Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
You can always rely on iMore.
Our team of Apple experts has years of experience testing all kinds of technology and gadgets, so you can be sure our recommendations and critiques are accurate and helpful. Learn more about our testing.
When you first unbox Agara’s tiny Camera Hub, you’re greeted by a small face with removable cat ears. It’s all very kawaii (Japanese slang for “cute”) if you’re into anime and such, but this cute little face hides a monster of a device.
does a lot and you’ll be asking yourself, “Do I use this through HomeKit or their Agara Home app, or a little bit of both?” This can be overwhelming. Fortunately, the Apple Home and Agara Home apps are both well-designed and easy to use. Let’s enter!
Agara Camera Hub G3: Price and Availability
The Agara 2K Security Indoor Camera Hub G3 is available through Amazon for $109.99, but looking at price tracking history, the G3 was on sale in the $80 range in December and January.
Agara Camera Hub G3: Specifications and features
The Camera Hub G3 is a roughly five-inch-long robot-shaped device that rotates 340 degrees horizontally, tilts 30 degrees up and 15 degrees down. It can do this automatically with AI-powered tracking or manually via the Agara app, but not manually in Apple’s Home app. Combine all this with a 110-degree field of view; you should be able to shoot anything in almost any room.
The unit’s centerpiece, the high-resolution 2K 2304x1296P camera and its infrared night vision LED module, has a cute and functional face. When the G3 is “live” you can see the camera, but you can pause the live feed for privacy, and the lens module rotates into the “head” housing to reveal another view, the eyelashes. Yes, you can tell the camera is “sleeping” because the face shows it.
If you’re still worried about this, you can save a preset viewpoint and send it there. To the left and right of the lens and LEDs are two microphones that allow you to conduct two-way conversations, detect abnormal sounds, broadcast audio and record it. The audio recording is pretty good from the dual mic setup!
There’s also a microSD slot on the front that supports up to 128GB of storage. You access it by turning off the camera’s live feed and turning your favorite lash cap into a view. Below is a status LED that blinks red when active, along with some subtle branding. Behind the camera you’ll find a speaker and a USB-C port that supports video output directly from the device via the UVC protocol, so if you connect the Camera Hub G3 to your computer, it should automatically recognize it.
You can place the Camera Hub G3 on a flat surface, such as a bookshelf, or mount it using the standard tripod quarter-inch threads below. It can be mounted upside down, then the image can be adjusted accordingly in the Agara Home app.
Agara’s Camera Hub G3 has a neural processing unit (NPU) that powers some artificial intelligence features that don’t require an internet connection. The onboard Zigbee 3.0 smart home hub allows you to connect up to 128 Agara devices to the G3, although to achieve this number you’ll need to include repeater devices such as a wall switch or smart plug in your setup.
The Camera Hub G3 supports both 2.4 and 5GHz Wi-Fi connections and Wi-Fi Protected Access 3 (WPA3). There’s also IR blaster support for your home devices that still use this standard.
Agara Camera Hub G3: Dry and visible
The Agara Camera Hub G3 looks like something you’d buy at a Sanrio store (Hello Kitty) until you remove the pre-installed cat ears accessory head. You can place the Camera Hub G3 on a flat surface, such as a bookshelf, or mount it using the standard tripod quarter-inch threads below. It can be mounted upside down, then the image can be adjusted accordingly in the Agara Home app.
Although it’s mostly plastic, the Camera Hub G3 feels like it’s well-made and will last indoors for a long time. The pan and tilt motor is whisper-quiet, and the different faces for the lens hood, while novel, make the “fun” feature “functional.” It should look with almost any decor in the house, and if it’s a little too bright for your feng shui, you can remove these cat ears.
Agara Camera Hub G3: Ease of use
The Agara Camera Hub G3 does so much that it would take several pages of deep, deep-dive articles to comprehensively address them all, but its features in the Agara app are clearly laid out and easy to use. And since all these functions are not exposed in Apple Home, it is even easier to use there. One of the main features of all the Agara cameras I tested recently was ease of use. This G3 set up in less than ten minutes, and I thoroughly enjoyed the voice confirmations I received from the unit as I completed specific steps in the onboarding process.
I have a G3 connected to my 5GHz wifi network. Opening both apps and connecting to his live streams was a snap every time. I even opened Apple Home on the Apple Watch Series 9 and chatted with my wife, which was pretty cool! No glitches, fluid sound and picture, all from my wrist.
Tracking the action is easy with the G3. You can set it to track people, dogs and cats, work with face detection or gestures, and there’s a cruise option that will set the camera to pan and tilt to pre-set positions over a period of time. Face detection from Agara works by uploading images from your phone or taking a picture of someone’s face on the spot. Then you can set up automations like getting notified when little Jamaal gets home from school. Gesture activation lets you assign automation to five different hand gestures, but it disables human and animal tracking.
Speaking of tracking, I really thought the G3’s ability to keep up with the people it was watching was admirable. If someone is running or moving fast, they can lose it. When the G3 follows someone and pans to keep up, you’ll notice that the video becomes slightly pixelated until the camera settles, then the video clears up and becomes solid again.
Using the Agara Home app’s face detection for added security requires you to upload those images to Agara’s cloud servers. With the G3’s built-in neural processing unit, I’d like to see facial recognition store images natively as well.
There are some other minor issues that I would like to see improved. The granularity achieved by the camera while in motion is not ideal. I’d also like to see manual panning and tilting features, as well as preset position settings available in the Apple Home app.
Agara Camera Hub G3: The Competition
Considering the G3 has a built-in Zigbee hub, there isn’t much competition at this price point with comparable features.
It’s an alternative worth looking at Eufy’s E220. It has a larger 125-degree field of view and 8X digital zoom. It’s half the price of the E220, but only has 2.4GHz wifi, no privacy mode, and doesn’t include a built-in hub for connecting other IoT devices.
Agara Camera Hub G3: Should you buy it?
If you have to buy…
- You like Agara and want to connect more devices
- You want a curved HKSV camera with a powerful feature set
- You want a camera with a physical privacy mode
You should not buy it if…
- You want a camera around $50
- You don’t need hub functionality
Agara Camera Hub G3: Verdict
Besides being a cute camera with removable cat ears, Agara’s Camera Hub G3 is a powerhouse of features at a reasonable price. Agara has some great IoT devices in its offerings of motion sensors, window/door sensors and automated blinds, so having the hub built in is a great feature.
With Matter support, HomeKit open signal functionality, USB-C video output, local storage and local AI processing, you have a winning package that’s hard to beat in the indoor pan and tilt camera market. The Agara Camera Hub G3 is easy to recommend.
Fun and functional! Highly recommended for HomeKit
The Camera Hub G3 works with all digital assistants, supports HomeKit Secure Video, is a Zigbee hub, supports 2k video resolution, has a physical security cover, and kawaii!
