Hi... I have a new Hubitat Elevation, and have been waiting to get some devices to connect to it. Currently everything I have is generic WiFi enabled "dumb" smart stuff. Currently, our rented modem/router is a piece of crap that needs rebooting once a week or so, and I was wondering if this is something I can do with my hub. Where are my commands stored? I believe that they are 'Scenes', right?
Here is my idea:
I would get a good Hubitat compatible smart plug, and plug my router into it. Then I could create a scene that would power down that plug, wait 10 seconds, and power it back up. I know that for the time that the modem/router was offline, and the time it took to reinitialize, I would be flying blind, but I don't need the network for the Hubitat to send the commands themselves to the smart plug, right? There is nothing needed for communications between the hub and the devices, just for communicating with the hub via my phone or tablet, is that correct?
This is kind of an experiment in laziness, but would also help me truly understand the difference between the Hubitat Elevation and just using a Google Home device and WiFi enabled lightbulbs and stuff.
Your HE should be able to turn on and off the plug powering the router just fine as long as it's one that uses local communication (IKEA TRADFRI, Peanut, etc)
As you noted, during the reboot process you won't be able to access the HE dashboard
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Thanks for the confirmation. Is there anything that I need to look for regarding 'local communication'? Or are these just the ones that don't need a separate hub? Because, as I understand it, there are some that do require a hub outside of the Hubitat hub. Is that correct?
Local would be : connects directly to Hubitat w/o hun or outside service
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It would have to be a z-wave or zigbee type. Which can be paired directly to the HE hub.
Edit... also if z-wave make sure it's the right frequency for your country!
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fwiw, also if going z-wave, "z-wave plus" is a desirable thing.
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There's probably some terminology to adjust to, I suspect few people would think of this as a "scene".
Hubitat has various apps you can install, depending on what you need. eg, for a daily power-cycle on a schedule, you may want to install the "Rule Machine" app. Then within that you could create rules:
- trigger, 02:00am ... action, router power plug = off
- trigger, 02:01am ... action, router power plug = on
And this is probably nowhere near the most efficient way to do it, but it would work, and is enough to prove the concept.
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