I have just integrated a C-7 to be the master controller for my smart home.
I have just reached feature parity with my old setup (Phillips hue and Google Home) and wanted to know what apps people generally end up using for their automations?
I have a few running already but would rather build everything in as few apps as possible to keep things clean, rather than building a few here and there as i find out I need a new app for a specific function i may need.
I don't think that is necessarily a good goal. I'd use the app that is best suited for the purpose of your automation. Hubitat has a variety of builtin apps for this exact reason, to make specific things easier than they were with a more general tool (of which Rule Machine is the most powerful but not necessarily the easiest to use off the bat). For example. If you want to automate lights based on motion sensors, then the Motion Lighting app is a good place to start. You can do that kind of thing with a rule, but with Rule Machine, it's more complicated to set up; Motion Lighting has lots of options to make it easy.
I might recommended to avoid installing a bunch of custom apps at the beginning, at least until you get a feel for what the built-in apps can do and when you might want one, and because it's possible to write bad code and you might want to wait until you get a feel for whose code you trust to it negatively affect your hub (community code is, by definition, not officially supported--though most authors are good at supporting their own work).
I would use the easiest or most basic app you can, at least at first. I would also ignore having multiple apps, I don't think that can be prevented. There is a reason there are so many built-in apps, they can do different things and are meant for various levels of complexity.
Rule Machine can do pretty much everything, but is complicated and frankly overkill for most purposes. But it would prevent in most cases needing a more complicated app than you started with.
With Basic Rules, you can later import them into Rule Machine, so maybe that is a good compromise.
The other in-between apps like Motion Lighting and Simple Automations add a bit of complexity and finesse. Motion Lighting can't be imported into Rule Machine (at least at this point), but Simple Automations can. Again, there is a path forward with using S.A. app if you need the advanced complexity at some point.
I don't think I solved your problem, but there is my 2 cents for whatever that is worth.
Thanks for the input,
That all makes sense, With how my app window is growing with dashboards, groups, automations, etc, i thought it would be best to minimise apps and simplify finding what im after. But just using the right app for the right job sounds like a good way forward as well
Oh and just added HPM - thats a whole new world of options! ha ha need to balance playing around with budget and significant other happiness levels! lol
As people pointed out,simple apps. Avoid cloud based stuff. If you have a failed z-wave pairing, stop! Check your z-wave details page for ghosts (they will have nothing in the routing column), remove ghost, factory reset device and attempt to pair again. Ghosts will mess up your mesh.
Figure out 1st what you want to automate. Then figure out how you want to automate it. This will give you guidance on on what app direction to go. Occasionally that "one" thing will be missing from an app and you need Rule Machine. By the time you get to that point you will understand how things work and the rest of us here can and will lend a hand. This is a very helpful community.
I'm no expert and have only had a C7 for about 5 months, but my approach was this:
Start with Basic Rule. If that works you're done. If not, move on to Rule Machine .
If you have any buttons or keypads, definitely use the Button Controller app.
If you want to do any notifications, use the Notification app.
If you need to turn on/dim/off more than about 9-10 devices, use the Groups and Scenes (either one) with metering in the 150ms to 200ms range, I fought for weeks with random devices not turning on or off, until I discovered this fix.
