My c-5 is incredibly steady and reliable. To be frank the ONLY time something bad happens is due to me messing it up, or a batter in a sensor dying before I get warned (device issue).
I have a C-7 waiting here for me to migrate over to, but given the hassle am waiting for the migration tool I hope they release sometime next year.
Edit: I will add that I do do a weekly "soft restart" using the wonderful Rebooter App, that was mainly to solve some very minor slow-downs I had 6 months ago, which might be fixed in the latest Hubitat versions.
I migrated from ST to He not long ago and haven't had many issues. I had one or two z-wave devices miss-behave as I built the new mesh, but left for a day or two for the routing to sort itself out, they've been reliable. No issues at all with zigbee devices from HE perspective.
I've been with Hubitat since early in the C-4 days. I had found the C4 to be exceptionally reliable.
As this is as much of a hobby as a home accessory I've been keeping up with the updates and still had few or no issues.
I recently updated to a C-7. I'll admit there were a few quirks to workout. Currently:
my Zigbee is very solid
my Z-Wave has some periodic issues.
To get here I found pairing everything without security helped a lot. (I have no locks or devices that can benefit from security).
Stepping back and thinking of all the posts I've read in the recent months it appears to me that Hubitat is one of the first adopters of the 700 series device and the transition from the 500 to the 700 has not gone as smoothly as we (the users) would like.
Having been in product development my guess the transition is probably more typical than folks would like to believe.
Personally I've stopped posting about any little thing I think is wrong and waiting for the next update. Based on nothing more than how quiet the Hubitat folks have been my guess is there is a pretty large update in the works.
I expect this update will fix a lot of the current annoying issues but will have its own growing pains.
The excellent performance of my C4 makes me believe the C7 will get there as well and I need a little patience while it all shakes out.
I think it's actually good to post issues as you come across them. A lot of times it's a simple user error, configuration issue or lack of understanding that can be cleared up by a quick conversation but also it could be something important especially if enough people have similar experiences. I know the staff keeps tabs on these forums.. so are aware of various issues/complaints etc. They even respond from time to time which is awesome. Also it provides searchable content for people looking for possible solutions to their issues.
The trouble starts when a frustrated user just vents / makes overly broad easily debunkable claims without listening or takes out their anger on community members who are trying to help. The good news is this seems to be very rare here.
I get the frustration having experienced it many times from C-4 thru C-7 setups - when things don't work it may seem that everything is broken. The reality though is it's just a lot more complicated than people expect.
I have found HE to be frustratingly unreliable YES ... BUT... here is what I have done to make it VERY reliable as of late... (surprisingly to me)
Dump all battery powered buttons in favor of Lutron Caseta Pico's (and the associated bridge)
Use as many Caseta switches as I can going forward
Dump ALL Peanut Plugs and use Iris plugs
Reboot the hub every night
I am also only using ZIgbee (and Caseta)- no ZWAVE
For the 1st two years my experience was pretty poor... once I did the above... my experience has been almost 100% reliable... I actually cannot believe it.
I could NEVER get the Samsung button to work reliably... I had it set up as a panic button... one time we had a bat fly into our house and harass the cats... I yelled to my wife excitedly "hit the panic button"... !!! Of course the stupid thing did not WORK AS USUAL... so frustrating!!! Soon after I threw all those out and now am using the Caseta Pico's which have worked quite reliably. I personally will never use another wireless button besides the pico. YMMV.
I can say that never happens to me - I've got a bunch of sengled bulbs in lamps and 8 recessed color+ bulbs in our den ceiling. They are all (still) working fine as far as I can tell.
The morning office lighting fail only recently started happening when I migrated my Zigbee devices from 2 C-4's to a single C-5 (My Z-Wave devices are now all on a C-7). I might add a repeater for fun.. just to see if that helps.
Did you update the firmware of your bulbs? You can only do that with a Sengled hub I think.
I really like the Picos too but the Samsung buttons have been great - such a simple interface! Use them for our master bedroom sconce lighting control.
Everybody has their own experience I guess.. other than initial pairing issues and as previously mentioned a device or two stuck on bad routes my Zooz Toggles (Zen23/24 V2 thru V4) have been working fine - no sporadic/random issues to report.
The GE/Jasco Zigbee switches look interesting too..
Those worked (by worked - I mean they functioned) for me. I did eventually replace them as I had the older "non-plus" versions that did not report back to the hub. So, I could not reliably tie a rule to reading the fact that a switch was on. I could turn them on or off all day long through HE with no issues though. The Inovelli reds soon invaded my home (One by land, and a few by sea maybe? LOL) In any case. That was the "worst" of my transition. It was all specific device and outdated protocol related. To be fair, they did update with the polling app 95% of the time. I just did not like spamming my hub so I replaced them. In ST, the spamming was done in the driver. But, they also had a habit of being offline frequently on ST for me.
I use these buttons and they work great even outdoors. when i go out to the hot tub the lights come on auto for 3 minutes. i use the button to turn them off at night
I know there was a firmware update for them when I bought mine. I only have 4 of the Sengled color bulbs, but many Sylvania full color recessed (both have been nearly perfect), and a slowly dwindling number of Sylvania color A-19s (which either last forever, or die in a few months) that I have been replacing with Hue. I have six Samsung buttons, mostly for temperature sensors, spread around the house and have never had any problems with them, but they also have had numerous firmware updates. I have two C-5 hubs with all zigbee bulbs on one, and all end devices on the other, save for 5 Samsung plugs, 3 Sylvania plugs, and 4 or 5 GE zigbee dimmers. Rules are primarily on the hub with the end devices, and I never reboot anymore unless there is a firmware update.
Unfortunately this is only true prior to 2.2.4. Performance has taken a hit since then, and it's been retired for a few weeks now. I'll probably hook it up again soon in for re-testing in anticipation of giving it away if it works ok on 2.2.4.
There is something going with Hubitat that it needs to be "woken up".
If you have a "good morning" routine, add in a "Refresh" to some devices, and that will take care of it.
Hmmmm I would like avoid more init stuff since it used to work fine. However your idea may be the work around if I can't figure it out.. thanks for that.
It only happens with my office button now - I have 4 others scattered around our house that do not have this issue. It may be the battery or some odd mesh thing or the sengled bulbs in my office lamps. I tried rebooting to see if that would trigger the issue but it did not.
Anyway good puzzle to work on! Will know more tomorrow morning...
I don't disagree, I hadn't had much time with C4 & 2.2.4.
It isn't clear what changed in 2.2.4 that could effect the C4. Still had I stayed with my C4 and not updated to 2.2.4 I would have a very stable system.
Now I'm waiting for the Hubitat folks to get the C7 @ 2.2.? to be as stable as my C4 was. I have little doubt it will happen so I'm just going to wait. Truth be told currently my issues with C7 and 2.2.4.158 are pretty minor and don't effect the automations very much.
The staff mentioned that the C-4's run 64bit JVM instead of 32bit for the C-5 & C-7's. Normally this is okay but in constrained devices memory usage can become an issue. At least this is my understanding..
Remember we were getting a lot of issues with the C-4 a year or so ago - when the whole rebooter app thing became popular. I ended up splitting my setup into 2 C-4s and then eventually going to Node-RED for the rules in an effort to reduce overhead.
