overall size of the doorbell means you’ll need to get creative with the installation if you’re replacing an old-fashioned doorbell that was on a door frame, or you need to fit it in a spot with minimal space. But secondly, it is only IPX3 rated – that’s on the low side compared with competitors like Nest (IP54), Wyze (IP65) and Blink (IP54), though one better than Ring’s doorbells, which have no official IP rating and are simply described as “water resistant… designed to withstand normal rainfall and snow.”

Setup and features

I’ve already touched on it a bit, but installing the Doorbell G4 is a simple process once you decide where you’re installing it. If you’re replacing an existing hardwired doorbell, you’ll need to make sure the current doorbell transformer meets the 12V-24V AC 0.2A 50/60Hz 8V-24V DC 0.5A power requirements.

If you’re going to use the G4 as a wireless doorbell, the only real considerations you have to take into account is being able to place the Chime Repeater within five meters of the doorbell. Keep in mind that the Repeater also acts as a speaker for when the doorbell button is pressed, so ideally, you’ll locate it in a central location to ensure you can hear it.

The rest of the setup process consists of launching the Aqara app on your phone to connect the Chime Repeater to your home’s Wi-Fi network, giving the doorbell a name, and assigning it to a room. Once the doorbell and Repeater are powered up, they’ll automatically connect.

From there, you can customize the area the camera monitors for motion or activity, adjust the types of alerts you’ll receive, set up Aqara’s facial recognition feature, or, perhaps most importantly, take the time to connect the doorbell to one of the smart home platforms it supports, which includes Apple Home, Amazon Alexa and Google Home.

I successfully connected the doorbell to Apple’s HomeKit and Amazon’s Alexa, but I couldn’t get it to connect to Google Home. I kept getting an error every time I tried to link the two services together, so maybe shop with caution if that’s your smart home ecosystem of choice.

With both Alexa and Apple Home connected to the doorbell, I can use an Echo Show to view a live stream of the doorbell as well as get alerts when the doorbell rings, or I can use any of my Apple devices to view a stream directly in the Home app.

As with other HomeKit-enabled video doorbells and cameras, I’ve experienced several periods during the last week when the doorbell would lose connection to my HomeKit network and go offline. Eventually, it would start working again, but I’d have these periods where nothing was recorded, and I couldn’t view a live stream, which is far from ideal.

Again, this isn’t an issue that’s specific to the Aqara G4, it’s something I’ve noted with every single HomeKit camera I’ve tested or installed in my home. Sometimes they work fine for a week, maybe a month, and then the connectivity issues start, and the camera never stays online 100 per cent of the time.

When it does work, however, it’s nice because you can use Apple’s familiar faces feature for custom alerts that include who’s at your door, get alerts on your Apple TV, and use Apple’s HomeKit Secure Video storage feature to keep all recorded clips in your iCloud account without counting against your iCloud Drive storage.

Aqara doesn’t have a subscription service for the G4 – instead, each user is given seven days of free cloud storage. However, if you opt to hardwire install the doorbell, you can use the Chime Repeater’s microSD card slot to continuously record video to the card. You can use a microSD card of up to 512GB, and when the card runs out of space, the oldest videos will be removed to make space for new footage.

Another feature worth calling out is the G4’s voice-changing feature while using the two-way talk feature to talk to someone at your door. By changing your voice to sound like a robot, clown or “uncle,” you add a layer of privacy to the interaction. This is a unique – if niche – feature that I haven’t seen on a video doorbell before. It might surprise your visitor a little bit, but at least you’ll have the video of their reaction to laugh about later.

Performance and battery life

The G4 records video at 1080p and has a field of view (FOV) of 162 degrees. That’s a fairly wide FOV – wider than the 150 degrees on the Ring Video Doorbell Plus – that will capture more of what’s going on either side of the camera, but not what’s below it. That’s something the Ring doorbell does offer, and can be a super helpful feature to monitor when packages are left by your door.

The clarity of the video captured by the G4 is good, with some pixelation around moving objects in the recorded clips, but that’s expected across pretty much all smart home cameras and video doorbells due to recording at low frame rates.

You’re still able to see what’s going on in the video, and as soon as motion slows down or stops, the video cleans up, and you’re able to see more details about who or what’s at your door.

At night, the G4 records in traditional black and white using infrared night vision. The quality of the video is degraded over video captured during the day, but, again, you’re still able to see what’s causing the alert or who’s ringing your doorbell.

I don’t have any issues with the quality of video I’ve seen from the G4, but I do have some hesitations about its motion detection capabilities, especially as someone approaches the door.

I have the doorbell mounted on a testing rig on my back porch. I have to walk past the doorbell multiple times a day as I travel from my home office to the house and back. The camera’s captured clips do a good job of starting the moment I walk out of the house towards the office, essentially walking away from the camera. However, I can’t find a single clip over my testing period that shows the trip in reverse, with me walking from my office to the door.

Instead, there are a bunch of saved clips in the Aqara app that show my shoulder or elbow as it passes the camera as I enter the house. You can’t see me at all as I make the 70-foot walk from one building to the other. According to Aqara’s FAQ, the G4’s motion detection feature can detect movement up to four meters, or about 13 feet at high sensitivity, and two meters at low sensitivity, roughly 6.5 feet. Either setting is a short distance for motion detection and is likely the cause of my main issue.

I was able to confirm this after turning motion sensitivity to the highest setting, which resulted in a clip capturing me as I approached the doorbell, from about 6 feet away. Still, that’s a much shorter distance than the competing doorbells.

For instance, Wyze’s Video Doorbell v2 was mounted next to the G4 during the testing period, and I have countless clips that properly captured me walking back to the house, starting with me in the middle of my yard and following me to the door.

The AA batteries that come with the G4 reportedly will power the doorbell for four months, based on a myriad of factors, such as the number of motion alerts, live streaming, and so on. According to the Aqara app, the batteries remained fully charged over the past week, though I expect the need for the increased sensitivity for best results will see a fair impact on the G4’s quoted battery life. For that reason, if you can, hardwiring may be the way to get the best performance from this doorbell.

Verdict

The $119 Aqara Smart Video Doorbell G4 is a worthwhile investment if you’re willing to spend the time customizing the motion settings or living with the fact that its motion just isn’t triggered as early as with other video doorbells.

It captures good-looking 1080p video and has cross-platform compatibility with Google Home, Amazon Alexa, and Apple Home, though it’s worth considering the issues I had with the former, and the inconsistencies I had with the latter if they’re what you use at home.

Aqara Video Doorbell G4

$91 $120 Save $29

Its versatility of being battery-powered or hardwired is a benefit for those who don’t want to or can’t permanently install it – though you may want to consider hardwiring it in order to amp up the sensitivity for best results, without an annoying knock-on effect on its battery life.

Perhaps one of it’s biggest plus points is that you get a week’s worth of free cloud storage from Aqara, so you don’t have to worry about pesky and sometimes expensive subscriptions. That’s on top of the fact you can use a microSD card for local continuous video storage, so long as you have it installed in a hardwired configuration.

It’s a nice doorbell, overall, but I’m not entirely sold on it being the best solution available. The aforementioned Wyze Video Doorbell v2 is a fraction of the price, as is Ring’s Video Doorbell (2nd Generation) and Video Doorbell Wired. But, they each come with their own subscription fees that you’re going to be stuck paying for each month or yearly. Decisions, decisions.