1 - Smarthings did not support Z-Wave+ so I might change some switches around to get instant response where I need it
2 - how does polling work on Hubitat? By that I mean does it change the status according to the command when you send it then "adjusts it" on the next polling interval? Can I specify the polling interval to minimise slowdown?
So much misinformation flying around about this!
First off, let's examine the reason one might want a polled device: This is only of importance if (a) you have an automation that depends on the physical switch activation, or (b) want such a device displayed in a Dashboard where physical switch activation is routine. In a truly automated environment these are not mainstream needs. Both entail "control" as opposed to automation. When automations are in place, one doesn't need to touch light switches anymore, so their physical activation is not very relevant. Similarly, putting a switch into a Dashboard is for the purposes of "control", not automation.
Having said that, with a legacy Z-Wave device that does not report physical activation, where such physical activation is important to automation, one would use the Z-Wave Poller app to do it. That app polls each device selected in that app every 10 seconds. If the device becomes non-responsive, the polling rate drops back. The ST hub polls every Z-Wave device every 10 seconds, whether it needs it or not. In general, this polling scheme does not cause hub slowdowns. But, considering that the Z-Wave mesh is being hit, it may cause mesh slowdowns (this definitely is a considerations for an ST mesh). The user cannot discriminate the cause of the slowdown, hub vs mesh.
Recommended practice is to not ever poll any device. Think hard about which devices you may actually need a physical activation to be important (minimize this through automation design), and then use a Z-Wave Plus, Zigbee or Lutron device for that, instead of a legacy Z-Wave device.
Whatever you do, don't poll a large number of devices. Polling a few devices won't slow anything down.
If you are talking about the original SmartThings v1 (2013), you could be right, but SmartThings gen 2 (2015) and gen 3 (2018) certainly did.
I'm relatively new to hubitat. Had the system about a month. Anyway, I come from an iris v1, iris v2, smartthings, and a another system perspective. I have about a 140 devices. If you exclude life360, google home, Alexa and a couple of virtual switches there are about 130 devices. About half or more are z-wave, the rest zigbee. Most of the z-wave are original Ge devices, with the exception of of the locks which are kwikset. I have added several new devices that are zwave plus. My only issue, regardless of environment has been the locks and garage door opener. To get them to pair properly, I literally place the hub on the device. They would still occasionally drop off the system. To fix that issue I added an aeotec repeater close to three of the locks and the garage door opener. I know zwave does what it wants, but this fixed the issue. My zigbee devices work great especially after I replaced some osram bulbs and led strip controllers.
I'm perfectly happy with the system. First time in a long time.
This is actually what the lock manufacturer says is required to pair the lock. They clearly expect you to include the lock to the hub before you install it in the door, when it's easy. I have a Kwikset lock, and when I have migrated my Z-Wave setup from hub to hub, 2 or 3 times now, I have to move the hub to the lock. To do that I use a wifi bridge to bring LAN connection to my door where the lock is. That's a pain, and the lock has always been touchy about fully pairing, sometimes taking multiple attempts before it finally connects right. I too use some strategically placed aeotec repeaters to strengthen the mesh for the lock.
1: I've done some very rudimentary tests on the current (C5) zwave stack compared to smartthings. Both hubs side by side in the basement corner of the house. Nothing connected to either. Paired a light switch on the opposite side of the house on the main floor. Smartthings hub did it no problem in seconds. HE hub couldn't connect before the 60s timeout. This is an extreme scenario and once I paired the 30-40 other lights between the hub and that switch it became a non-issue.
2: Yes with the hubconnect integration, OR install webcore on hubitat and import your pistons.
3: Having been a big user of webcore, I absolutely hated RM. I moved my simple rules to RM but absolutely refused to move anything with any amount of complex logic to RM. It's incredibly clunky and just painful to use after having used webcore.
4: HE is plagued with slowdowns which require regular reboots (there's even apps designed to schedule this now). People shift things on to multiple hubs usually in an effort to combat this. My personal opinion is that the hub is underpowered, and distributing the load to multiple hubs does help.
I moved from ST to HE because of the constant network outages on ST. But the constant hub slowdowns and reboots on HE got me looking elsewhere. My current setup is the happiest I've been so far. I loaded up Home Assistant on a NUC, used the hubitat integration to bring all my hubitat devices into HA, and then do all my automations on HA. Hubitat is acting as a ZWave/Zigbee controller, and HA is doing all the heavy lifting for automations. Automations now fire faster than they ever have with any platform.
Sorry for my lack of reply's I had hit the 1st day limit.
I have a Gen 1 SmartThings hub, never saw a reason for upgrading as all my devices have custom DTH so would run from the cloud anyways.
That was my 1, right now switch status is unimportant to me. No automations are based on it as I did not have that option before. When including the switch, will hubitat indicate to me if they are Zwave or Zwave +?
I don't recall if this shows up at pairing time, but if you look at the device page and see 0x5E, then it is Z-Wave +.
No, not explicitly. Devices fingerprint to a default selection of driver. For some Z-Wave+ devices, a different driver may be the default, as compared to a legacy Z-Wave device. But, many of these drivers are interchangeable. We do our best to make these fingerprint driver selections be the best possible choice for each device.
This topic was automatically closed 365 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.
Download the Hubitat app
