If you're planning on a summer vacation, ensure your home is protected, the smart way, with Aqara.

Going on a summer vacation but worried about the safety of your house? Don’t be. The Aqara ecosystem is here to solve your security problems while you are away.

Aqara’s products promise to make home automation a DIY project without hidden fees and annoying subscriptions.

Let’s take a close look at Aqara’s family of products and see why you need them.

The centerpiece of Aqara’s security system is the CameraHub G3. In situations like summer vacations when you are not home for weeks at a time, the Camera G3 is an essential piece of smart surveillance tech.

The Camera G3 is an AI-driven smart home camera that can recognize and remember you and your family members. It will sound a siren with its built-in speaker and alert you by mobile notifications if anyone walks in and it can recognize a known face. All you have to do is import the photos of you and your family, and the NPU-enabled AI engine will take care of the rest. The camera will also react to any unexpected motion detection or abnormal sound in the room.

The G3 camera has a 360-degree viewing angle. The 110-degree lens combined with extensive pan and tilt functionality ensures that the camera has a full range of motion and leaves no blind spots.

So, there are no safe spaces for an intruder to hide. It can also be set to a cruise mode with pre-determined paths. The pan and tilt motor allows the camera to track a person or a pet, so pet owners can keep an eye on the pets when they’re out of town. Two-way audio is supported, which means you can talk to your pet or the pet sitter if needed.

The camera also responds when any of the connected Aqara sensors are triggered. Yes, the camera can connect to other Aqara devices. The G3 is also a certified Zigbee 3.0 hub and it connects to up to 128 Aqara devices, enabling a DIY home security system or even full home automation with remote control functionality.

Integrating the Camera Hub G3 into your existing home network is a breeze. It is compatible with all leading smart home ecosystems including Apple HomeKit, Google Home, and Amazon Alexa.

All in all, if you are looking for a perfect DIY home automation solution to watch over your house while you are out enjoying the sun, the Camera G3 should form the core of your smart home efforts.

Smart sensors are the essential part of a home security system, complementary to surveillance cameras. It gives you peace of mind when you know all of the doors and windows in your house remain securely closed, and no movement can be detected in any corner of your house. This is where Aqara’s best-selling sensors come in.

The Aqara Window and Door Sensor attaches to windows and doors and detects when they are open. The Aqara Motion Sensor, as the name suggests, detects motion with its infrared sensor which recognizes the movement of the heating source. The Aqara sensors are based on the Zigbee protocol, which ensures immediate response and high reliability.

Integrating the sensors in your existing smart home setup can provide a much-needed boost in your home security, especially during summer vacations when a lot of homes are empty.

Another way to deter burglars from entering your house is to not show your absence, in other words, to make your house look lived in. Many experts advise asking a friend to collect the mail when you’re away, and to cancel any milk or newspaper deliveries before leaving town.

The good news is that smart home accessories make it easier for you to disguise your absence. Use the Aqara Wall Switch and the Aqara Smart Plug to turn on your light fixtures and lamps in the dark, and turn them off after midnight. You can set a schedule for your lights before the vacation, and the lights will be on and off automatically like someone is home.

To make it more secure, you can set different schedules for different rooms and for different days of the week, so the lights aren’t on and off in the same pattern. Irregular light is an obvious sign of a lived-in house.

Another Aqara device we recommend is the newly-released Curtain Driver E1, which mounts on the existing curtain and automates it. It has a built-in light sensor, allowing the curtain to open and close automatically based on sunlight. Pre-set schedules and remote control is also possible. With a giant 6000mAh rechargeable battery, the Curtain Driver E1 will keep going and outlast your summer vacations.

If you are looking for a DIY, subscription-free smart home solution that can keep watch over your house while you are away this summer, the Aqara product lineup with a wide range of compatibility is the way to go.

Fawad is a full-time freelance writer. He loves technology and food. When he is not eating or writing about Windows, he is either playing video games or daydreaming about traveling.

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