Hello all. The amount of information here is truly staggering which is both a blessing and a curse. One of the reasons I chose Hubitat was for the amount of community support the platform has. Weeding through all the posts to find what I need, however, has been a bit of a challenge.
I have a bunch (30+) of WiFi smart bulbs, light strips and motion sensors that are controlled mostly through Alexa routines. The action to detect no motion for my sensors to turn off lights just stopped working a few months ago. From what I can tell, this was an update to Alexa and there isn't much I can do about it. That got me started down the road of next level automation with a hub. So I now have a Hubitat c-8 up and running. Woohoo!
My current biggest challenge is trying to get those WiFi motion sensors to show up in Hubitat. So here is my question. Should I keep plugging away at trying to find and figure out how to install the Switchbot and Shelly sensors or do I have to bite the bullet and lay out the cash to upgrade everything to zigbee or z-wave? AND which one of those platforms will be more future proof?
FYI, my SwitchBot integration supports the Bot, motion sensor, and many other devices.
Also FYI, my Broadlink integration only supports universal remotes, currently. I haven't met anyone else yet with Broadlink bulbs or other devices, but I would be willing to try to support them @RichNCSU. Can you provide an Amazon (or other online purchasing link) to the bulbs that you're using?
If you can post what model the numbers are of your Govee devices, i can confirm if they appear to support the Cloud API.
Generally speaking, If they are Wifi based and connect to Alexa they should be controllable through the Govee Cloud APi and in turn by Hubitat with my Govee Integration.
Hi @RichNCSU, those bulbs appear to be bluetooth-based, not wifi. Unfortunately they would not be able to interface directly with Hubitat because there is no bluetooth host support on Hubitat.
I was missing the step of going into Devices then + Add Device and selecting Virtual. When I did that, I saw the Switchbot motion sensor and it is now logging activities.
Looks like I spoke too soon on the logged activities. All I got was Motion = Unknown and Brightness = Unknown possibly because I hit the Initialize and Refresh buttons on the device page. I should be using the "Switchbot Motion Sensor" under the User section, correct?
@tomw Thanks for the info on the Broadlink stuff. I actually purchased this starter kit that has a hub. Does that change anything? Again, expect to be replacing some things so these bulbs might be on that list.
No, you should only manually create a SwitchBot System device.
Check out the last two steps in the "Manual Configuration Instructions" section of my readme on GitHub. They apply regardless of whether you installed the drivers and apps code manually or with HPM -- sorry for any confusion.
I can't find any information about an API to that hub, and it doesn't seem to be supported by other Broadlink integrations that I usually reference. My hunch is that it uses a different API or communication mechanism than their other devices.
If it were me, I would replace those bulbs with a ZigBee equivalent that can connect directly to Hubitat. I'm a big fan of Sengled bulbs, personally.
If you have a bunch of the Broadlink bulbs and don't want to migrate right away, maybe you could finagle a way to control them through something like the Alexa app talking to Hubitat (though it would have to traverse multiple clouds). I have seen others set up a sort of relay using virtual switches between Alexa and Hubitat, but I haven't had a need to try it personally.
@tomw It took a bit to understand that the Create Child Devices button doesn't give you any obvious feedback that something happened. I finally saw the Switchbot sensor under Component Devices at the bottom of that Switchbot System device. I now see the motion sensor child device. Feels like progress!
I'd like to comment on your original question of basically what to keep and what to dump.
I too have a bunch of WIFI wall switches, bulbs, etc.
I have kept a few of the WIFI wall switches but changed the others to ZIGBEE. I also changed my thermostat to ZIGBEE. All of my sensors are now ZIGBEE.
My ZIGBEE network is really stable and I am extremely pleased not to mention that the drivers for all my stuff on Hubitat just works and works and works.
Incidently I have two C7 hubs. One in the house and the other in the horse barn. My dashboards control devices on both hubs. Big wife pleaser for sure.
There is no such thing a "future proof" only best guess and what will work well until we get a better idea.
From what I see above you are getting a lot of help to bring you WIFI devices back into service and that is good.
Going forward however I would highly recommend ZIGBEE. It is really great.
Glenn.
Truly appreciate all the input. The Zigbee v Z-wave seems to be very much in line with the PC or Mac conversations. There are strong reasons to choose either platform and it doesn't seem like there are any major points tipping one way or the other for me. I'll continue to get stuff rolled into my system and prioritize what needs to be replaced.
Most of us choose both as well as add in clear connect. It's not a mac vs pc thing. A lot of factors come into play. Quality of devices, amount of repeaters, home setup, whats in the walls, metal boxes vs plastic etc. All signal is impacted somehow. I have a 5600 sqft house and I have had a solid zigbee and z-wave mesh for years and absolutely 0 issues with clear connect (Lutron). This is the experience of the majority of users. Some due to one issue or another settle on one protocol. Other issues that come into play are cost (zigbee is cheaper in general but I think that has more to do with the current z-wave chip production lows more than anything). JMO
