Why not just bridge hubitat with ST and use ST as the frontend?
2 Likes
I will while I transfer everything over. To echo what many others have been saying, the new app needs tons of work to be easier to use. For anyone with 30 - 40 devices, or more for that matter, it would make sense to have a “Home Screen with just your favorites and favorite scenes, kind of like the classic app. So many other shortcomings to list though.
In HE you don’t want to have ONE dashboard for all your devices. It’s not ST with cloud power, so if you have all your devices on one page everytime something happens that pages has to update.
This can big down your hub, you should create different pages for different use cases. IE you favourites. I have a home page for that then have link pages to each room in the house. Means the pages are super fast to load.
2 Likes
That’s the one thing that I’m hoping hubitat changes…have an app that is similar to smartthings & allow me to make automations, etc in the app. I’m guessing that’s all coming in time…just hope soon.
1 Like
The only reason (imo) to remain with something like smartthings is the UI is quite easy to set up.
I’d passionately argue (after years of use, and final abandonment) that having a pretty UI is does not forgive the truly horrific unreliability of the smartthings system.
I’ve jumped to hubitat back in July and have slowly set up an incredibly user-friendly, wife-friendly, reliable, rewarding rock solid home system.
The caveat is that I chose to use sharptools.io in order to create the UI.
If you’re a little tech savvy and you’ve got a bit of a creative streak, you can accomplish wonders. I completely understand that sometimes people just want something simple. I’ve put a lot of time and effort into mine, and yes, the hubitat app isn’t really in the same league as the existing samsung UI.
Again, having a pretty UI linked to ST is a little like having a Porsche, with an engine which has been burned to a crisp and then neatly hidden under the bonnet. My hubitat system has an engine that’d been fine tuned by passionate, pioneering mechanics, who are happy to service it daily whilst i sleep.
But the bonnet isn’t quite as shiny. Hey ho.
5 Likes
I’m not familiar with the ADT/ST security system, but many ADT systems are rebranded Honeywell systems; those security sensors operate at 345 MHz. Some ADT systems are rebranded DSC systems; those sensors operate at 433 Mhz.
None of those will work with any home automation system. If you have a large investment in alarm and/or fire sensors, you might want to consider the Qolsys IQ2+ alarm panel. This is a professional grade alarm system that also has a built-in ZWave hub.
The IQ2+ panel’s primary type of sensor is “PowerG” which is much better in terms of range and security than other systems. However, a huge benefit of the IQ2+ panel is that is it also backwards compatible with other manufacturer’s sensors. There are 3 variants of the IQ2+ so you have to determine what type of sensors you already have and purchase the correct variant, either 319.5, 345 or 433 Mhz.
However, there are challenges in integrating any professional grade security system into a home automation system, no matter what route you go. Personally, I would not trust ANY home automation system (or protocol) to protect my family, so I would always recommend a professional grade system for burglary/fire protection, and accept the challenges/limitations if you want to integrate it with your home automation.
1 Like
The dual logo SmartThings/ADT system operates on a proprietary frequency which is close to Zwave but is not Zwave. It does not work with anything else. Remember they had some tricky balancing to do since it’s in the same box with a Z wave radio and a zigbee radio in order to also support the smartthings home automation options, so it’s a bit of a Frankenstein’s monster from an engineering perspective.
2 Likes
Thank you, will get to it during the workweek — I’ve got more time now on furlough when my wife goes back to work.
Meanwhile, that GE/Jasco 40A switch isn’t cooperating at all, not getting excluded from the ST hub that is ~55 feet away (two hops), nor resetting to factory no matter how I try. So now I’m waiting for Amazon to drop off a long Ethernet cable. Can’t bring the switch close to the hub, so I’ll temporarily bring the hub to it. 
There a few other GE switched and outlets on the periphery of the mesh so the cable may come in handy this week. 
Really? I’m not doubting you, just wondering why they would go to the trouble and expense of designing and manufacturing a whole new line of sensors at a proprietary frequency when there are plenty of existing systems out there that they could rebrand.
The QolSys IQ2+ panel has five radios: wifi, cellular, zwave, PowerG and a legacy system, depending on which model you choose. My old XTi panel, which has got to be 10 years old by now, had three radios. I’m not sure the ADT/ST system broke any new ground in RF technologies.
It might very well be a Frankenstein’s monster though.
I have no idea, but they did. There was tons of discussion on it at the time the device was first released and you can also see the FCC filings.
There was some supposition at the time that the companies agreed intentionally that they were going to make devices that would not work with other ADT panels in order to distinguish them and prevent cannibalization of the professionally installed products. But I never saw anything official on that. All I know is that they won’t work with anything else.
But we’re getting pretty far off topic for this thread, the discussion should go in any of the existing ADT threads.
1 Like
Thanks for your kindly advice, I will consider it. Good Luck !
Ups !!!, thanks for share your knowledge, then I will try to use my ADT/ST panel and enjoy it as I can, until it works my little Frankie child…Until now, all z-wave devices (not ADT/ST ones) are working great, but my suspicious are right, when ADT/ST ends its life there is no utility for my devices…they are going to be crap, then I have to substitute them, well, thats life … enjoy.
1 Like
Thanks again my friend, share your knowledge is great for me. In fact Im looking to have a plan to substitute in the future my ADT/ST panel, until now its working great but nothing is forever, for example the confuse message abput sunset in Jan - 2021. Im looking for some security alarm but not professional service of assistant because Im in Mexico and those professional services are for USA location, Mexico local services for monitoring security are hard to integrate with home automation and I love integrate whole home functionality. So I will start to review your info in order to start having an idea about the best way to move, accepting in the future there is a time my investment in devices is going to be useless, lets enjoy the system for now at the maximum !..thanks again
1 Like
@mwav3 are you using https://flows.nodered.org/node/node-red-contrib-alexa-remote2 in the Node Red you mentioned? After seeing your mention of it 10 days ago, I built out some flows with it and https://flows.nodered.org/node/node-red-contrib-smartthings on an RPi I have running some other Node Red flows. Right now these are simple door is open announcements. I seem to get a lot of “No JSON” errors. Have you experienced that? When it works, it works good, but then when it doesn’t…
I’m not using that one and actually have Alexa Media player installed through HACS in Home Assistant, which then creates entities for all the Alexa devices, and then the Home Assistant Node Red integration controls those entities- https://flows.nodered.org/node/node-red-contrib-home-assistant-websocket , For me that’s worked reliably, but is definitely more involved then just that Alexa node red integration directly. I don’t know if the JSON is formatted the same for the Alexa remote node red you’re using, but the JSON I’m using in mine that works is below. When I get more comfortable with Node Red, I’d definitely like to start a new thread on it. As you pointed out it can run on an RPi and I could definitely see it possibly being used more in the future with Smartthings as an automation substitute , especially after the Groovy IDE is sunset and the future of Webcore is uncertain:
{
"message": "The back door was unlocked",
"data": {
"type": "announce",
"method": "all"
},
"target": [
"media_player.living_room"
]
}
Apparently there already is a node red thread for further discussion - Node-Red and Smartthings
2 Likes
I use the Alexa-remote2 pallet a lot. The coolest thing I do with it is using same command to turn on lights and it recognizes what room I am in and only turns on lights I have designated in that room. It’s better than what Alexa can do natively with groups. I have another setup where I say"it’s hot in here" and ceiling fan in that room turns on.
As expected, bringing the ST hub out to the shed worked perfectly. Excluded the switch in seconds. Decided to do the HE “final position” inclusion and it found the Aeotec Range Extender 6 in about a second, and then the GE 40A switch in maybe five seconds. Way quicker than I expected! ST hub is back where it belongs and I’m about to instal HubConnect before I migrate anything else — I can play with all the other devices all winter long as necessary, but that pool pump switch will be inaccessible soon!
I do not, yet. For many years I had a prototype Dallas Semiconductor/Texas Weather Instruments 1-Wire weather station with many custom-made instruments and running community software/web server. For its time it was fantastic. 20+ years later I have the weather bug again but I just want it to work, rather than being another full hobby, and a friend got a v1 WeatherFlow a while back and that’s now on my wish list after I get recalled from furlough. Thanks for the tips; I’ll be sure to ask more WeatherFlow questions when I get it. 
we had some discussions over in the other thread about this and I was able to move my lastspoken to integrations to Hubitat. I actually started using the lastspokentotime. I use that as the trigger in RM, but it works in webcore as well. Its pretty quick.
1 Like