Hi,
I'm looking to change from SmartThings over to Hubitat. The switch seems to me like it will be somewhat painless compared to other solutions. I have a myriad of questions though that I hope I can get answered though.
How is the Zwave stack? I tried HASS but the Zwave integration was horrendous compared to Smartthings.
I know HE can control my SmarThings devices, but can I expose my HE devices to Smartthings? IE if I want to migrate my devices before having converted my WebCore pistons to RM?
What is the overlap in functionnality between WebCore and RM? I'm thinking of pistons with rules like "hasnt changed in x min" or "state was not x for x min".
What are people trying to get around with multiple hubs?
Hard to answer. The C-7 will have a brand new z-wave stack.
Yes, using @srwhite's HubConnect - for as long as SmartThings continues to support custom Groovy code. There's no issue on the Hubitat side.
The other thread gave you a bunch of examples already. As @jeubanks said, this question is best answered if you indicate what devices you want to migrate over to Hubitat and what your long-term home automation plans are.
Coordinator, Internet facing services and devices such as Alexa, Google, Weather, Dashboard -- 164 devices (This is the result of 'mirroring' of the first two.)
This question has been answered in much detail, but the short version is:
No, the hub is not 'that slow"... I have a Production C3 Hub, and a Development C5 Hub. I have no issues on either hub, and I do not routinely reboot them. My Prod Hub has 149 devices, mostly Zigbee, Lutron, and my own custom HubDuino devices. I have never been a huge Z-Wave fan, so the new C7 hub really doesn't excite me at all. I do hope it helps the users with large Z-Wave networks.
One with ~150 z-wave, zigbee devices that do not work as Xiaomi Aqara repeaters, and virtual devices.
The second with ~50 Xiaomi Aqara sensors, 4 of @iharyadi's environmental sensors, and 11 Tradfri repeaters and outlets.
There are specific challenges.. and for some people, the challenges are solved via a second hub. @aaiyar example of nuisance Zigbee is a wonderful example. Trying to get the two variances of Zigbee working together is a challenge. There are multiple solutions, ONE is a 2nd Hubitat hub, but by no means is it the only.
Exactly, I'm not seeing the nuance, i'm trying to see what problems people are seeing that they need more than one hub. I'm trying to see if they are trying to get around some limitation of the Hubitat software/hardware or something else. I will start a new thread to stop crowding this one.
Personally, I have never found Z-Wave to be incredibly reliable or simple to maintain. I had about a dozen early GE/Jasco Z-Wave switches and dimmers. On both SmartThings and Hubitat they would occasionally fall off the mesh and have to be manually Excluded and then Included back to the Hub. This sometimes required the repair of many automations. I gave Lutron Caseta a try as I was interested in their Pico Remotes. I was so impressed with Lutron, that I have replaced EVERY switch/dimmer/fan controller in my house with Caseta devices. They work 100% of the time, and I have had literally ZERO issues with them. That's my Z-Wave story. I am not saying that Z-Wave is a bad technology. The newer 500 and 700 series Z-Wave Plus devices I am sure are much improved. I am saying that I prefer to not have to deal with it. Zigbee works very well, is very fast, allows for more hops and more devices, and is self-healing. Lutron just works!
When I used Z-Wave, my wife and kids were always annoyed when automations did not work, or were slow to respond. With the Lutron/Zigbee hardware, they have asked me to automate all of the lighting in the house. They find it 'annoying' to have to turn on/off a light manually now.
First my Setup:
I have a small home so about 30 Z-Wave Devices, 5 Ghome, TV, Sensibo, Harmony, Plex, some servers all communication with SmartThings. I have about 20 different pistons for automations, mostly mode changes, server reboots and media scenes.
The Zwave Stack I was talking about the user experience side, i mean SmartThings was pretty easy.
So after a years time, building all my rules multiple ways, creating custom groovy apps, I found motion lighting always slowed down and the hub generally requires a daily reboot to keep it running fast.
For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why! Maybe my hub specifically ????
Also keep in mind, I’m picky! An extra quarter of a second would bug me.
To conclude, all my logic is on another product and Hubitat is mainly used to interface with all my devices. Essentially it acts as a gateway.
It’s been 10 days without a reboot now, and the hub hasn’t slowed down and all my automations are quick! Why, because it’s doing no logic.
I also may be considered outside the average automation population, and the expectations of what the hub can do.
Lastly, I’m spoiled when it comes to automation. What I mean by that, is that I’ve never had to deal with a cloud solution.
Are they all the older zwave devices or zwave plus?
I’m a single hub person and have a significantly larger setup than you. I have a few hundred devices ranging from zwave to zigbee to wifi plus integration with a number of services including Alexa, Rachio, ecobee and more.
I can’t say a multi hub setup is required in your case. I have no issues, don’t reboot nightly and it runs without issues.
I do watch the other threads closely though and can’t seem to put any sort of finger on why others may have issues. Bad hubs? Meshes? Apps? Drivers? Too many variables.
I have written all my own apps and drivers. So I pretty much know everything going on with my setup. But it did take a significant amount of work which most wont want to (or able to) do.
Keep in mind too. The HE team has also said they have a lot of users with single hubs and no issues at all. So I would start with just one.
Edit. I do plan on buying one of the C7 hubs though. But will keep my C4 as a backup hub in case anything happens. So I guess I will eventually become part of the multi hub club.
Mostly a mix of GE, Zooz and Linear switches. Some of the newer ones are Z+, most not, some line thermostats + a lock and a couple of window /door sensors so not that many devices that are not repeaters.
As for slowing the hub down, too bad they don't offer a hub VM template. I'd actually pay for that. Throw all the processing power you want at it and keep that hub as a radio.
The 'most not' Z-Wave Plus might be a little bit of an issue. If you rely in instant status updates from physical button presses on the older Z-wave switches and dimmers, you may be disappointed. Many users end up replacing their older Z-Wave switches with newer Z-Wave Plus, Zigbee, or Lutron devices to get reliable physical status updates without polling. Personally, I think that Z-Wave Polling actually makes matters worse for most users.
