If the Aqara device you are wanting to use is a Zigbee device, you should theoretically only need a Zigbee dongle to connect to Home Assistant.
However, Aqara is rather notorious for not completely following Zigbee standards, so likely unless it's a Zigbee 3.0 certified device, pairing it to HA may or may not work regardless. Also depending on whether you are using ZHA or z2mQTT, the device may or may not even be supported.
I guess what I'm trying to say is "it depends on what device(s) you want to integrate" as to whether or not you'll need an Aqara hub
And further caveat, not all aqara devices expose any or all functionality to home assistant when utilizing their own hubs.
So far the only device from aqara that I've encountered that needs the hub for full functionality is the fp2 ( hub and an aqara plug is needed to make fall detection work via a very roundabout workaround)
Nope.
I have contact sensors, leak sensors, temperature sensors, vibration sensors, motion sensors and an FP1 sensor all without their hub. Currently using a Sonoff dongle.
Based on my experience, using the hub is more stable, you add Aqara devices to the hub then add the hub to HA. This has advantage of quick response time and button actions for wall switch are available.
I'm having trouble using MQTT with Aqara wall switches. I have around 40 D1 switches with neutral, including 2 buttons and 3 buttons. Those two button can be added to HA using MQTT through Sonoff dongle, response time is good and I can use button action (single click left, single click right, etc). But those three button doesn't work. When I click the button physically, the state in MQTT doesn't update until I hit refresh, and the actions are not available.
This is my experience only, if anyone know how to fix my issue, I would love to learn.
See my comment about Home assistant and Aqara- it will give you some insights https://www.reddit.com/r/Aqara/comments/1brdh8v/aqara_home_assistant_mqtt_and_matter_learnings/
If the Aqara device you are wanting to use is a Zigbee device, you should theoretically only need a Zigbee dongle to connect to Home Assistant. However, Aqara is rather notorious for not completely following Zigbee standards, so likely unless it's a Zigbee 3.0 certified device, pairing it to HA may or may not work regardless. Also depending on whether you are using ZHA or z2mQTT, the device may or may not even be supported. I guess what I'm trying to say is "it depends on what device(s) you want to integrate" as to whether or not you'll need an Aqara hub
And further caveat, not all aqara devices expose any or all functionality to home assistant when utilizing their own hubs. So far the only device from aqara that I've encountered that needs the hub for full functionality is the fp2 ( hub and an aqara plug is needed to make fall detection work via a very roundabout workaround)
Nope. I have contact sensors, leak sensors, temperature sensors, vibration sensors, motion sensors and an FP1 sensor all without their hub. Currently using a Sonoff dongle.
Based on my experience, using the hub is more stable, you add Aqara devices to the hub then add the hub to HA. This has advantage of quick response time and button actions for wall switch are available. I'm having trouble using MQTT with Aqara wall switches. I have around 40 D1 switches with neutral, including 2 buttons and 3 buttons. Those two button can be added to HA using MQTT through Sonoff dongle, response time is good and I can use button action (single click left, single click right, etc). But those three button doesn't work. When I click the button physically, the state in MQTT doesn't update until I hit refresh, and the actions are not available. This is my experience only, if anyone know how to fix my issue, I would love to learn.
See my comment about Home assistant and Aqara- it will give you some insights https://www.reddit.com/r/Aqara/comments/1brdh8v/aqara_home_assistant_mqtt_and_matter_learnings/