Don’t switch to Hubitat

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#21

Just to clarify, I never said that I agreed with your comments and I don’t know for sure that the issues you’re experiencing are entirely the platform’s fault…

Your original post said “moved all zwave and zigbee devices over” and if you have a lot of z-wave devices and you didn’t move them slowly to give your mesh time to heal then the existing z-wave radio issues with the C7 would be a lot worse than normal for you, but I’m not sure if that would have any impact on your zigbee devices.

I have no clue if that applies to you, I’m just pointing it out because that’s probably one of the most common and biggest mistakes people make when moving z-wave devices from another hub.

FYI, you said that thermostat issue was caused by the contact sensor failing to change state, but the same thing would have happened on ST if it or your internet was down when the contact state changed which is why it’s a really bad idea to use any smart home platform for automations that could end up harming someone unless there’s a failsafe in place.

I also never said it’s a bad platform because the performance is better (except when the z-wave radio gets overloaded), hub connected devices execute locally, it has a powerful rule builder, you decide when to update the hub, and you can rollback and wait for a stable update if you run into problems.

Those are huge advantages over ST, but I don’t recommend that frustrated ST users switch to Hubitat right now because the current version has a lot of bugs and they’ll just be trading one set of problems for another.

It’s really frustrating because Hubitat basically released one of the buggiest updates ever in August and most of those bugs still haven’t been fixed…

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#22

Ok, well at least you agree there are issues with hubitat. Or did initially. Really all I meant. I didn’t cosign your name. I took two weeks to transfer zwave devices, starting with wired devices closest to the hub, each device followed by its associated rules, at a max of two devices in a 24 hour period. I didn’t rush things.

If you don’t think saying “it used to be a solid platform” indicates it is currently NOT a solid platform, furthermore indicating it is a BAD platform, then we disagree on the English language. Then, saying they made platform changes which broke a bunch of drivers (as I also pointed to a variety of devices not properly communicating with the hub) would make it seem like you are saying there are issues with the hub.

My ecobee rules listen for the contact to change OR if the ecobee state is “Off” and the contact has been closed for so many minutes. An internet outage, something I have never encountered as problematic for home automation, would be accounted for. A hub that does not report that a contact has changed is not something I or anyone should have to take into consideration. Again, with over four years with ecobee and smartthings, I have had no issues. With a supposedly superior hub, I expected not to have any.

My goal with this post is to allow smartthings users to see what the issues are on hubitat before making a change that will surely inspire them to smash hubitat to bits with a hammer, then send it back in the mail for a refund. If you want to back peddle go ahead.

Either it is a platform where “the performance is better” or “one of the buggiest” options for home automation. As a new user, I see the bugs and the bugs only. I have benefitted from no superior execution.

#23

lucky duck… or wolf, whatever. I wish I knew what the difference was.

#24

From.what I read, hubitat seems pretty decent with almost everything being local control, but the mobile interface is no where near smartthings & to have to create rules on a pc doesnt sound fun, but it doesnt seem to bother people. I do think hubitat will be where smartthings was not to long ago, but not sure how long its gonna take. I will say the community form looks like what smartthings uses to be.

#25

I 100% prefer using my computer to create rules.

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#26

It sounds like you used the proper procedure for moving everything over which rules out the most common mistake.

I’m not back peddling, my first post basically said Hubitat was good, it sucks for new users because a bunch of stuff is currently broken, that’s probably temporary, and updates aren’t mandatory so if you’re on a stable version and they release another buggy update you can stay on the stable version until it’s fixed.

Being able to setup the automations on the computer makes it much easier and faster, but not being able to easily tweak something when you’re away from home can be frustrating.

#27

There’s a lot of frustration and anger coming through in your messages, which is understandable. I don’t think it’s typical though. No question HE has some issues esp. concerning the C7 hub and zwave devices.

I’m a new Hubitat user and I’m neither frustrated, nor inspired to find the nearest hammer. Just the opposite, actually. I now have EchoSpeaks back, all of my Webcore pistons ported over with little to no changes and all my Zigbee devices are moved. I can now turn on my backyard lights without fear that ST has broken something in the middle of the night.

Using HubConnect, I have bidirectional sharing between ST and Hubitat and that works fine as well. ST (including the app) sees and can control everything on HE, and HE sees and can control everything on ST.

After reading the forums about current issues (which I did prior to purchasing), I’ve chosen not to move any zwave devices to Hubitat until after the impending firmware update. If I never get anything more out of Hubitat, I consider the money well spent.

It may be that I end up running both hubs in parallel indefinitely. I already have other hubs (Ring, my weather station, alarm panel, etc.) so I’m not necessarily looking for a single hub solution anyhow.

So for those reading this thread, I would not hesitate to explore Hubitat, especially if you want to get EchoSpeaks back. ES on ST is probably a dead issue. A hub is a relatively small expense in the overall cost of a home automation system, and if you really hate Hubitat you can send it back.

3 Likes
#28

Echo speaks was my primary objective when switching. And yeah, I have that working which… makes me happy…

I started to read the forum for issues myself. I honestly didn’t know what I was looking for, and when I saw integrations with withings and blink, I saw a way to cut IFTTT out entirely and stopped searching the forum.

And I’ve got to give both of those integrations a freaking standing ovation. I haven’t bothered to look at the portability of either of those to smartthings.

I also don’t need a single hub solution. Smartthings has ring, smart life and moodo which I setup with hub connect also, but when I started to have issues I uninstalled hub connect and a few other things to see if reliability would improve. I have seen it said that hub connect can cause issues.

After I uninstalled hub connect and rolled back my firmware my two phantom zwave nodes were removed successfully, and reliability seems to be coming back. I’d wager the zwave issues, when not addressed, cause issues with devices of other types. The hub is still trying to process failed zwave commands as new information is coming in to be processed, and all the new information gets ignored in the hubs attempt to process the failing zwave. I have not yet reinstalled hub connect.

As to the anger, yes. I wish I could say I kept my cool better. Between life and all the changes in the home automation world, I’ve got my hammer close by.

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#29

Side note lol.

I’m working on integrations for moodo and todoist if anyone has a desire for these on hubitat or could lend a hand. I’ve got as far as authentication with both. The goal is a single todoist child that keeps a list of projects, which show as commands to add a task for each project as well as search for and delete tasks. With moodo, child devices for each box and level control and name for each scent.

#30

I certainly understand. I’ve uttered some choice words towards everyone involved in ST and their evil spawn when the button to turn on my backyard lights did nothing, especially when my dog chooses to get me out of bed at 3am.

Every time it happens I ask myself why I need the internet and some cloud system that I have no control over to turn on my backyard lights. Moving that to Hubitat is probably even more valuable to me than EchoSpeaks.

You’re probably right that the zwave issues affect the stability of the system as a while. Hubconnect is working good for me, once I got installation issues sorted out (I installed the 2.0 beta).

#31

just FYI … if you move a bunch of devices from ST to HE my personal experience has been that it takes a few hours for the zwave/zigbee network to stabilize to a point where the state reporting is consistent. once it stabilizes you will probably find its pretty reliable from there on.

I have been running ST and HE since the older HE hub was released. while HE has its quirks … state reporting is generally not a typical issue. no experience with the new hub though but wouldn’t be surprised if a newly released hub has a few issues that will get resolved with the next software update. :slight_smile:

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#32

I’m on the C7 with a handful of zwave, loads of zigbee, and a stack of wifi nodemcu’s.

No issues at all.

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#33

It’s becoming more and more appealing by the post!

I find it Interesting that this thread will close 5 days after the last reply, that might be a good while yet :thinking: :joy:

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#34

The latest HE firmware came out today that should help with the 700 chip ZWave issues. Fingers crossed!

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#35

Here is just a recap, why this topic is so pointless:

Temperature control disappeared from the App for many devices, by a change in the cloud.

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#38

See the above comment.

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#40

The failure of smartthings doesn’t equate to YOU MUST USE HUBITAT. So glad you’re anything other than well thought.

#41

@Andy_Armijo, let me explain you what you have just explained is the great example why nobody ever should connect a heating system to a “Home Automation” system without any failsafe measures.

A proper heating system controller would override any auxiliary input if it experiences a major issue and programmed to protect the system. One of the basic feature is called freeze protection, the other is usually for overheating. The result in both issues are bursted pipes, either by freeze or an explosion by over pressurised hot water/steam.

By doing so missing these failsafe features, it can be any “Home Automation” system, but the failure is on the home automation controller side. You have been around with ST for many years, you should know exactly the same thing can happen with ST as someone pushes some code in the cloud and the whole system just melts down for a few hours.

Regarding heating control, this project gives a good idea how a properly designed heating controller works:

Look at the comments for details.

7 Likes
#42

FYI, I do not own any Hubitat hubs. But I will love to see when this topic will be closed due to your rants. Good luck mate! :+1:

1 Like
#43

Dude go flag someone’s post. As already explained. I have a failsafe. That in the split second Between opening and closing a door the whole system should fall apart is absurd and has never, in four years, happened, until hubitat. Quit making the issue anything other than what it is, hubitat. That’s what this post is here for, it isn’t here for you to come parading in with solutions to anything that isn’t the problem. If you wanna talk about some other nonsense, go to a different post, and offer your unwelcome comments there.

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