From SmartThings v2 hub to Hubitat C8: Two weeks in - Happy and Impressed

I already use Wireguard VPN but also set up a free Cloudflare tunnel just to experiment. It seems to work a great. The only cost is that you have to have your own domain. However, local URLs for dashboards don't seem to work so just use the cloud versions.

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This is the way. :wink:

LOVE my Wireguard VPN. Just so nice to have secure access to my home networkd/devices from any location.

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The Ledvance manufactured lights are zha 1.2. I read somewhere that it was a Silabs chip. They haven’t been problematic for me, but I do have them on a separate mesh.

Yes!! This was one of the very first post I went through, and helped me prepare for the setup. For the time being, I have put these aside for later, when I am feeling adventurous:

  • Sylvania Bulbs
  • Zen25 double plugs (they are on firmware ver 1)

HPM and Hub Info Driver are fantastic! I am only at <22% cpu usage peak, observed when I refreshed during a bundle installation; and 2-3% typical 5-min run average. So yeah, one hub is more than capable indeed.

Agreed!

Ouch! That definitely sucks. And yes, being able to take a backup is supercool. And I learnt that folks could migrate devices from C7 to C8 without having to exclude/include again, that feature sounds fantastic!!

I had planned to move to Hubitat by Dec, but the Homebridge plugin kept running, and I kept procrastinating. And when C8 launched with external antennas, I decided to make the change. I only have 30-40% of the automations re-created so far. It has definitely given me a chance to build from clean state, rather than patchwork I did in ST.

Yeah, all z-wave devices are added without security. I saw the thread on Zooz devices as well and kept them all off-security. Locks yes with security, everything else, no.

Even though I run a Raspberry Pi 3B with Homebridge, and pi-hole, I could not figure out the InfluxDB or the VPN setup, at least not at first glance. Something for longer term.

Dashboard and App: Yes, I agree with the sentiment. And from gleaning at the forum posts, it appears most people use third party dashboards, so it has been lower priority. Not an issue for me personally, since I use Homekit for everything (Wife Acceptance Factor), and few ActionTiles dashboards on old tablets.

That said, I would have to add caveats when I recommend Hubitat to everyone I know. There is indeed a bit of learning curve, and it is not a plug n play system for masses, (but then none of the home automation systems are plug n play anyway). It was an easier transition for me since I spent a lot of time on ST tinkering around, and at least a week or two of reading the forums preparing for the switch.

Community here is awesome, that is for sure! I lurked in the ST community but never posted. I felt compelled to thank folks here, especially for continuing where Samsung/ST dropped the ball. (For non-coding folks like me, Home Assistant config files seemed like nightmare fuel.)

Thank you!!

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Important!

:+1::grinning:

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Updated! :slight_smile:
(With super-quick response from support, since I was over 7-days limit)

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Now we truly know ye... :wink:

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If you want some help with it you can hit me up with were you are stuck.

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I'd also suggest capturing any of the things you stumble through on a topic somewhere, if they haven't been already, for anyone else to make use of. I'll admit I mostly used pimylifeup to originally set some of that stuff up, and InfluxDB and Grafana have remained relatively solid, but I've messed up my WireGuard VPN at some point, but have not been able to figure out how... Not really a major drama for me most of the time...

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Just to clarify, that means then you paired the zooz 4-in-1 with a z-wave stick paired to hubitat as a secondary controller?

Just a question about keeping security off....if you left it on and it doesn't seem to be an issue, would you just leave them on until you have issues?

Or do you think it's worth going back and re-pairing with security off. If so, is there an easy way to re-pair things so you do not have to go back and re-add to groups/rules in hubitat and routines set up in Alexa?

When it comes to the zooz 4-in-1 500 series on the c7/c8 it's not if but when. I would re pair that without security. As to s2 security. My personal thought process is that I would re pair anything with it without it simply because of the overhead. Though there are a lot of people with s2 enabled on everything and are fine with their function. I mean as far as "hacking" really, if I'm close enough to sniff your mesh, I'm close enough to look at your house to see what light just turned on... If I want into your house, I'm not gonna try and guess a code (and would unlikely beable to decrypt it because on HE barrier devices require encryption regardless) and I'm gonna wait until you leave and bust a window with a brick that you had in your back yard...

I was going by this summary that if you have only 1 of those, it should be okay. I do not have a second controller, but looks like a good investment for longer term.

Is the reverse possible? ie, use ST hub devices from Hubitat? Using ST hub as another external zwave controller.

With the sylvania bulbs, zooz zen25 double plugs benched, and the looming issues with Monoprice 4-1 sensor, I am considering using the ST hub for these problematic devices there. Otherwise, one of the external z-wave controllers. I just wanted to avoid using more than one hub.

Did you look at HubiThings Replica?

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Yes, see the link in csteele's post.

I use both Mira and HubiThings Replica in my setup.
It all works very well.

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Yes

If you do keep your ST hub around/plugged in, note that some folks have had issues joining devices when the ST hub would try to join them w/out being asked. Most recently I saw a post about this related to Zigbee devices.

On the other hand, it's nice to have the ST hub around to act as a Z-Wave excluder when you're doing a device "replace" that is replacing a device on your HE hub w/itself.

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I still use Smartthings as a cloud aggregator for things that Hubitat doesn't support locally. This also allows me to run in it in a Hubless design.

It actually works pretty well except you are subject to ST reliability. That can be questionable depending on the devices involved.

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It has been about 30 days since I pulled the Plug on SmartThings and installed Hubitat C8. No regrets. Hubitat is a workhorse; it does exactly what I need, reliably and with no bullshit. I am looking forward to additional mainstream integrations (Aladin Connect, Wyze, Ring, Nest, DAKboard), but I can live without them for now!

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