Do I need Hubitat

Why Hubitat Elevation
#11

To expand a bit on what @aaiyar is saying. It also depends on your level of comfort with doing technical stuff. HE by itself works really well for the wide range recommended set of devices. It has Alexa integration built in that can expose devices TO Alexa**.

If you are interested in Apple Home integration then you will need to install the HomeBridge server on another machine like a Raspberry PI or in Docker or VM... and have a hub device like a HomePod Mini or AppleTV (iPads are not recommended due to portability). This requires a little more technical know-how but the community is here to help if you need it.

As far as the Ring integration goes.. there is a community app available but have not used it. I have my Ring (floodlights and doorbell) talking to HomeBridge which also exposes them to Apple** as well which is nice.

** You can send info/events back to HE by creating "virtual" devices in HE.

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#12

You just need to install the hubitat package manager. That will have the ring integration in it. Hubitat has Direct hue integration but for some reason I'm partial to the Cocohue connector. As to your original question. Hubitat also gives you the ability to have more complex automations while integrating what you have above. That's what it's really about. Automation, not remote control.

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#13

:point_up:

@ajaffarali

This! A hundred times over!!

What you've described in simply replacing a physical switch with a different switch - be it a mobile app or your voice. And, again, perhaps that is sufficient to meet your needs; after all, it is convenient to be in bed and be able to turn all the lights out with an app or your voice.

For me, when I'm bed for the night, I need the lights to gradually dim and become warmer, for all peripheral doors to automatically lock, for lights in the rest of the house to automatically turn off, and for my bedroom Sonos to start playing a pre-selected station and then gradually decrease the volume over the next 30 minutes. When I need to be woken up, I need lights to gradually become brighter and colder and for the news to be playing (increasing in volume) on the Sonos. And all, without touching an app, or using a voice command.

2 Likes
#14

I'm not that detailed myself though I have pico's on each night stand. Center button turns off all lights in the house, makes sure both doors are locked. After 10 though if you walk into the bathroom the night light behind the toilet comes on at 5% (enough that I don't his the wall instead of the toilet) and doesn't wake me up. At 5 to sunrise though you walk in to the bathroom and the lights come on at 10% and gradually increase over the next 20 mins so it doesn't blind me (and allows us to shower without being stressed at light) but the rule cancels if the physical light switch is pressed. Combined with humity being above 60% the fan comes on and goes off at 59%. Little things like that are what I like...

1 Like
#15

Oh wow. That level of detail is insane! How difficult is it to set something like this up? Also, what are the best set of motion detectors, locks etc. that work best?

#16

It takes time. All my automations together probably took me a year to setup. But I’ve futzed with it minimally since then (~1 year)

My bias has been toward zigbee sensors (motion/contact/leak/light/vibration/presence), zigbee locks, and zigbee garage door control (with a zwave tilt sensor). My switches/dimmers are mostly Lutron Caséta. I have zigbee rgbw light bulbs as well.

I currently use zigbee and zwave outlets for power-monitoring.

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#17

So looks like zigbee is the way to go. I believe my Philips and IKEA bulbs are that. Do they let recognized automatically by Hubitat? Or will I need to disassociate them from the Hue app? And once they are synced with Hubitat can I continue to use the Hue/IKEA apps to control them or no?

#18

There is a Hue integration so you should be able to leave the bulbs on the Hue hub, and still be able to coordinate their control with the HE.

2 Likes
#19

Factory reset the device then pair with Hubitat. I use a mixture of zigbee (most battery) z-wave (most hard wired) And all my light switches are Lutron Caseta just because Lutron just works. Now if you start dealing with zigbee bulbs, either stay with sengled or keep those on the hue hub. The reason for this is most bulbs make bad repeaters. Sengled bulbs do not repeat.

#20

Zigbee is nice but you may end up with some Z-Wave+ switches as the zigbee is a little hard to find for those types devices at least in the US (Jasco/GE has some). I also prefer zigbee locks or lock modules if possible.

Both protocols have their issues - Z-Wave's issues are a little more prominent right now thanks to the new 700 Chipset in the C-7.

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#21

There's a whole slew of newer zigbee 3.0 rgbw light bulbs that this no longer applies to. These include bulbs by Innr and a whole-slew of variously branded bulbs made by eWelight, but sold under lots of names. Color reproduction is good, and the color temperature range is 2700-6500K.

I reviewed some of these recently.

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#22

The Ikea Tradfri Control bridge and devices paired to it do not integrate directly with Hubitat. THere are ways to bring them into Hubitat (eg. using Node-RED).

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#23

Nice. Do you have a link to the bulbs? Also do you know the names their being manufactured under?

#24

Here’s the ones I tried:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08N4LH7GD/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_DFGYH6KPHS9DD5V8BVMX

But there’s many other “brands” - Seedan, Dogain, Liokkie, CMARS - they’re all the same manufacturer (eWeLink).

#25

Which also supports Hue devices the HE native integration does not.

#26

I'll second @thebearmay's point. Hue just works, and manages the hardware just fine. Leave them on their own Hub and use one of the integrations. CoCoHue is my favorite, but the native Hubitat integration is good too.

I have found no compelling argument for moving any of my many Hue devices other than Motion Sensors to a direct Hubitat Zigbee connection.

S.

1 Like
#27

I use a hue hub for mine but the compelling argument is real-time updates instead of Hubitat having to poll the devices for status updates.

3 Likes
#28

Yes

#29

Yea, that makes sense. Not an issue for my use cases, but I can certainly see where that might be an issue for some!

S.

1 Like
#30

You may want to also look at Innr bulbs . They work with Hue or by them selves. I've never used, or even looked in to the ikea bulbs. Maybe its just my perception but they seem like they are "odd",

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