First Days Migrating from Wink to Hubitat, Successes, Failures, and Solutions to Help Others…

If you're an Apple household, why not install Homebridge and use the native Apple Home app, which is available for Macs, iPhones and iPads?

This is what the Home app with my Hubitat devices looks like on my Mac. Works very well, and the Homebridge integration with Hubitat makes it seamless.

Also, keep track of this development:

3 Likes

Regarding your slowdown you're seeing after adding a bunch of devices, couple things:

  1. Sounds like you're watching it carefully (you mentioned noticing ghosts appearing) but keep a close eye on your Z-Wave Details page when you're doing inclusions - you should check it after each device inclusion and confirm it joined succesfully (all colunms for that device are populated, particulary the Device Class, Device, and Route columns. Any ghosts should be cleared immedately before trying to add more devices.
  2. I have seen times (on older versions of the Hub Z-Wave Firmware) where I would need to reboot the hub every two to three device inclusions. I haven't had to do any mass-inclusions in a long while, but rebooting the hub every two to three is probably a good idea if you're having inclusion issues.
  3. Your Z-Wave network is in a bit of a "Storming and Forming" phase and devices should settle down and adjust routing as they and the Z-Wave SDK see fit. TL;DR: Give it a week or more for things to settle
  4. Right now, shut down your hub from the Settings screen, then pull power (from the wall, the connector at the hub can be a little fragile) and wait a minute or two and plug the hub back in. Pulling power allows the radio to do a full restart which can help settle things in.

You should definitely not have multi-second delays in responses from the Device page or from automations...I don't have experience w/older Leviton devices, however, so I don't know if they tend to be problemmatic on this platform and may be contributing to your issues.

Progress is good!

2 Likes

If looking for a good VPN - checkout WireGuard

For ease of setup and use there is also TailScale which uses Wireguard (I think) and has a free tier which would be perfect for this use-case.

3 Likes

@danabw , WOW! As you were writing these things, I was experiencing them! One of my observations I'm becoming more and more confident in is there is some type of memory leak or operational stuck loop in the inclusion exclusion processes. I agree with you as well that it seems to perform better if I reboot after 4-5 inclusions. SO, definitely something awry there in the process. And, whatever is happening, I think can also be triggered by halting the inclusion/exclusion process. For example, if I start the inclusion and exclusion process after a fresh restart, and stop it because say I wasn't ready or had the device in the wrong state for an inclusion, and press the button again to stop the process, I will have more than likely re-created whatever is happening after 5-6 inclusions. Some sort of leak or stuck look that breaks down the whole of the z-wave infrastructure on the hub. No Z-wave related process behaves appropriately after whatever happens happens... Turning Lights on or off, running z-wave repair, nada. It all breaks down until a reboot...

I have not tried shutdown and power pulls. BUT, after reading your post here, and my experience, I am going to start trying frequent reboots as well as everything else you mention.

A final observation I have run into in the last 30 minutes (after trying z-wave repair because I was having so many problems), is that 1. The Route tables were ALL empty before z-wave repair... Three light switches and all 8 repeaters failed the z-wave repair process, and, after that process was complete, the route tables were filled in for most devices, but, missing on those 11 devices plus a handful of others. So, that was weird. to me. ALSO, the routing is UTTER chaos... Makes no sense. A device is running through another one 150 feet away, only to jump back to a device that's 5 feet from it. I truly don't understand how this routing is developed.

Is it normal I wonder for the routing tables to be blank after adding 30 items, prior to running a z-wave repair (originating with a fresh system)? And then, is it normal for all repeaters to fail the repair process?

These are my thoughts right now and yes indeed, I am in the storming and forming phase. But, for those of you migrating to HE, if it works like mine, indeed, frequent reboots/shutdowns while adding does seem to help. Hopefully once everything is added it will normalize/stabilize.

You definitely need to do this.

Missing routes for mains powered devices = (in majority of cases) ghosts. If a shut-down/power pull/restart doesn't help, you'll need to remove those ghost devices and pair them again. They are the source of your delays and other performance issues. No routing = no fun. :slight_smile:

You can try individual repairs on the devices w/out routing after you do the power down process, but often they will not repair. If you are offered a "Remove" button after running a Repair or Refresh on a device that lacks routing, Click the Remove button so it's removed from the hub database and you can reset and re-include the device.

Odd routing is usually OK, and not something to "mess with" unless that device is having performance issues.

3 Likes

Welcome to Hubitat! I came from Wink too.. in more ways than one. I used to work there on the Android app. Great and very smart people but the ownership was basically absent and stopped paying the bills. I'm surprised they're still in business (and that you lasted as long as you did).

I switched over a few years ago and while it took me some time to get all of my devices setup, I'm more than happy with Hubitat. It is all about the community drivers and support. While Wink worked great with some devices - Hubitat feels like it works with just about everything.. things I never would have thought could be added such as B-Hyve (hose), Kasa (Wifi swtiches/outlets/etc), Blink Cameras (arm/disarm).. and plenty of non-device services like the awesome GameTime app (MLB/NHL/NCAA/etc updates).. just to name a few. None of those would be remotely possible with Wink AFAIK.

  1. This could be as simple as some type of pointer/redirector such as a DYNDNS type of situation, or, some of things could actually be being pushed up to a cloud server somewhere and when I'm acting, my request is actually being forwarded from a server side application to my home HE device. I'm not exactly sure. But, in the HE app on my phone, certainly something somewhere is being hosted and paid for by somebody and generosity like that can't last forever.

Hubitat does the DDNS forwarding or whatever it's called from it's server to your Hub. I can't say for sure it'll be free forever but it's also just a simple redirect and that's it. It's not storing any data so I don't think it's super expensive to maintain. Wink on the other hand was paying a TON of $$ for things like Amazon S3 cloud storage and 3rd party services like PubNub for pushing updates to your device.

Hubitat also provides some kind of free re-direct service from Google to your Hub as well so you can control all of your devices via Google Home. I believe Home Assistant charges for this.

Yes, there's a paid service to remote admin your hub offered via Hubitat.. but if you're just looking to view and control all of your devices - it's free. Like @danabw mentioned there's the Hubitat Dashboard (not related to Hubitat.. I'm terrible at naming things!) if you have an Android tablet. But, there's lots of options to choose from and I'm sure they all have their pros and cons.

Next, Wink used to PUSH warn me when battery levels on devices got low

I have a sneaky feeling that wouldn't be too hard to setup.. I haven't done it personally though. The rule manager is a bit on the painful side of things depending on what you want to do. But, that IF ELSE logic is there.

If you just want to view all of your battery levels though, I have a tile just for that

Next, security. Motion, doors, windows, any of those triggered historically, the whole house would light up like fort knox with emphasis placed on the area where the sensor was triggered,

I do have this setup on my Hub.. I'm sure there's LOTS of ways to do this but here's what I'm doing:

  • first off you need to setup the native hubitat app for iOS/Android. That will create a device that you can 'push' notifications to
  • make sure you have Mode Manager setup so mode will change to 'away' if your phone(s) are away from home.. you'll want this so you don't get all kinds of alerts during the day, while you're home.
  • lastly, add HSM (hubitat safety monitor) app and configure it how you want.. my example below sends my phone a notification when any contact or motion sensor is changed and the alert says something like " at " which leads to messages like "Front Door Opened at 5:20 PM".
5 Likes

@danabw , The Power Pull worked like a champ! I can turn devices on and off again, so, that's good. I'm going to go back to adding devices and see how that works...

A few more interesting things have happened after the power pull...

  1. I now only have 5 Mains missing routes after the power pull.
    I tried repair on two of them to no avail.
    Then I thought what the heck, let's try them. AND, they all work... How!? lol.

  2. I'm assuming that in light of this, my little "reboot" app that I installed from the community isn't going to work much. It has an option to only restart the z-wave instance or do a full reboot. BUT, I have rebooted multiple times and that didn't work. The power cycle you recommended is what ended up working. SO, that brings me to wonder if it is the radios that are being refreshed during a full power cycle, has anyone written an app to do this programatically on a schedule? Or, perhaps as you have pointed out, this hopefully will only be an issue until I get all of the devices added.

  3. So I started adding again. Saw multiple historical Zwave crashes in the error logs so it all adds up now, but the power off cycle worked great. I was able to add 7 devices before my next crash and it crashed on a leviton outlet which I've had trouble with in the past so I'm not sure if the leaks hit their limit or the device itself threw things off. Just did another shutdown and restart and I'm going to start on that outlet again!

1 Like

@jpage4500 , That's a lot of GREAT information, thank you! Wow, that Hubitat dashboard app you all were talking about looks awesome! Wish I had more android devices in the house! That battery monitor is exactly what I'm looking for. Thanks for the information on the safety monitor as well. That seems to be the ticket too to Wink's Look Out Functionality. Awesome! I'll look into the Mode Manager and Read up on it. Haven't come across it yet! Thanks again to everyone!

Ok. Back to Leviton Z-Wave Outlets from the Vizia Rf line... After shutting down and restarting and attempting to include 10 different times beginning with every combination of excluding and resetting I could devise (even trying an old handheld Leviton Z-Wave Controller/Hub for the exclusion), I could not for the life of me add the outlet...

Then I thought... Maybe it has a weak antenna for inclusions, or, maybe it's not smart enough to ride neighboring repeaters during inclusions and so ultimately the hub needs to be nearby?

So, I checked the amperage on the hub, 1amp.. Awesome, I can run this thing off my rechargable portable battery-pack for cell phone charging... Plugged it in, walked through the house with 150ft Cat6 ethernet cable to within 3 feet of the Leviton Outlet, tried an inclusion, AND.... drumroll.... WHALLAH!!!!!

NOW, if you try this, it will erroneously add as a "Generic Z-Wave CentralScene Dimmer", and you will NOT be able to control it until you correctly change it to a "Generic Z-Wave Outlet", but after you do, the coast should be clear...

Then, I tried adding another one, 33 feet away from the hub without moving it after adding the last one...

No problem, just had to change the device type,,,

Then 48 feet. Again, no problem. Then 69 feet... NO PROBLEM!

AND THEN, I ran out of outlets, so, I never could find the true limitation or issue...

At the beginning of this, my hub was 99 feet away from the outlet which was around two corners and behind a couch. That, did not work even with countless neighbors and repeaters in close proximity. The ones above I were able to add successfully at varying distances had ZERO obstructions and line of site to the HE hub...

I surmise that while other devices like the Leviton Vizia RF Switches and dimmers either have a VERY powerful antenna, OR, can utilize repeaters and repeating mains during inclusions, the legacy "Leviton DZR15-1RZ Decora Z-Wave Controls 15-Amp Tamper Resistant Split Duplex Receptacle" is missing one or both of these capabilities. SO, you have to move the hub...

My plan at this point is to move the hub back to it's original location, THEN, continue adding all of the switches and dimmers in a logical manner that were in close proximity to the outlets, THEN, run a z-wave repair... I dare not run a repair now, because all of the routes will get messed up with the hub wondering around in temporary locations. BUT, the outlets are all running direct to the hub right now and that won't work when it's in its original location. I am hoping by adding/including repeating mains neighbors, that when I do run a repair, I will be able to reach the outlets for the repair, AND, allow a new route to be properly established... If you don't hear back from me again on this for any of you trying to install similar outlets like this, then IT WORKED! Problem solved...

Your Leviton devices are Z-Wave, not Z-Wave+. Network-wide inclusion (i.e. inclusion using repeaters) only works for Z-Wave+ devices, and is not supported by Z-Wave devices.

Network-wide exclusion also doesn't work for Z-Wave devices; hence the utility of excluding using a handheld controller.

3 Likes

@HubiNubi could you post your z-wave details page for us to look at?

After you're done repair each node individually. This will help routing a bit.

2 Likes

That makes a lot of sense and fits what I'm seeing. Thanks @aaiyar ! I'll be draggin the hub around the house today then for sure as I am now moving to the 150-250ft range away from the hub. But I have to say, the slow downs have disappeared just like everyone said. After last nights z-wave repair, everything is zippy and fast and I'm at 85 devices at this point.

2 Likes

One more thing I wanted to bring up since I haven't seen it mentioned is one of the caveats of HE or Local Processing.

Simply put it means processing resources are limited. This doesn't exactly need to be an issue, but it is something to be aware of. When rules/apps are created for cloud based systems this generally isn't to much of a concern as the cloud scales very well. With something like HE with just 4 ARM cores it isn't exactly hard to overwhelm a hub depending on what you are doing.

Some folks run multiple hubs to help with resource concerns. Just keep an eye on the stats for apps and devices on the Logs tab. If you see the total time busy it getting very high you may want to consider ways to split the work load, or optimize your rules/apps.

3 Likes

@rlithgow1 ,

Sure, here is what I've done so far!

3 Likes

Repost as a screen shot, easier to read :grin: I usually use windows snip tool

That looks pretty good - I don't see any ghosts, routing speed seems decent 40-100. Any issues you will have will likely be with polling etc. I haven't looked at signal strength though..

3 Likes

Realistically this is not a risk unless you have hundreds of power monitoring or something crazy running all the time, this has never been a issue with the C7.

The C4 did struggle with the basics though. My old one is at my inlaws turning some lights on and off via sunset and time. Has a switch in a room controlling a lamp in 3 other rooms and it has to be rebooted basically daily.

You can see how "underused" the hub is by going to the app and device logs. Mine at my place does loads and it's at like 3% or something stupid like that.

I turn off all logging on everything though as I only turn on to debug.

3 Likes

I thought excessive polling can impact the Z-Wave mesh and possibly resources? Especially something to watch out for if you have a large number of Z-Wave only devices.

3 Likes

I agree with @erktrek's views on your network. I would say a one thing:

One of your repeaters (0x0E) is used heavily. That's ok, but suggests that your other repeaters aren't suitably positioned.

View your house as concentric spheres moving away from the hub, and see if you can redistribute your repeaters to be better positioned. If you do so, you will need to do a general z-wave repair (and be patient about it!) as opposed to a node-specific repair.

3 Likes

It would be nice if the polling app had the ability to schedule it every XX number of hours and say have blackout periods to minimize energy networking and processing... I thoughts about that being an impact but don't see any way to reduce the polling impact... Personally, there are only certain times of day I care for it to be accurate anyway such as knowing everything is off at night before I go to bed, etc...