Aqara G4 Doorbell Review: Detailed Test Results
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This product was purchased for this review.
Tested with scoring system 1.0
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Pros
✔ Excels at detecting someone at the door✔ Great video and audio quality
✔ Very capable for use with HomeKit
Cons
✗ Only short range motion detection✗ No package monitoring capability
✗ Overheats in direct sunlight
The Verdict
The Aqara G4 Smart Video Doorbell performs exceptionally well in a purely doorbell role when greeting guests and achieved high scores across most criteria in my tests. Doorbell ring notifications are lightning fast and responding to those notifications with the live view is quick and easy. This is rounded out with excellent video and audio quality, a loud indoor chime accessory, custom ring tones, and a voice changer feature.
Person detection is also extremely reliable and accurate within range of the doorbell’s motion sensors, but my testing found that usage as a security device is hampered by two key factors: a very short motion detection range and problematic alert delivery times. These could result in missing important activity in time, or not detecting activity that’s not literally on your porch.
The Aqara G4 is one of the few video doorbells that support Apple’s HomeKit Secure Video feature, and the only one to do so on battery power. My tests found that The Apple Home app largely resolves the notification issues, with far better response times and full thumbnails, faster live streaming, and - on wired power - longer pre-roll recording that helps to cover the full duration of recorded events.
For keeping an eye on deliveries you’ll also want to consider other options. The G4 provides no package detection features, and the 16:9 aspect ratio limits the view of the ground too much to see anything placed there. If all you want is a good doorbell that’s reliable and easy to set up, then the Aqara G4 is a good fit. I did encounter issues with overheating in direct sunlight, however, and considering its limited IPX3 water resistance rating you’ll want to be able install in under cover.
Type: Hybrid battery/wired doorbell
Subscription: Optional 30-day storage
Price Segment: $100-$150
The Basics
Tech Specs
Power: Wired or BatteryRemovable Battery: Yes
Can Use Wired Chime: No
Connectivity: Wi-Fi 2.4GHz
Resolution: 1080p
Storage: SD/HKSV/Cloud
Weather Rating: IPX3
Field of View: 162 degrees
Compatibility: Alexa, Google, HomeKit
Smart Detection: Yes
Notable Features:
- Pre-roll recording
- Tamper alarm
- Custom ringtones
- Voice changer
- Uses AA batteries
The Aqara G4 presents as a modern, minimalist doorbell with a matt black rectangular form and a large, raised button balancing the circular enclosure of the camera elements. Beneath the button is a light ring that indicates the recording state of the camera: blue for standby, red for recording, and green to indicate when the button is pressed.
Power is provided either by six regular AA batteries (included) which give a surprisingly long battery life, or wired power from an AC doorbell transformer or a DC wall adapter up to 24 volts. Live streaming and event recording times were shown to be dramatically improved during wired testing.
The unit is mounted via the backplate which can be screwed to the wall using two of the provided screws and anchors, or by using the pre-attached adhesive backing for a less destructive option. The same can be done with the included 15-degree wedge plate if off-center installation is required.
I had worried that the mounting plate looked a bit flimsy and would distort on uneven surfaces, but it’s a solid, high-quality plastic and holds up well, with the hooks into the doorbell itself sliding in easily and securely even when slightly bent. A single screw in the top right side secures the doorbell to the mount. This is spring loaded both for easy removal, and so that it is held to the doorbell and won’t be lost.
Connectivity is via the included chime hub. The two devices are factory paired and must be used together. The chime provides Wi-Fi connectivity and is how Aqara has been able to use the doorbell with HomeKit when running on batteries.
Video Storage
Local SD Card (in chime hub) up to 512GB - kept for 7 days
HomeKit Secure Video (with iCloud subscription) - kept for 10 days
Aqara Cloud (optional subscription) - kept for 30 days
Chime Options
Included Chime Hub (USB powered)
Google and Alexa smart speakers
Apple HomePod when using with HomeKit
Everything you get in the box
The G4 open, showing the battery compartment
The single security screw and it’s weather cover
Camera Performance
The Aqara G4 has a video resolution of standard 1080p with a standard widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio. This is likely a cost consideration as well as being constrained by compatibility with HomeKit, which mandates this format for cameras. I found the video quality of the camera to be reasonably good, scoring a respectable 7.3 for daytime clarity with the test chart detail visible out to 5.8m (19ft).
The video image is clean and stable with no significant compression artifacts present and good color balance representing the scene in various lighting conditions. The only obvious camera fluctuation occurred with a bright point light source (ie: the sun) is directly in the frame. This causes significant lens flare which could obscure some details under the right circumstances.
The supports a couple of novel features to aid video quality. Lens correction can be enabled to reduce fish eye distortion from the 160-degree wide angle lens, and power frequency can be selected to reduce interference from electrical sources if any is present. The below samples have lens correction enabled (there’s no down side), but I didn’t find the power frequency correction necessary in my tests.
Significant lens flare with bright light sources
At night the Aqara G4 performed particularly well with one of the higher test results for infra-red range. The test chart could be read at an impressive 5.6m (18ft), almost the same as in daylight. This indicates the infra-red illumination was almost good enough to allow the camera to reach its maximum effective clarity, which is unusually good.
You can see in the video sample that this illumination is very much forward focused, with almost no illumination around the edges of the camera’s wide field of view. Focusing the IR LEDs forward in this way would help to concentrate their output where it counts in most cases. It’s clearly effective.
One odd effect I observed is when a large enough bright object is present near the center of the image in this mode. This causes some sort of bloom effect which can be seen as I get near to the camera. The reflective polyester (even though black) is bright enough to cause this when it fills the frame, but I’ve also seen it during twilight with a glowing cloud in the background. While worth noting, I don’t see this ever being a significant issue in terms of visibility.
While there is no explicit HDR setting in the Aqara app, the G4 handles things quite well. I was able to clearly discern 9 swatches in the HDR test chart, which is equivalent to higher quality cameras from the likes of Eufy, and slightly better than other tested models to date.
The camera has no problems making our details in shadow with bright backlighting, which is common visitors will be in shade during the day. As with other doorbell cameras you will experience some over exposure in bright sunlight on very light-colored objects. This is a consideration for the test, but not an issue in practical terms.
Audio Performance
Performance when talking to a visitor is a somewhat mixed bag. On the one hand, the audio quality itself is excellent. Both parties reported no artifacts, drop outs, or distortion in the spoken audio, and the voice reproduction was good.
The small downside was in the audible range. The microphone could only pick up normal speech out to 3.5m (11ft), and the speaker could be heard clearly out to 5m (16ft). This is by no means bad, and is more than adequate for talking to someone at the door. It does limit the ability to communicate with someone further away, but this is not likely to come up often given the limited motion detection distance on offer (we’ll get to that in a moment).
As with the two-way talk tests, recorded audio also suffered no obvious corruption, distortion, or dropouts in any of the recorded events during the test cycle yeilding a perfect score for this criterion. Spoken audio in range of the microphone was clear and easily understood under all circumstances, included during windy conditions (although wind noise was present).
Some compression artifacts could be observed during longer duration, loud noises such as the garage door opening, but these were not observed to a significant extent in human speech, which is the primary focus.
Notification Performance
Aqara App
Notification performance was one of the biggest let downs I found with the G4 doorbell. In order to effectively be able to respond to a visitor or delivery it’s imperative that a notification of the motion event be sent as fast as possible. It’s also tremendously useful to have rich notifications where you can see at a glance what has triggered the motion sensor. This not only saves a lot of time determining whether to respond but ensures that false positives can be easily ignored without reducing the effectiveness of the alerts.
Unfortunately, Aqara has dropped the ball on both counts. Not only does the Aqara app not support rich notifications at all, but the delivery time is woefully slow. This is doubly unfortunate since when I initially started the test cycle the response times averaged an impressive 3.3 seconds, but during the cycle an app update was pushed that blew this out to 29 seconds. That’s more than long enough for anyone to have walked away by the time you get it, which defeats the purpose entirely.
To ensure there was not something in my configuration that had caused this I reset everything, ensured the region was set correctly, and disabled HomeKit processing. The poor notification times remained on both battery and wired power. I’ve regularly checked again past the 30-day test cycle and have not observed any improvement. The only saving grace here is that doorbell presses are still very fast, coming in consistently within 2 seconds.
Apple Home
When using the G4 with HomeKit Secure Video, the notification issues go away almost completely. Firstly, rich thumbnails are the default, and the Home app was able to delivery notifications in a usable time span with some variance depending on the notification setting used.
When notifying of ‘any motion’ the delivery time is very fast at around 3 seconds, but can be prone to some false positives if there is a lot of surplus motion in the scene.
Filtering this to specific motion types cuts the false positives (HomeKit does a good job of object identification) but increases the delivery time to around 13 seconds due to the extra processing required. This also exhibited significant variability between 7 and 20 seconds. Longer outliers were experience on battery power, but there was no strong correlation as to when longer or shorter delays would occur. This is mostly down to how busy the home hub is with other camera events at that moment.
Using the Aqara G4 with HomeKit will result in a significantly better experience here.
The Aqara app gets a ‘Not Applicable’ here since no thumbnails can be provided at all. HomeKit, conversely, always generates them by default. Effective thumbnails (those capturing the subject of the motion event) where captured and delivered 86% of the time, a particularly good result compared with other doorbells.
Wired powered produced much better results here due to pre-roll video being available. This ensures the source of the event is captured before the motion sensor is triggered, so useful thumbnails can be generated more often. The only times this didn’t occur was in some night tests where the subject was not identified accurately.
On battery power the thumbnail was missed quite often in the lateral crossing tests as the short motion detection range precluded capturing the subject by the time the camera started recording. This dropped the effective rate down to 63%, which is closer to average for this price range.
Motion Detection Performance
Aqara has chosen to focus the G4 on monitoring the space in front of the door specifically, rather than trying to provide full security camera capabilities. General motion detection is not really on offer, but instead you get ‘loitering alerts’. This allows you to specify a duration in seconds (default is 3) that someone has to be in range of the camera to trigger an alert.
Thankfully, motion within that range is detected with very high reliability. With a 98% detection success rate, this is the highest I’ve seen in any doorbell, and applies day or night.
Wake delay measures how long it takes the camera to begin recording a motion event. This is tested by crossing in front of the camera at close range and determining how much of the frame is left before recording starts. In the Aqara app the fullscreen frame is 12.5cm wide and 12.7cm in the Apple Home app.
The G4 performs perfectly when on wired power, with both the Aqara app and the Apple Home app benefitting from pre-roll recording. This means a video buffer of a few seconds is maintained by the doorbell and appended to the beginning of a motion event to capture the entire span of movement. Effective pre-roll means the subject enters the frame after the recording begins, resulting in a perfect score.
On battery power things are significantly different. With no pre-roll and a short motion detection range, the camera is started late, and often towards the end of the crossing. This results in an average remaining frame width of 3.8cm. That equates to a fairly poor score of 2.7 for both apps.
The ability to capture an event on video is measured by approaching the doorbell from the front from a starting distance of 10m (30ft). The distance recording begins determines how effectively the doorbell can record motion. This factors in the maximum motion detection range, and as well how quickly the camera can begin recording. Poor results here can mean missed events or a lack of context about what happened, and also typically impacts the notification delivery times.
The G4 has two sensitivity settings: low and high. Aqara says these give a detection range or about 3 and 4 meters respectively. I was only able to get a maximum of 3.5m on high, and only 2.5m on low, which handicaps this score somewhat. That’s pretty short and means if someone is passing through or does a quick drop off, they’ll be on the way out of shot by the time the camera starts.
Results in this metric were very mixed in my tests. While performance between the native app and HomeKit were very comparable on battery power, being largely dependent on the camera response time and low motion detection range, we again see considerable improvement on wired power thanks to pre-roll recording providing a much better event capture duration.
On wired power, the Aqara app managed captures lengths of between 1.3m and 5.7m with an average of 3.4m. HomeKit seems to have a much more generous pre-roll and faster object processing, being done on the home hub rather than the doorbell itself. HomeKit Secure Video managed an almost perfect score, with pre-roll recording capturing the full motion event most of the time. There were only a handful of exceptions with a 6.2m run at night, and a 7.5m run in the morning tests. Overall HomeKit managed an excellent average capture length of 9.4m.
Smart Detection Performance
The Aqara G4 does not support any kind of package monitoring or detection, and the 16:9 aspect ratio used by the camera severely limits any visibility of the ground or the typical area a package may be placed in front of the doorbell at typical mounting heights. As such, this score is Not Applicable.
Feature scoring:
✘ Visibility of the test package directly below doorbell.
✘ Visibility of porch area in front of the doorbell.
✘ More than 30 degrees off center visibility to the side.
✘ Presence of active package alerting feature.
✘ Presence of additional package alerts
I did perform some package detection accuracy tests in HomeKit, as this platform does support package detection. However, in order to do this I had to drop the package 2.5m (8ft) away from the door in order for it to be in the frame. Not only is this unrealistic, but the small size of the package in the video frame likely impacted the detection accuracy.
On wired power HomeKit was able to identify the packages 75% of the time, but only 35% on battery power. Using HomeKit for this role might be viable in certain installation scenarios such as corner mounting, which would place the wall on either side in the frame.
Aqara has focused on person detection only, and this function is built-in to the doorbell, and is the only detection method available. The app actually calls this ‘loitering alerts’ which allow you to be notified and record only if a person is present in front of the doorbell for a defined time. The default time is 3 seconds, but you can set this to 0 if you want to capture everything.
The detection accuracy was perfect with very few false positives during the whole test cycle. This is good because the Aqara app has no provision for defining motion zones to filter out unwanted activity. That’s taken care of by the very short motion detection range so that only activity in close proximity to the doorbell is detected anyway.
Facial recognition is available as a feature, but there is some cloud dependance which may put some people off. I didn’t find it particularly useful, with a very poor detection rate, and little benefit other than appending my name to the ‘person detected’ notification. It will also note the identified person in the device logs and allows you to define specific event indicators on the timeline view for specific people. I just don’t see why you would bother.
With a 100% detection accuracy rate, the only thing dragging down this score is the lack of other smart features.
Feature scoring:
✘ Custom motion zones.
✔ Person detection.
✘ Animal Detection.
✘ Vehicle Detection.
✔ Facial Recognition.
Loitering alert settings
Face recognition settings
Timeline events I have configured
Battery Performance
While the G4 Smart doorbell can be powered from regular doorbell transformers, or even a DC plug-in adapter, a big draw card is the fact it can provide full HomeKit Secure Video support on just battery power. Apple requires permanent power for certification, but Aqara has got around this by mandating the use of a chime hub as an intermediary. The hub handles the HomeKit communication and has a permanent supply (via USB) so this works.
The other unusual trait here is the use of regular AA batteries. The G4 takes 6 batteries (which are included) in two separate banks. Most hybrid doorbells run off their rechargeable battery and only use the wired power to keep it charged. As these batteries are not rechargeable, the G4 can run on wired power with none inserted, simplifying installation and maintenance as you don’t have to worry about battery drain or lifetime.
After the intensive 30-day test cycle, the AA batteries were reported by the Aqara app to be at 80%. This is impressive on a comparative basis, but no other doorbells I’ve tested use non-rechargeable batteries, so the estimation of battery life is likely not apple-to-apples as alkaline batteries, like these, have a different discharge profile to lithium-ion.
We can see in the graph how the doorbell can only provide broad estimates of the battery state of charge. Aqara only reports in 20% increments. Even when the charge level was reported as zero, the G4 continued to work fine for another week. Overall total run time was comparable to rechargeable models, giving consistent performance right up to the day it died after 87 days of intensive use.
Battery life can be extended significantly by switching the doorbell to Power Saving Mode. This makes it only run as a doorbell, and won’t wake up based on motion detection, only when the doorbell is pressed. You’ll lose a lot of utility doing this, but it’s an option if super long battery life is more important.
Battery Level Over Time
App Experience
Live view response was consistently fast, with the Aqara app starting the live stream within an average of 4.6 seconds on battery, and 2.1 seconds on wired power. That’s an excellent response time, and there was very little variation here. HomeKit Secure Video was able to do it even faster, with battery power starting in 2.4 seconds, and wired in a blazing fast 0.9 seconds.
Doorbell response times were similarly quick. These take a little longer as the app has to open first from the notification screen. The Aqara app got the stream running in 5.4 seconds, while Apple Home was into the live stream in 4.3 seconds. This is a very usaeable time frame, and ensures guests won’t be left waiting for an awkward length of time.
Aqara scores well on security features with robust sharing and device access controls, two-factor authentication on offer via both email and authenticator apps, and long duration device-based auth tokens for secure access. Videos are encrypted on device before being send to the optional cloud service, so they appear to be encrypted there without the possibility of company access (I can’t be certain on this point).
Firmware updates for the doorbell are pushed automatically, and a log of updates is available to check - albeit a bit buried in the settings.
For HomeKit users, the Aqara app supports ‘HomeKit mode’ which allows you to configure and use Aqara devices in HomeKit without needing to sign up for an account or log in. This uses direct HomeKit integration like other HomeKit client apps, preserving privacy and eliminating any cloud exposure.
Privacy features are more limited, however. There’s no easy way to quickly disable recording, and no option to turn off audio recording. This can be useful in communal settings like apartment buildings where you might not want to record other tenants’ conversations in the public areas.
There is a privacy zone feature which involves blacking out small squares on a grid to conceal areas of the video. It’s not as flexible as a custom privacy zone implementation, but it gets the job done and allows you to obscure areas that you don’t want to ever be captured on video.
These features combine to give Aqara a 12 out of a possible 16 points for this category.
The Aqara app is built around supporting Aqara entire line up of smart home products, as well as acting as its own smart home platform with automations and integrations between devices. As such it’s not specifically tailored around security cameras, and this results in some less than perfect settings placement. For the most part the app is straightforward, and most things are where you would expect them to be, but there are enough features that I had to hunt for or simply had no idea existed until I stumbled on them much later.
Non-obvious features generally do have diagrams or explanations, which is good, but some of the setting descriptions can also be confusing, like the Recording options under each alert type which are ambiguous about the handling of SD Cards. Several dependencies between features and settings are also poorly explained.
There are various options that will be more familiar to users of the wider Aqara ecosystem but will be awkward for new users to find, such as the Maintenance page under your account profile where you can find the actual battery percentage for the doorbell. This is not provided anywhere in the doorbell specific pages (although there is a small battery status icon, the percentage is not shown).
The app overall has a mature feel, even if it could use some minor reorganization. It never failed to load correctly for me - but does have a short delay while it ‘loads resources’ - and there were no noticeable bugs or issues that got in my way.
Basic device settings for the G4
The device log screen
The power mode settings
Aqara has provided a Timeline view which is supposed to allow you to present video clips of interest on a timeline for each day. Timelines are my preferred way of perusing the events in a given period as they should provide a better holistic view of everything that went down and allow you to quickly scroll through things to find what you need to know. Ring’s implementation is best-in-class and is truly magical to use, Apple has copied this with the Home app - although not as well - which can be used with the G4 just fine. Aqara’s implementation is poor, however.
Setting up the events to show is unintuitive to start with, and once done each event is only shown as a colored line on the timeline. The app will autoplay the nearest event, even if it’s not from the day you’re currently looking at and trying to move between events is kludgy at best. It’s more often an exercise in frustration as it simply doesn’t appear to be doing what you want and doesn’t make it clear which event you are looking at.
Thankfully, you don’t have to use the Timeline at all, and I’d argue it’s a solution looking for a problem. The default when opening the doorbell page is to be presented with the live view and a list of recorded events. This list is typical of most camera apps with each time stamped row given a thumbnail and an event type (person, doorbell ring, face detected, etc). You can play these with a simple tap or filter them by date and type.
In the video player it’s easy to jog back and forth through the clip by moving the position indicator. This is responsive and works as expected. You can also quickly flick between clips by swiping left and right on the video frame which makes it easy to check through multiple events.
While you can store these videos locally using a Micro SD Card in the chime hub, and this supports up to 512GB, the app will only allow you to keep the last 7 days of clips. This seems to be an arbitrary limit to entice sign ups to the cloud service subscription, which keeps videos for 30 days.
The default doorbell view
The ‘Timeline’ view - don’t bother
The live view with voice changer options
Smart Home Features
Integration with Google and Alexa smart speakers to use as indoor chimes.
Full support for HomeKit Secure Video. This allows for secure video recording to iCloud, full object detection, custom motion zones, rich notifications, and the use of HomePods as chimes. Additionally, recognized people will be announced by Siri if they press the button.
Extra Features
Voice changer - This allows you to select from three different voice filters while using two-way talk. The filers work, but they’re obviously artificial, so you won’t be fooling anyone. The do work well enough to conceal the nature of the speaker, however, which is the main purpose.
Custom ring tones - You can upload up to 10 MP3 files of your choice to use as ringtones, these can then be selected to use for the Chime hub. The doorbell itself doesn’t play a chime.
Temperture alerts - Extra notifications to warn you when the doorbell is getting too hot or too cold. These events can hamper battery life or operation. I found direct sunlight on a warm day would consistently trigger an over temperature alert. Motion events and notifications seemed largely unaffected, but live view became very unreliable which has a big impact on HomeKit integration.
Alternatives
Better Package Security
The E340 from Eufy Security is a dual cam design that specifically watches over the porch space with its Delivery Guard features. These features will alert you when a package is delivered, when someone is lurking around them, when they are picked up, and can even remind you to collect them at a certain time.
Built-in LED lighting is included which can illuminated the area when motion is detected, and automated voice warnings can be configured for certain times of day to play when people approach. The E340 can use its removable battery pack or wired power and scores well on video quality, motion detection, and battery life.
Lower Cost
The WUUK Smart Doorbell Pro offers dual motion detection with infra-red sensors and built-in radar, a very good 2K camera and fast, rich notifications.
This is a better option for wider security monitoring than the Aqara G4 thanks to better motion detection range and night vision performance. Audio quality is a problem, however, so this isn’t the one to go for if two-way talk is important.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is the Aqara Doorbell made?
Aqara is the international smart home brand of Lumi United Technology, a Chinese tech company with financial ties to Xiaomi. Clouds services are provided by regional data centers around the world in order to comply with local data protection laws, and the products are manufactured in China.
Do you need to use the Chime hub?
Yes, each G4 doorbell is factory paired with the included hub and uses this for it’s data connection. The chime hub connects to your 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi network and is powered by a standard USB-C cable.
What size SD Card is needed?
While the chime hub supports Micro SD Cards up to 512GB in size, you can only store 7 days of clips without a cloud subscription. Even with intensive test usage I only used 10GB of storage, so a 32GB card would be more than enough.
See our video doorbell guides to learn more about other models, features, and options.
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