Alternative Hubs

Well that’s it, thanks. Hubitat hub ordered!

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I’m ready for the switch, Hubitat hub en route!

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I just ordered my Hubitat hub as well. Even if ST gets their act together and I don’t end up migrating, $129 is a small price to pay for insurance that I might need to. I don’t plan on migrating any of my ZW or Zigbee devices initially. My current approach is…

  1. Enable HubConnect to mirror my ZW and Zigbee devices
  2. Integrate and test all cloud and LAN devices currently integrated into ST (e.g. Sonos, ecobee, Whistle Pet tracker, etc., etc.) I have some custom integration that may not have a Hubitat DTH currently, so I’ll have to also see how difficult cross development is.
  3. Test automations.
  4. Rebuild all automations in Hubitat in a disabled state. I’m hoping that a particular device can maintain the same association to a rule / automation whether it is connected directly or via hub connect so that…
  5. if all goes well with the above, and if ST continues to be worse than useless, rebuild my ZW and Zigbee networks with Hubitat as the hub.
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@swamplynx Solid plan! I like it.

I’m looking forward to giving Hubitat a go. I’m not sure it will be plain sailing and the phone app looks a bit weak, so very possible I’ll stick with ST, but at least I’ll have control of my custom devices back again with Hubitat!

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Fwiw the Hubitat webapp is crazy fast compared to ST. I use it and custom dashboards in place of the app. The app is basically just a host for the web interface

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The only thing Hubitat is missing is JD :pleading_face:

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Thanks. I tried it, but I really need a simpler plug and play system for my own household. Remember I don’t use Webcore or homebridge or most custom code, either, for the same reason.

So far vanilla HomeKit has the best voice navigation support, so I’m willing to give up a lot of rules complexity is order to get the reliable base functionality I need with a UI that doesn’t require paying someone else to navigate it. :wink:

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Godspeed to you and let us know your experiences.
I am thinking of making the switch again.

My SmartThings is pretty much out of operation since Mid August when I made the mistake to make the switch.

I’m jumping ship to Hubitat. I’ve got the hub and am finding my way around. Some things are better, some not so - especially anything to do with temperatures… But I’m sure I’ll find a solution one way or another. But the main thing? Compared to ST it is just lightning fast!

Care to elaborate?

temperatures? Can you elaborate?

I finally have everything working properly and have gotten by without Echo Speaks and fixing the other issues. I was even able to work on getting some DTH’s working in the new app for myself and some others, and get through this whole IFTTT fee mess.

So, I’m going to stick with Smartthings until at least the IDE transition phaseout unless some other major change happens. I look at it as we’re on the ground floor of something new and exciting with these changes, or we’re on the titanic about to hit the ice berg. I’d say 50/50 right now? Depends on what day you ask.

Plus, the amazing support received from this community has been tremendously helpful from the start, which means a lot. There are lots of other forums filled with jerks where I read things and wouldn’t dare post, but people on here have always been helpful and provide a lot of great info. It definitely is worth something. Thanks everyone.

If we are on the titanic, Home Assistant is my rescue boat though…

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I can’t for the life of me get Hub Link to work properly to pass temperature information from ST to Hubitat. Plus the built in Virtual Thermostat seems to just do nothing. The only App I can find that emulates a Thermostat properly is Fahrenheit only. And there are, shall we say, idiosyncrasies in the way automations work. Try turning one light on and another off without using Rule Machine, But I’m sure I’ll get there!

Try HubConnect instead of HubLink.

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Just chiming in here. Home Assistant with Hubitat is a strong combination.

You’ll find that Home Assistant requires a zigbee/zwave antenna. On top of it, HA’s ecosystem for implementing zigbee/zwave is not user friendly.

Home Assistant is amazing with wifi integrations but solving simple issues with zigbee/zwave is monstrous.

There are different ways to connect HA and Hubitat: MQTT and through an API. Both have community supported programs for the connection.

Using Hubitat for zigbee/zwave removes a huge headache with HA.

I setup my Hubitat and forget it. Everything just works.

Now I constantly am breaking things on my Home Assistant lol.

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It’s getting the zstick to work and what you said in general about the way Zwave “works” in home assistant was why I held off. I know most run home assistant on a pi, which is great you can get a computer so small and cheap, but processing power isn’t that good. I got it running in docker on an old laptop running linux mint, but it was really challenging just to pass the usb port to the docker container. Then it wouldn’t stay connected. It has great potential, but after a week of messing with it, I stuck with Smartthings, for now at least.

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I had a nightmare of a time getting a Nortek stick to connect. When I finally did I was disappointed with the available drivers. Many of my zigbee devices weren’t properly supported like contact sensors would not report temperature. The stick struggled to tell the difference between single and double presses with my smartthings button. Coding the button controller in YAML was annoying. You might not need to do YAML coding for button controllers anymore because the platform is evolving so fast but I’m happy with just dealing with Hubitat on the zigbee/zwave end.

Hubitat is poor with wifi integrations. Also smartthings users are used to unlimited cloud computing. You can’t overload your hubitat or even your HA with tons of custom programs. You do have to watch it. That being said I run Home Assistant on a raspy pi 3 with an SSD and it is snappy. I have some 16 integrations on the pi with some 200 devices.

I thought about going the old laptop route but gave up on it. My pi is easier to work with and fast enough. I am not however doing major databasing like other do with SQL, grafana, etc.

Definitely stick with what works for you but in case others might not consider BOTH! =)

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