That's great to hear - I think I will really start mixing these in. They probably won't replace on-wall stuff but I can think of a ton of places to use them for other tasks. Prior to hearing your experiences I've basically shunned anything battery powered. I went all out putting door sensors in places but I can't keep up with the batteries.
It's true, Pico's are amazing. Just love them.
Yeah, that's a problem with a lot of battery devices. Pico battery life is purportedly 10 years. If I had the same Picos I started with, I'd be able to verify that in about 5 years, but that ended up in the house I sold. I have never changed the batteries on any of them though. 
For contact sensors I use Aqara sensors. But that's not joined to Hubitat. I run Home Assistant for them and use an integration that brings them back into Hubitat. That's not for everyone, but the family doesn't notice the difference. They're very small and really stable on Home Assistant with a Conbee 2 Zigbee stick. Battery life is around 3 years. For Hubitat direct, I wouldn't ever try Aqara sensors again. They drop off too frequently.
NYCE are probably the better choice for contact and motion, but they're expensive and not easy to get in Canada. I've actually started using Switchbot BLE contact sensors on two of my doors. Again, this is a type of integration that's not for everyone, but I'm pretty smitten with them. Really stable, with long battery life on 2 AAA batteries. They have contact, motion, brightness and a button, all in one device. But this again is a very specialized Home Assistant custom integration that is then brought back into Hubitat.
I have replaced just about every in-wall switch and dimmer in my 4300 sq.ft. house with GE/Jasco. They are super easy to install, have nice features for 3-way circuits, fit in with standard decor, and have been very reliable. Can't think of any issues I have ever had with them. I also use a user driver from Jason Bottjen on some of them to get double click capabilities. Since they are so well known and documented, there are also apps out there to automate features like mirroring.
You will also want to consider longevity and viability of the company that makes them. It's a considerable investment of dollars and efforts. If the brand you use could fold anyday, which happens in this space, due to weak business models, you find yourself stuck deciding what to do. I don't see GE going anywhere anytime soon.
One added benefit of Picos is Lutron makes pedestals for table placement, wall mounts, and visor mounts. I have them on every nightstand in bedrooms and family room tables for convenience. I have several mounted to walls where running wires was either impossible (because of headers or studs) or code didn’t allow a switch (near bathtub). While they look different than my GE switches, family and wife don’t mind. In my car I used it to open my garage versus garage door controller because my kids often leave the door open and hitting the controller button will close it, I have it programmed in HE to OPEN it only when I press the button.
I have a total of 55 Z-wave switches in a 3,500 sqft house.
I use the Inovelli Red series for dimmers - love these switches and the LED bars...you can do a lot with these. The only down side with the Inovelli dimmers is that if you hit the switch at more than 30 degrees "off axis" it sometimes doesn't register the push...kind of annoying that you have to hit them "square". Another great feature about the Inovelli is connecting them in 3-way...you can simply use the GE/Jasco add-on switch...very nice.
My ceiling fans all have a 3-wire run to them from the switch box...1 wired to light, 1 to fan, and 1 neutral. For these, I use the Zooz Zen 30 double switch. The dimmer is wired to the light, and the switch to the fan (I use the pull chain to set the fan speed and just leave it.)
The rest of my switches are GE/Jasco for on/off. I have had about 8 of them fail over the years. These were all switches installed in the 2016-2018 time frame. Every switch after that has been solid.
The GE/Jasco switches have the best "feel"...solid when you hit the switch.
The Zooz and Inovelli are more "squishy" when you hit the switch.
Jasco makes the devices, which is actually a good thing.
GE is in 3 businesses - aviation, healthcare, and energy. Everything else is a licensing deal. For instance, GE appliances are actually Haier (Chinese conglomerate).
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Yes, I understand that. But that licensing is for way more than just Z-Wave devices. There are a lot of GE/Jasco products across the electrical market. For a licensee to be large and worthy enough for GE to license them, most likely implies they are not going anywhere soon. Plus with the infusion of cash from licensing, the Jasco business model is funded to stay in business. Unlike many of these other automation device companies which don't have enough of a business model to sustain them long. I was speaking very generally about the maturity and longevity of the company(ies) behind the GE/Jasco automation devices.
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Can you point me to a post that describes the process to set these sensors up w/the Conbee 2 Zigbee stick & Home Assistant, or if it doesn't exist, can I beg on bended knee for a short post (in another thread, don't want to hijack this one) on this? 99% of my contact sensors are Visonic 340's, which I love as they are extremely reliable and quick, and are quite small and very thin so they are easy to hide in place. Very high WAF.
However, I have to replace the batteries a little more often than I'd like. For some of my doors/windows where hiding is easier or less important, I'd like to change to a longer battery life contact sensor and the Aqara are quite small and could be a good option if I have a way to keep them connected.
Very good points. However, large companies with many divisions can indeed sell off or discontinue product lines. Jasco may be a long-time player, but then so was Centrallite. When Lowes discontinued IRIS, that gutted the company and what's been rebuilt today is not the same. Lutron on the other hand is strong an
Do you have a spare computer around, like an old laptop or something. If so, one of the easiest ways is to just go to the Home Assistant website and then follow the instructions to install virtual box. They have a Home Assistant supervised image that you then download and tell virtual box to use that image by following their instructions. It’s really quite easy and you can get it going in about 10 minutes or less.
Then just purchase a ConBee 2 off Amazon and plug it into the PC. I would recommend if you’re going to use that PC permanently, that you use a USB extension cable and get the the ConBee 2 up high. Its range is excellent, but the higher it is and the more central in your home, so much the better.
Once you have your first device joined to HA, then follow the instructions below to install th the HA Device Bridge integration on Hubitat. Then after the device is first activation following the set up in the integration, it will show up as a device on Hubitat.
Sorry - I should have noted that I have HA Device Bridge integration already set up on my hub, and have a Pi with Homebridge running on it, and an iPad that I use as the i-device.
Can the ConBee be connected to the Pi?
Yes, with a Micro micro male to USB-A female adapter. There's a version of ConBee 2 specifically for Pi, but I would avoid that. You never know how you might use this in the future and the Pi only version will bind you, plus limit how you can position the Radio. There's no speed advantage to using the Pi specific version.
You can also use many other Zigbee radios with it that are said to work equally well, but I can tell you for certain that the ConBee 2, while more expensive, is super reliable for me. I personally wouldn't bother with the whole DeConz setup. Just use the built-in ZHA integration. HA finds and configures it automatically in seconds.
Agreed. Both on reliability and user experience. The only thing about the DZ6HDs that I don't like is that they still use Hail to avoid the (expired) Lutron patent.
100%
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They can be set, or double tap to bypass the setting for full brightness
Yes, and the Nortek stick from the C4 also works on the Pi, so you can try HA before you spend any money
That allows the switch to limit the max and min brightness. It does not cause the switch to turn on at the previously used brightness level which is what I was referring to.
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That is true... It's almost doable. Though you could also potentially write a rule which would help do that. But it's a pain.. I've done it for a couple of switches.
I don't actually have a c4 so either way it looks like I have to buy something.
