If they go with a 700 series Z-Wave chip, they should be able to support all Z-Wave frequencies with just a software setting. Seems like the sensible way to go, but who knows?
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The best way is a community written system on Hubitat called HubConnect that allows bi-directional communication. It consists of a controller and a bunch of virtual device handlers. It basically mirrors devices from one hub to another. SmartThings is supported as a remote hub.
I’m only using this to mirror some devices from SmartThings into Hubitat. Personally I’m planning on migrating all my devices over. Since the HubConnect endpoints on SmartThings run in the SmartThings cloud, its really ridiculous to expose my Hubitat system to the instability and outages of the ST cloud. I’d just rather all my devices be handled locally on Hubitat.
In fact, HubConnect is a bit complicated to get set up. If you chose to get a Hubitat, I’d suggest to start using it with some local devices for a while before switching on HubConnect.
Also, since the ST side of HubConnect is a Groovy SmartApp and a set of Groovy device handlers, it (like most of the rich ST community created infrastructure) faces the same coming apocalypse when SmartThings turns off the IDE and Groovy support sometime in 2021.
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I’ve asked Santa for a Hubitat and HubConnect looks like the ticket to make a transition smoothly. ActionTiles has stopped receiving events twice this week from ST, no fault of ActionTiles @625alex .
Now that there is AT in Beta on Hubitat, WebCore and most of my DTH’s are there we should get some reliability back.
Nothing like standing in the bathroom waiting 20 seconds for the light to kick on in full stream 
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Worse, your flood sensor will fail to alert you to the fact that you’ve missed the target.
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That’s what the wet socks are for, redundancy. 
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Cant this run via nginx or lighttpd?
I left on UI5. It was just a mess of an experience and Smartthings was such a better product (pre-samsung). I am glad I didnt buy Revolv at the time or Almond 
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Got this email earlier this week…not saying it’ll happen to ST, or Hubitat, etc…but it certainly can and probably will eventually happen to a lot of hi-tech products. In the 2005 era, when it was developed, Slingbox was amazing…15 years later…below 
Yeah. This is what worries me most. My SmartThings ecosystem is miniscule compared to many but I’m a couple of thousand dollars into smartening all the lights in the house.
Plus I’ve got other home automation “islands” like Chamberlain garage doors, Honeywell TCC thermostats, Nest cams.
What happens when the cloud components become unsustainable businesses?
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One only has to look at Staples Connect, Lowe’s Iris, Wink, and IFTTT to see what the two possible outcomes are:
- Shutdown the service
- Charge a subscription fee
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You know my response to this, but I’ll repeat it here from a slightly different angle. 
Home Automation is more than just a fun convenience for me. As someone who is quadraparetic, It can be literally life-changing for me. Consequently, when I first started into it seriously in 2014 I spent a lot of time agonizing over how to make choices that would be future proof, to protect my time, my money, and my independence. This stage lasted for about 18 months. It was very stressful, and every time I bought something I added new worries. 
Finally, I had my lightbulb moment (see what I did there? 
), And I realized there was another way to look at it.
The technology was changing really quickly, and could be expected to continue to do so for several more years at least. The prices were also changing really quickly. And things that hadn’t even existed when I started buying devices had become must have minimums for me, like Alexa compatibility.
And I realized if I thought about it like a mobile phone, where the hardware is a vehicle for delivering features, with expected future obsolescence as many new features were developed, what I really had to figure out was how much I was willing to spend per month for whatever the current features were. And a typical obsolescence curve.
I settled on three years, which is the same I use for mobile phones. I budget my mobile phones expecting that I will get a new one every three years. So I only buy what I can get my money’s worth out of in that time.
I decided to apply the same approach to Home Automation. I would have a monthly budget, and any device I bought, including a hub, would need to have paid for itself in three years, because I knew I might want to replace it then. The company might make changes that made it undesirable for me, there might be other companies with new features that I wanted instead, my household circumstances might’ve changed, I might just have new ideas about how I wanted to use Home Automation. 
It didn’t matter what my reasons would be, I just knew that future me would be much happier if three years after buying a device I felt comfortable, psychologically and monetarily, replacing it.
And once I switched to this mindset, where the device was just a service delivery vector, I found that present me was also much happier. Much less stress. I didn’t have to try to predict what features I was going to want in a few years. I just had to not spend more out of my monthly budget than I would be OK with replacing in three years.
That was five years ago. Over that time, apple’s HomeKit has delivered many more features and a lower cost than they did originally, and became a viable candidate for a number of my three-year use cases. I couldn’t have predicted that five years ago, but I didn’t have to. Over that same time period, the Alexa-based Systems have also significantly improved. And I had enough money in my Home Automation budget to shift some use cases over to that.
I don’t change just for the sake of changing, that’s not how I use Home Automation. But I don’t spend much time worrying about future proofing, either. Because I no longer see it as investing in Devices: instead, I am paying for my current features with a monthly budget that expects a breakeven ROI over 3 years. If any given device lasts longer, that’s gravy: it means more money in the budget for fun stuff. 
and I’m not saying this approach would work for everybody. But it’s definitely made my life a lot easier.
FWIW
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@JDRoberts : I admire your wisdom, as always 
But I am afraid I cannot resign myself to such expensive wisdom.
Very early in life, I understood that, from a buyer point of view, a single down payment, with no recurring maintenance fee or subscription fee was much preferable : at the time you decide, you have side by side what you may decide (or not) to buy, with its benefits, and the one time cost associated.
Pretty easy (?) to then decide if it is worth the investment, or if putting your limited amount of money into something else is a better choice.
From the seller point of view, it is just the opposite : a small entrance fee, but then regular revenues, which you can progressively increase, but not too much so that those increases remain almost painless… as long as nobody computes the aggregated cost over 10 years or so.
That is the same model used by drug dealers : the first dose is free, but then…
The problems start when we start to replace “investments” by “renting fees” : over ten years, car buyers pay (at least) 30% more when opting for long lease than those buying the same car outright.
Those 30% go directly into the pockets of those with the capital (lenders) and make each user 30% poorer.
Sure, they can change for a new car every 3 years. But it still makes them 30% poorer, it is anti-ecological in the extreme, and most of the time, progress over a 3 years period is too small to justify a change (and yes, I agree, it may be faster in the computer world).
So my position is a bit different : you should NEVER go into “non-investments” with predicted high recurring fees, including non monetary ones (discovering all the quirks of a new version, whose none of the “improvements” you really care about), unless it is absolutely critical for you. This is probably your case for home automation.
I very much doubt anybody needs to buy a new phone every 3 years. 13 years ago, when the first iPhone came out, the pace of progress did justify it; not anymore : see the success of “low cost” iPhone SE.
Furthermore, over the last 30 years, the world has changed but definitely NOT for the benefit of the average Joe : in the US, ++3++ persons have as much money as the 160 millions poorer Americans. And every year they get richer; the COVID 19 pandemy actually helped them a lot, see recent Jeff Bezos fortune increase.
So my tack is that you should preserve as much as possible your freedom of choice and your capability to rapidly redeploy your too rare resources (your time, your money), which means a minimal amount of forced monthly spending : subscriptions, maintenance fees, leases, loan payments, insurances, etc…
Most people don’t care about a $10 monthly subscription fee; but they would think twice about a $120 payment (1 year) and thrice about a $1200 one (10 years); but all 3 are basically the same…
As an (extreme ) example, my main computer, the one I am typing this post on, is a 20-years old Apple G4 Cube; and yes, I will have soon to change it… .
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One Time Investment Systems
I understand what you’re saying, and if you want to get home automation with a one time investment you absolutely can: but it has to be something that works entirely locally and you have to be able to defer or deny updates from each manufacturer of every part of your system.
Indigo Domotics, for example, is software that runs on a Mac and works with Z wave or Insteon or x10 devices when you add a memory stick. Once you have that, you can run it forever. They also sell “plug-ins“ which offer compatibility with a number of other cloud-based devices, but then you have the same vulnerability as you have with any cloud.
I have friends who have run lighting setups on indigo for 10 years without ever making any changes to it. and without buying any new devices. But they run it without including Smart Locks (indigo only added support for locks a couple of years ago), video anything, or voice assistants. Basically they are frozen in time from the time they bought the system.
There are some other similar systems available. Anything that worked on Monday will continue to work on Tuesday until the hardware physically wears out. but you may not be able to support new features that come on the market and you have to stay away from the cloud altogether. 
Basically if someone else can make changes to your system without your knowledge, which is true of almost all cloud systems, then you can’t protect your sunk costs.
If you get notice but you can’t deny updates, again, you can’t protect your sunk costs.
Home Automation as a Service (HASS)
So I made the decision that I wanted the rapidly evolving new features in Home automation as it stands today, but that meant I had to assume a fairly short obsolescence curve for whatever I was buying. I settled on three years as a rule of thumb, and it’s worked quite well.
As far as budgets, I’m pretty careful in this regard. In the beginning I had a budget of $500 per room and a total of $5000 for the house, but my first phase budget was only $1500 while I tried things out, so I expected I might have to replace all of those items after 18 months. I’ve detailed my expenditures during that phase elsewhere.
However, during that time the echo was introduced and I realized new features were being added too rapidly for me to stick to my original plan.
So I looked at what I could afford and what I wanted to accomplish and decided that I would be OK with a budget of $125/month for Home automation hardware and services, which is very similar to my cell phone bill. The difference is that I spend much less on Services, but I do have some monthly bills there.
Anyway, obviously that’s a lot of money, but I’m OK with spending that much each month to meet the specific use cases I want covered: voice control of my television, A hands-free smart lock, voice control of my HVAC including the window air conditioner, at least one voice operable light in each of the main rooms, voice operable lights in my bedroom, and pathway lights in several areas. I don’t run security off of this system, that’s a separate budget.
Someone else would have different critical use cases, for example I don’t need garage door control, but these are mine. 
And I saw that I could meet these for my target monthly budget and in fact have some room for additional devices like a video doorbell.
Is $125 a month a lot for this? It would be for some people. For others it would be very little. And for quite a few, including me, it would be an acceptable expense for my critical use cases.
It’s basically my original budget spread out over three years. So it’s more than I initially thought I would spend, because I think I had some idea in my head that the original budget would be more like plumbing or light fixtures and last 10 or 20 years. But it’s an acceptable way of looking at it for me and an acceptable amount of money for the services I’m getting.
What I Learned About What I Didn’t Know
the echo experience taught me that I don’t know enough now to predict what features I will want in the future. Smartthings experience taught me that I am literally not safe if I have my critical use cases on a cloud that can change without warning. And my experience with Apple HomeKit taught me that when the technology is changing this quickly, sometimes prices for hardware come down quite dramatically as well.
So I didn’t want to be locked into choices I had made five years ago, but I also wanted significant control over when and if changes will be made in the features that I use for critical use cases.
My current system isn’t perfect in this regard. I do use echo a lot and Amazon can change those features without prior notice, although so far every change they’ve made has been an improvement from my perspective.
I moved my critical use cases to HomeKit in 2016, which means I get to decide when and if any updates are applied and nothing mysteriously stops working because of a platform change. But it also means I am continually being offered new features and new devices should I choose to take advantage of them. 
Summary
Different approaches will work for different people. If you want a one time cost and no changes, there are home automation systems that can offer that. (But cloud-based systems will not fall into that category).
If you want to look at home automation as a service, you can come up with a pretty accurate monthly budget, but my personal experience is that you should expect a three-year replacement cycle.
If you want a cloud-based system that protects your sunk costs, you’ll have to read the fine print very very carefully and opt for something that has a continuous service guarantee. Which definitely isn’t smartthings. 
From the smartthings terms of use:
Will SmartThings ever change the Services?
.
We’re always trying to improve the Services, so they may change over time. We may suspend or discontinue any part of the Services, or we may introduce new features or impose limits on certain features or restrict access to parts or all of the Services.
.
In some cases, the changes we make to the Services may cause older hardware devices, third party services, software configurations or setups to no longer work with the Services, and you may be required to upgrade or change these devices, services, configurations or setups in order to continue using the Services.
.
We’ll try to give you notice when we make a material change to the Services that would adversely affect you, but this isn’t always practical.
.
Similarly, we reserve the right to remove any Content (including any SmartApps or device or external service connections provided by SmartThings or by third parties) from the Services at any time, for any reason (including, but not limited to, if someone alleges you contributed that Content in violation of these Terms), in our sole discretion, and without notice.
Every smartthings customer agreed to that when they created their account. I know not everybody reads the fine print, and I know it’s frustrating when you realize that what you have isn’t what you thought you had, but at least you’ll know that there are alternatives if you want to look for them. 
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It is interesting how different the viewpoints on this can be. I’ve been given a hard time about paying for premium devices or subscriptions when they add value. For me, if it makes my life easier and I don’t have to spend the time constantly fixing things, then it’s worth it.
Don’t get me wrong, sometimes I like to tinker for the sake of tinkering… but I’d generally rather spend time tinkering with interesting things rather than the mundane details of a system.
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Just wanted to add that I am slowly migrating to Home Assistant. The device count in my dashboard is more than I have in ST, and I haven’t even moved over my z-wave and zigbee components yet. Myq for example JUST WORKS. In testing, local stuff is imperceptible (like literally button to action is faster than I can realize it), and the possibilities are endless. NodeRed is parity if not more equipped than WebCore (which is amazing, I’ll truly miss it), and the integrations list is just CRAZY long.
Sure, it’s going to take some time to get my automations back up and running, and sure I’m having to spend $50 I don’t want to on a usb stick that does z-wave and zigbee, but in the end I think I’ll be happier not having to fight it.
I’ll be around (mostly for the laughs) but that’s the direction I’ve ended up heading.
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So well said. I agree 200%.
Interesting that you moved to Home Kit for your mission critical needs.
My experience with Apple as a 36 years user (Mac 512) is that they strive at making their products solid and elegant , which is to me the opposite of “kludgy”, as too many startups and large “market driven” companies unfortunately do.
I hope those genes stay as long as possible within the DNA of the company, although when all those who knew Steve Jobs finally retire, a shift of attitude is probably inevitable.
Regarding more specifically SmartThings, it is clear that when the foundations are unreliable (cloud based, “fire and forget” stateless design, …), hoping to build on top of them a too large building is at best wishful thinking, at worst faulty reasoning.
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If it happens to SmartThings, then the hub becomes an immediate brick. At least all your Z-wave and Zigbee devices will work with other hubs.
If it happens to Hubitat, then you just keep using your hub. It just won’t get any new updates. You’ll have to use an alternate approach for notifications and remote access, but the hub itself will continue to work.
Similarly, this is also true for other local-based solutions (like HA) on roll-your-own hardware.
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@Kevin_Reene I’m doing the same thing. Home Assistant running with the Smartthings integration has been working great for me. MYQ works perfect, I get door status, and it was easy to setup. Other things in Home Assistant, like Broadlink, definitely not easy but doable. Started using Node red, it looks like it can be a suitable webcore replacement, although they are very different. I hate to say it, but I just don’t see a future for webcore. I’m feeling some rules engine will eventually replace webcore and ill need to redo everything anyway, but who knows what it will be. At least node red has more stability around its future. The main push to home assistant came from the IFTTT subscription fee fiasco and loss of echo speaks, but I’m happy with using both Home Assistant and Smartthings. I have the zstick, but stopped short of moving my zwave devices over. The zwave Integration in home assistant is my biggest issue with it because its not great, and only reason I’m still using Smartthings at all. But at least I already have an insurance policy waiting if things go south with Smartthings. This guy does a good video explaining home assistant and Smartthings together and why to use both https://youtu.be/BfGz4RJMl_Q
The biggest advantage is Home Assistant is open source. If someone doesn’t like the direction Home Assistant is going, they can fork it and make it whatever they want. It works locally, but an army of programmers around the world keep it updated to ever changing devices and software changes by the manufacturers. You choose if you want to install the updates or not.
I agree with @JDRoberts post above. You can either use a cloud based system and look at this as an ongoing fee and commitment, or go local and stay frozen in time. My current setup hopefully is a hybrid model though that takes advantage of the best of both worlds. I can update things, but have all my older devices still work. Home-assistant is trying to be more user friendly, but remains overly complex though for most and isn’t for everyone. It definitely would not work well for the eldery or those with disabilities due to it needing too much coding and configuration. I am really getting tired of these companies constantly moving to never ending subscription based plans though, not just in tech but everything. Open source seems to be the best way of people fighting back against these never ending fees
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I know you didn’t mean it this way, but I just want to clarify that I know people who are over 90 and can program circles around pretty much anybody anywhere. And I know plenty of working programmers who have disabilities of various kinds.
I know that what you intended was that people who find constant tinkering with a screen-based system too tedious or too physically challenging will not be interested in these systems. I fall into that group, but a lot of people Who are older or have disabilities do not.
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Agreed on all counts. I was just shocked at the level of integrations and simplicity, but have not waded into the deep end of the pool yet (above simple scrips, scenes, and automations). I want to ensure I get naming convention right from the start (took me a while on ST).
Home assistant gives me the reliability of local control with the ability to CONTROL it’s abilities. It’s a great space for me to work.
And get this… it has a SNAPSHOT feature. Like if one instance dies and I have a backup I can restore it.
I don’t like the direction ST is heading with their “host your code” and CLI (look at that thread and the frustration of the devs like Rboy, who essentially makes a livelihood off of ST integrations) and myQ workarounds via IFTTT who are now charging for integrations that are failing (see MyQ thread), etc. etc. etc. the list goes on.
Anyway, probably enough for one day, but even last night when ST went down (as it did for many others on FB group), it really solidified my decision to migrate.
Anyone need a v3 hub for Christmas? 
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