Cube T1 Pro, Requires AQARA ZIGBEE 3.0 HUB, 6 Sides to Control Different Scenes and Diverse Actions to Control Smart Home Devices, Supports Homekit, Alexa and IFTTT

Great gadget. Using it with Alexa to fire off routines. Easy to setup. App is easy to use. Not all of the functionality is available unless you are deep into the Aqara ecosystem. I am not so I can only use half of the functionality. Requires a Aqara hub. Reasonably priced for all of the things it can do.

I ordered the cube to have on my desk to control stuff in my room like lights and media. It paired easily with HomeAssistant andnI downloaded the rvaidya 69 action blueprint for ZHA. At first I could only get it to recognize shake and rotation actions and it wasn't reliably detecting anything but shakes. I had to quickly press the link button 5 times to get it to change modes and then it was able to detect flips and other actions. The responsiveness is hit or miss. For flips to be recognized they almost need to be rolled on a hard surface and not raised in your hand and manipulated then placed down. I can sometimes get the latter to work but only if I'm quick about finding the side I want. I have also found with my setup that rotations only seem to trigger after it's been flipped and you leave it on the hard surface. If I pick it up to do a knock or a shake or something and place it back down, the automations don't recognize the rotations anymore until I flip it again. I suspect this may be more a software issue than a hardware issue but I'm not sure. Another thing I noticed with the blueprint I'm using is that knocks on face 6 and face 3 are swapped so if you want a knock with face 3 active you have to set the automation on face 6 and vice versa. I haven't fully mapped automations to every face / action yet but so far that's the only error I've found. Again this is likely software not the hardware. I do find that sometimes you have to repeat actions a couple times to get them to be recognized. Not sure if this is a learning curve thing where I just have to get used to it more or if it's a sensitivity issue or a combination of both. It's definitely a fun little gadget to play around with. It may or may not be practical and definitely isn't guest friendly and takes a bit of training to teach someone what everything does. I'm going to get some 1" (25mm) stickers to print on that will fit on the faces so I can have a better visual on which side controls what.

I love this product! I have been using this for last four months. While I couldn’t use its full functionality since I connected it through HomeAssistant and I had to purchase the Aqara hub separately, this little gadget is so impressive that I still had to give it 5 stars. Every time guests see it for the first time, they are just so amazed. However, if you’re new to home automation, it might not be the easiest to set up. It took me some time to figure things out and I am new to HomeAssistant. Speed to turn on and off: 4/5 Battery Life: 5/5 Accuracy: 3/5 Ease of Installation: 2/5 Once everything is set up, the combination of its price, functionality, and the “wow” factor it brings to guests makes it a solid 5/5. Highly recommend it for smart home enthusiasts!

This Cube T1 Pro gets two ratings. It gets five stars if you only plan to use it within the Aqara ecosystem. It gets two stars if you plan to use it in Apple Home. At its best, you can change settings and activate automations just by flipping it over or spinning it. Which side is facing up doesn't matter. It's the movement that triggers the automation. This ability makes the Cube a fun way to control a smart home. The only problem is that this way of controlling your smart home is only available within the Aqara ecosystem. Not Apple Home. Like dice, the cube has dots on each side. Within Apple Home those dots matter. Which side is "up" matters. Imagine four dots are facing up and you need to manipulate the cube so that six dots are facing up. Which direction do you flip the cube? There is no answer. It just depends on how the cube is sitting on the table. So users are forced to pick up the cube and turn it, looking for the side with the correct number of dots. This process is slow and it doesn't get faster over time because the sides are always in a different orientation. If you're not following, let me give you a real world use case. I have a lamp on my nightstand that is connected to a Lutron dimmer. I wanted to set up an automation so that if I rotated the Cube 90°, the lamp came on at 10%. If I rotated it farther, it came on at 40%. You get the idea. I can't do this in the Aqara app because the automation involves the Lutron dimmer. I have to use Apple Home. In Apple Home, the only option is to tie an action to a specific side of the cube. But it's dark when I'm trying to trigger my automation and there is no way to tell by feel which side is which. Even if it was midday, I'm still left counting dots and searching for the correct side of the cube. The whole system is no bueno. Bottom line: The bottom line here is that the Cube T1 Pro is a fun controller only if the devices you want to control or the automations you want to trigger are 100% Aqara. The moment you need to trigger automations involving other smart home devices, the Cube is essentially crippled. Since my use case is the latter, the Cube gets two stars. But if your use case is Aqara-only, go for it.

This is a fun toy. You need Zigbee2MQTT for this to work with Home Assistant. Zigbee inclusion with Zigbee Home Automation (ZHA) does not expose the entities you need to get this to work. I figured all that out after I bought the cube and it sat around for a while till I had time to figure Z2M out. Once it is included, actions can be triggered by different movements of the cube. I have it toggling the kitchen lights if I shake the cube. The time, temperature and weather are announced if I change the sides. The Family Room lights' brightness is adjusted as the cube is rotated left or right. For me, remembering what each action/movement does is the biggest challenge. :=} Is it practical? Probably not, but it is fun if you like this kind of stuff. I have no regrets about getting the cube.

I was excited that Aqara released this product with HomeKit support. Sadly, my excitement didn’t translate to reality. The HomeKit integration is incredibly limiting: effectively you only get a “switch” per side. No shake action. No rotation. On top of that, it’s super slow and unreliable. It looks like some others in the reviews have had better luck setting it up with Home Assistant, which I may give a shot, but the official HomeKit “support” is so lousy that it borders on dishonest. Do not recommend for HomeKit at all. UPDATE: I was able to get the cube working with Home Assistant using a Zigbee gateway and ZHA. Unfortunately, the cube drained its battery in two days. I replaced the battery and it did it again. This thing is going in the bin. One star; absolutely do not recommend.

I really got this cube just as a toy to play around with. I am using Home Assistant using ZHA and a SkyConnect for the zigbee connection and it worked great for a while, picking up the shake, rotate (per size), and tap. The only thing I had a problem with is that the tap required quite a bit of force to register, which made it not so fun. No one wants to slam the product down on a face (twice) to initiate a command and it is really hard to make it happen in your hand/lap. But I mostly only use it for a shake to turn on a porch light. I purchased the Cube T1 Pro 8 months ago but the last few months it has lost connection to my zigbee stick and I constantly have to pull the battery to reset it (which is no small feat, the cover is not easy to pop off... which is normally a good thing). The "Link" button will work no problem (event appears in HA), but any shake/tap/rotate/motion to initiate a trigger will do nothing until I pull the battery to reset it. I am not sure if it is just a defect in this device itself or if it is an overall issue of longevity with the device but this is my experience. My kid absolutely loves using it and I wish it would work all the time instead of needing me to fix it every few days.

I purchased the cube on a whim and have been playing with it. I set it to turn on/off my smart monitor and my alarm system. FYI - according to the box, an Aqara M3 Hub is needed to operate it. I already had the M3.