This might be a dumb question but what the hell. Won’t be my 1st one.
Love Hubitat and also don’t mind continuing buying zigbee and Zwave devices.
It’s evident however that many of the suppliers are creating a portfolio of WiFi devices.
As a future development, I wonder if HE might consider an add on to the hub that would connect to a dedicated WiFi router?
I don’t think I’d want my main WiFi to have a bunch of devices clogging up or slowing down my main network but seems to me a WiFi router is relatively cheap and if Hubitat creates an interface then perhaps that becomes a future sales revenue stream and people get the best of all options.
I mean. All of the automation, rules apps..etc are in place. Seems like it’s just the ability to apply those to a WiFi device vs Zwave or zigbee.
I know that the mesh is likely better and I wouldn’t advocate people abandon zigbee or Zwave but there are some devices that do have only WiFi and the best of both worlds ( WiFi and zigbee/Zwave) is probably worth the price of an add on. And ...all still local.
Anyway. Just food for thought. I’d buy it If was available.
And I’m certain I’m underestimating the work but hopefully spur some debate that might garner some support with the HE developers.
And......go
Or you could put your Hubitat in the same VLAN as your WiFi devices (which is what most people do currently). The bigger issue with WiFi devices (in my opinion) is the general lack of manufacturer-provided APIs to make integrations facile.
This doesn't really make any sense, or more to the point, you can do this now if you want. You could have a separate WiFi network as a separate sub lan in your network, as long as you put the hub on that same LAN subnetwork.
Hmm.
I knew that HE connected to some lan devices but I guess the question is could HE access the myriad of WiFi devices that are on the market?
The option of a separate WiFi is simply to provide an option to people that didn’t want the smart devices shared on the main network.
Cheers.
Got it. The separate WiFi is a red herring in the question now that I think of it.
If the APIs aren’t available how are the people like amazon connecting WiFi devices to their system?
Cheers.
Actually this isn't a prerequisite as long as you can specify the IP address of the device and not have to rely on discovery (which is a whole different ballgame involving multicasting and setting up relays across the Vlans )
I have all my tasmota/wifi stuff on a different Vlan to my hub with a a router rule to enable communication.
But in agreement with Bruce, you can do this easily now with your existing network (assuming you have managed switches etc - and if you don't you should be looking at upgrading your network infrastructure too )
Because Amazon is Amazon. Many people want the "Works with Alexa" badge on their packaging. Unfortunately, "Works with Hubitat" doesn't carry the same weight. So some (many [most]) only make the APIs available to Alexa and the "big boys" but not public to the world. To phrase your question another way, your statement could be "if @macdenewf knows something, then how come everyone on earth doesn't have the same information?" -- well perhaps because I made you sign a legal document (NDA) preventing you from talking to anyone else on Earth about it under penalty of lawsuit. That is exactly what most of these companies do with their APIs, there are very thorough contracts you have to sign, that they will only issue to certain companies, sometimes for a cost, if you want API access.
Not to mention it's costs $ for them to write the API's and let's face it they're not going to do it if there isn't a return in the form of increased sales/market competitiveness. Hubitat, Smartthings etc are still very much niche/low volume devices compared to Alexa/Homekit/Google.
As an example of APIs:
When the Blink cameras came out as a Kickstarter project, they promised they would release their client API (right on their campaign page). They never actually did... then sold out to Amazon. The Blink cameras (not sure about the latest ones though and the move to subscription model Amazon is doing) work really well overall and still have an API they are dealing with for the app, but it is not public. Some wonderful people have figured out the basis for how it works, and others (myself for example) are relying on that basis to provide a Hubitat driver.
So someone with a Blink camera can use my driver to access the Blink API. But it is not official by any means. Blink (ie: Amazon) could change how it works at any moment and the whole thing would fall apart. Since they have no commitment to support it externally the only thing preventing them would be the work they would need to do in their own apps and customer base to change the API. Besides, if anything it helps them out by expanding use of their product without significantly impacting their services.
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