Hands on with Aqara’s new Matter

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Today, the G350 only supports Matter on Samsung SmartThings , as none of the other platforms have added Matter 1.5 yet.

I’ve only had the camera setup for a day, and it took several firmware updates before I could connect it as a Matter camera.

So far, all it can do is stream a live feed, which is far less than what Samsung promises Matter cameras in SmartThings will do .

But there’s plenty of potential here.

The G350 has impressive specs for an indoor camera.

It boasts dual-lenses — a 4K wide-angle lens and a 2.5K telephoto lens — and up to 9x hybrid zoom.

A compact pan-tilt mechanism provides 360-degree coverage with auto-tracking for people and pets, and a physical lens shutter activates when the camera is turned off.

Instead, I added it to Aqara’s app.

Here, it showed as a camera and eventually offered me several firmware updates, one of which brought Matter 1.5 support, finally allowing me to add it to SmartThings as a camera using Matter’s multi-admin feature.

(You’ll need a SmartThings Matter Controller to connect to the platform.)
According to Samsung , the SmartThings app should offer all of those features, though not all are available yet.

I was only able to view a livestream, take a snapshot, and use two-way talk.

While I saw controls for pan, tilt, and zoom, and a tab for video history, I wasn’t able to use them.

According to the Matter Alpha blog , this is because the G350 doesn’t support pan-tilt controls in Matter yet, but they should be coming via a firmware update.

The livestream was clear and responsive, and it loaded instantly with no lag, with only a second or two of initial buffering.

Two-way talk worked well, and I could hear and be heard clearly.

Matter is a local protocol, and you really see its benefits here.

A settings page showed options for motion-activated recording, adjusting the camera’s resolution and volume, and creating presets to monitor different areas.

However, only the volume and resolution buttons worked.

I couldn’t toggle on recording or view any recorded video in the SmartThings app’s History tab, even with a microSD card in the camera.

The scrollable timeline just said “no history.”
It’s not clear whether you’ll need a subscription to view recorded footage through SmartThings, or if you’ll need to use Aqara’s service, starting at $4.99 a month / $49.99 annually, if you don’t use local storage.

I’ve reached out to Samsung to confirm and will update this article when I know more.

There wasn’t any option in the app to enable smart alerts, such as facial recognition and package and vehicle alerts, that the G350 offers.

For those, you’ll still need to rely on Aqara’s app.

I did have a weird experience with Android versus iOS.

Only the livestream showed in the SmartThings app on my Galaxy S22 Ultra, no controls.

It also just showed a blank settings screen.

But on my iPhone 17 Pro, the controls were visible, as was the settings page.

Photography by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge
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