Today I’m testing what might be the new king of HomeKit cameras: the Aqara G5 Pro. It’s Aqara’s first outdoor camera, and the big headline for me is that it comes in a Power over Ethernet (PoE) version. In this video I walk through setup in the Aqara app (yes—even if you plan to live in Apple Home), because that’s where the real magic is: all the AI features like face, vehicle, package, human, linger, sound, animal, and lens obstruction detection. I also show the key settings like RTSP for pulling a stream into Home Assistant, plus the “camera hub” side of things where it can act as a Matter controller for certain devices. In the real world, PoE is exactly why I’m excited: one cable for power + data, no Wi‑Fi dropouts, and rock-solid stability. Image quality is the other shocker—this F1.0 lens is absolutely wild, and the color night vision is insanely good compared to the IR night vision on my Reolink camera, especially in rain or fog. I also love the storage options: onboard eMMC, and on the PoE model I can record straight to my NAS, so I’m not relying on cloud plans or SD cards that can fail (or get stolen with the camera). It’s not perfect though: it’s a chunk, the mount only tilts up/down (no side-to-side without an extra pivot mount), and Home Assistant support is basically just RTSP—meaning you lose the AI events outside the Aqara app. Still, for HomeKit users who want an outdoor cam with great AI and night performance, I’d absolutely buy it.