First off forgive me if this is in the wrong spot. First time poster, new hubitat user migrating from Wink (with the rest of them jumping overboard on Wink).
Winks extremely simple app design was great for first time smart home setup like myself. One of the things I enjoyed with their system was the Simplicity of their event logging. You could simply tap on events and it would show a simple list of what each device did, what time it did it, and what robot or shortcut caused it to do so.
So far it seems like with hubitat you have to go into each device individually to see this, which is a bit of a pain if you're just trying to get an overview of the day or have a lot of devices.
Also, if you're relying on contact sensors for Home Security it was great to be able to see on Winks sensors page the time stamp of the last time a sensors status changed. Again with hubitat you have to click into the three button menu and check history individually to see if there was any activity at all, as opposed to seeing a time stamp on the tile face that said "last changed at 2:50" or "last changed 30 min ago".
What that time stamp allowed me to do was verify at a glance on a dashboard view that no sensors were tripped at my house at a time where I expected no movement. Without checking the time stamps, someone could have broke in and closed the door on the way out and i would be none the wiser unless I took the time to check the history of every sensor connected individually. And who has that time in the middle of the work day? (Assuming I have been too lazy to set up text alerts and push notifs for sensor trips).
Summary: Would love to see on a tile face for sensors, and even locks and lights, the last time that devices status was changed. Then looking at a dashboard you can quickly discern if something happened at your home when it wasnt supposed to.
Would also love to see a simplified event logging summary in a list view that is accessible remotely through the app that showed device used, what it did, and what rule or automation made it happen (or what user sent command like alexa or user phone). I found that list extremely helpful in tracking down issues and breaks in my attempts at automation.
It's possible both of these request already exist and I just have not found them. I just started migrating 2 days ago, but thus far I have not been able to find anything in the community forum or by tinkering around in HE. O have also pretty much set EVERYTHING up using a mobile device as opposed to a desktop, so maybe I am missing out on user options and preferences that way.
Thanks for help in advance. So far this has been a very impressive platform. Looking forward to diving in deeper.
While your feature request still stands (it's possible someone has a custom app that would help do this; it wouldn't be too hard--all it would need to do is log the last motion time to a custom attribute and display that attribute on the tile, though I guess you'd lose the stock "motion" tile template if you did that), you might be missing something that could help you with this particular case: the built-in Hubitat Safety Monitor app.
Among other things, you can put HSM into one of its "armed" modes where it will do various things when contact sensors, motion sensors, or other devices you configure cause an alarm state--so you could get a push notification when a motion sensor trips in the middle of the day, or you could even use it to set off an alarm/siren, flash your lights, or whatever. Of course, if you do expect people to he home, this might not be what you want, but I figured I'd throw this idea out there in case it's useful to you (arming HSM when you don't expect specific things to happen).
Using the local browser interface, there is a "Logs" section that allows you to see events for either all devices or any one device at a time. I haven't spent much time there but it might provide some of what you're asking for.
When you say "local" I assume that means I have to be on the same network as the hub, as if I was adding devices and setting up automatons.
I am looking for something that I can check when I away from home, so the app would really be the place it needs to be.
If you mean something else please share, total newbie here with HE.
Thanks for posting.
I'm new to HE as well (about 10 days). My only interface with it has been from a desktop computer, at home, on the same LAN as the hub. I assume with port forwarding on my router, I could provide a way to access the hub from a remote browser but I've yet to try it.
I downloaded the Hubitat App for iOS to my phone but I can't get it configured. It keeps insisiting on searching for the hub on a local network.
Which mobile app are you using, iOS or Android?
Absolutely. I was waiting until I had everything migrated over before starting work on that, and it is certainly a powerful APP for home protection purposes.
Like I said though assuming I have not automated all my sensors and locks to the point that I am receiving notifs when they are tripped, a simple time stamp on the tiles themselves would provide a wealth of knowledge when looking at a group of tiles on a dashboard. You could literally track the movement of someone, let's say ones wife, leaving the home in the morning.
Laundry motion tripped at 7am on way to garage man door, man door last closed at 7:02 after putting dogs in garage, laundry light turned off via alexa at 7:03 on the way back in, front door sensor read closed at 7:05 and front door locked at 7:05 on the way out for work, scene activated at 7:08 by her cell that shut whole house down while pulling out of drive.
Having time stamps and possibly triggered actions of those events really would let you put the picture together without having to do anything other than checking out your dashboard.
Maybe I'm a control freak, but isnt that the reason we are doing all this automation in the first place? Master of ones domain! Ha..
Thanks for the reply.
Android. Setup went pretty smooth. Using the app you have no ability, that I have found anyway, to check a global event log. Just log into each tile via three button menu and click history to see that singular devices records. When you hit the 20 device mark, it gets time consuming... ha
Do not do this. Among other things, hub is not secured with a username or password by default and cannot be configured to allow only HTTPS (though that is an option). The best option for remote hub administration is using a VPN. Many routers have this built in, otherwise you can set one up using something like OpenVPN yourself, with a common option being the PiVPN variant on a Raspberry Pi. You could also use Remote Desktop-style software if you have access, then just that connection (if secure) to access the hub using a computer already on your network.
But most of the time, you really don't need to do this: Dashboards can provide remote monitoring and control (including device history, as mentioned above), and automations would ideally take care of everything that needs to happen regardless of whether you're home or not. Administrative tasks like adding and removing devices or reconfiguring apps must be done from the local-only hub interface, but as mentioned above, there are workarounds--port forwarding just shouldn't be one.
I'm not sure what you mean with "triggered actions," but between stock apps, including Rule Machine, and custom apps, you can do pretty much anything you want. (Hallway motion activated then front door opened? Turn on the outside lights if it's before 9 AM...though I'd probably get an outdoor motion sensor; my point was just to show that this would be possible.)
But yeah, I see where you are coming from. I don't use Dashboard much and it's actually such a neat idea I'd be surprised if someone hasn't found a way to do it yet. The only way I can think of would be, again, to have a custom app and device pair, where the app subscribes to motion from a sensor and stores the time of last motion in a custom device attribute, which you could then display on a Dashboard tile using the "Attribute" template (choosing that custom attribute). You could even cram these all onto one tile (or fewer than one per sesnor) with a custom app like Tile Master or Super Tile (hopefully coming back soon), though neither alone will let you track the last time of activity as far as I recall.
Sorry I'm sure I'm using incorrect nomenclature. Here is a picture showing what I mean.
You have a device (tile), the last %time% an action was performed, and the trigger or command that caused it to do so. In the pictures case it was a verbal Alexa command, but it would also show if it was done through a specific mobile device, or done via an automation or rule that was set up by displaying the rules name in place of "via alexa".
This specific picture shows the log for a single device, but there was also a daily log that sorted by time a action was performed and showed every device connected to the hub. So you could look down this simple list and see how every rule/automation/mobile or verbal command triggered specific devices and it really just gave you a sense of how everything was meshing together, and how certain events transpired through the day. (Like my wifes routine while leaving the house in the morning).
By tracking the things she did outside my automatons via the time and order she did them, I was able to improve my automatons to adjust to her needs. And at the same time grasp loosley what's going on at the house via that information being displayed.
I know we are talking more about a single time stamp being displayed on the tile, which would be really great, but a log layout that can be accessed remotely via the app that encompasses all devices on one log globally would be amazing.
Alright guess you cant post pictures or links. But do a image search for "wink hub 2 activity" you'll find a image from tech hive showing what I am describing (badly).
Thanks for your time!
I would also like to last update for the default motion, door, and window sensors in the default tile template. I haven't tried it yet but I think it could be created using @Cobra's Super Tiles and it allows for custom icons so you could do one tile for each device, more devices per tile if you don't need the icons.
I want to see at a glance where the last activity occurred anywhere in the house. I accomplish this follows:
In RM4, create a global variable of type String called LastActivity
In RM4, create a rule that triggers on any motion going active or contact sensors opening to Set LastActivity to '%device% at %time%'
In RM4, create a Connector to expose LastActivity to Dashboards
In your dashboard, create a tile using LastActivity with template Variable String
There is a minor flaw with this that isn't the fault of Hubitat, but with the behaviour the motion detectors I use. Because it will only report new motion once every 30 seconds, this scenario exists: Intruder breaks into bedroom window, walks through bedroom, then opens the front door to a blast of cold air. Immediately she retreats the bedroom and falls soundly asleep under the covers. If all that happens in 30 seconds, LastActivity will show door open when in fact the last real activity was in the bedroom.
So this LastActivity tile is going to completely replace the contact/motion sensor tiles? I suppose that's a good work around for sensors displaying last updated times And their current status.
However, this still leaves lights and locks out there, and really any other tile that when pushed triggers an action.
Thanks for the work up for the sensors though that is half the battle there!
Will that also capture updates from things like battery reports and temperature reports, if the sensor supports (or is configured to report) those values? I was hesitant to recommend it for that reason.
Depending on the size of your system you more than likely are not going to be able to capture everything you want in a single dashboard tile. However, if you're a true control freak, you could dump all the data from your sensors into a database and use Grafana to setup graphs for what you want to see.
And will it still allow control of the device if it's a dimmer or a door lock by chance?
I'm aware I can create separate tiles that will display this info in addition to the actual device tile, I'm trying to not have so much clutter on my dashboard though.
I suppose I could setup a separate dashboard just for these attributes tiles though...
This is the best I can offer.
"V Drive" is a virtual motion sensor.
The time that it triggers shows in the upper left hand corner of the tile.
As degrees. (f)
