Not so long ago, I purchased an interesting device, this is an Aqara cube, this is a control device, it is quite compact, it works using the Zigbee protocol, they have become quite cheap and, in principle, they can be bought in China, and you can buy them in Russia.

I bought it at a discount for 900 rubles, and it was possible to find it in our stores for 500 rubles, but in general, this price is already acceptable.

The device itself is interesting, it is essentially made like a cube, compact enough, has the ability to control different devices, for example, it can support modes such as left-to-right rotation, respectively, you can put cubes on one of the sides and it will determine which side it is and also take some action, or there is another option turn it over and it also determines this movement, you can push it and this action is supported and then it transmits the side on which it was during this action, It supports a 90-degree rotation and supports a 180-degree flip, and there is also a mode where you can tap it twice on the table and it will also display it as an action, or toss it up and this action will also be displayed in the smart home system.

It connects via Zigbee quite simply. I did not use the branded Aqara gateway and did not use the Xiaomi gateway, I immediately connected it to the smart home system via a stick and, in principle, it is visible normally, and it is displayed in the Home Assistant system, and I use a separate service to manage it, Zigbee2 MQTT, and it also fully supports this device.

I wanted to use this device to control scenarios, that is, for example, if I put it on one side, I would run one script on the other side, another script, and so on, I considered the rest of the functions as possibilities, for example, if I put it on one side, I started a script in which, for example, some kind of a light bulb that can be dimmed, then by turning left or right I planned to make the brightness of this light bulb change, but in general, it is not very convenient to use such a device for scenarios, because scenarios can be switched not only with this device, but also with a voice command, or other buttons, or through the phone I can change some scenario, or some situation, for example, if I left the balcony, then I can do this the command is given by any means, and this cube will remain in the state in which it was, which is not very convenient, of course, it does not send information about any actions on itself, but if we push it accidentally, even, or turn it a little, then it can work and transmit information that it is on one side of this cube and the script can turn on or work again.

For example, when I made a connection to control a player on such a cube, I could accidentally turn on music in the room, which of course was sometimes not very convenient, so working with scripts is of course questionable, I need to study what else can be done until I fully managed to use it specifically for script management.

I also discovered such a thing that if you take it and turn it over and put it on some side, it may not send this information to the smart home system, that is, it is necessary to turn it over or turn it to some face quickly enough without lifting it practically from the table, otherwise it simply may not perceive it. as a change. And it so happened that if, for example, I took it, turned it over and put it in the parameters, the old face may still be preserved, and for example, if you push it, then at this moment it can of course transmit information about the side on which it is located, but if, for example, you turn it left or right to increase, for example, volume, or decrease If the volume is too high, then the side on which it is transmitted is still old, incorrect, of course the commands will be executed incorrectly.Now there is a new version of this cube called Aqara T1 Pro., he has a little more possibilities, and of course I hope that he will be able to correctly identify these facets.

Another use of this cube is for control, which is also an interesting function, that is, without paying attention to any faces, to run some scenarios, for example, you can make it so that if you put it on one face, then control turns on, for example, a light bulb, if you put it on another face, then volume control on the player turns on or some other- with other devices, for example, as a thermostat control, or as some other device, you can switch modes, for example, by flipping or turning left or right, but this mode is also just for the same reason that it does not fully accurately determine the edges, it is not very convenient and you need to carefully monitor which face it lies on and whether it will work with exactly the device that you need, either you need some kind of voice confirmation of commands, or you need to look carefully, and on the old one. on the cube, the faces themselves are not highlighted in any way, they are not marked, there is only one face on which there used to be an image of MiHome, but in recent versions, since this is an Akara cube, the inscription is Aqara, on one of the faces, the new version has made it so that there are points displaying the faces like on a dice, but they just made it so that these points do not correspond to the parameters that are sent in the system itself, that is, the faces are numbered from 0 to 5, and the cube is made as usual from one to six, where there is one there is not marked at all, there is just the inscription Aqara.

In principle, when you turn this cube, you can make it so that, for example, first, to activate the device, turn it on or off, you can use the shift of this cube, I have the player controlled this way, it either turns on or off if it was turned on, turning left to right, for example, can change the cost, but I did not do so, I did so that he changes channels left or right, which turned out to be more convenient for me because my volume is set to standard and I usually don't change it.

The cube itself runs on a cr2450 battery, I received a cube with a dead battery, but even with this remaining capacity it works quite stably, although it constantly falls asleep to save electricity and you need to move it first before using it so that it wakes up and then it works quite quickly.

In the smart home system, all actions are displayed correctly enough, for example, it is possible to track from which side to which side the cube was turned over, respectively, this allows you to perform different actions too, but again you need to understand that the action itself must be performed very quickly and, for example, tossing a cube, it also sends the value on which side this cube was located But that doesn't really mean anything, because it can turn over in flight and just shows exactly the face it was on earlier, when turning left or right, of course, it is done quite correctly, that is, it transmits the angle of rotation and, accordingly, you can track how much rotation was performed and this amount, this angle of rotation, can somehow be adjusted to match a certain level of change, for example, volume, and in principle, if you constantly turn it, then you can turn the volume it should not be constantly changed by some fixed division, but by the number of degrees by which it was rotated. You can even turn it 180 degrees and it will show directly what exactly was rotated 180 degrees, although it is done so that there is some periodic sending of values and the value itself can be divided into two, that is, let's say a turn is sent first for only part of this action, and then more separate information about the rest of the turn will come. of course, up to 180 is inaccurate, that is, 180 or 90, and sometimes, for example, if you push it, it can count it as a small turn and send, for example, a rotation to the left by 5 degrees, which will be quite difficult to catch.

Therefore, I'm still experimenting with this cube, trying to learn and configure some other actions, but in general it doesn't seem very useful to me, and still other use cases, such as voice control, are more preferable in a smart home than such physical devices.

Automation in a smart home should be useful and create additional comfort, but sometimes everything goes wrong… The reasons for this, and how to configure everything, see on my channel.