I've found HA to be great at augmenting the feature set of HE (and it runs Node-RED ). Tribute to HE's and HA's flexibility.
Not sure I would spend the time to incorporate just a set of sensors though - there would have to be other compelling reasons and you'd need at least a Zigbee stick (Sonoff Zigbee USB 3.0 dongle is nice), dedicated server (pi/vm/NAS etc) and some patience.
In my case I am currently running HA sans radios (no Zigbee or Z-Wave) in order to handle my Ring devices + and as a host for Node-RED. Am also experimenting with HA as a Homebridge replacement. All of this ties back to HE which is my primary hub.
If you are into tinkering and ultra cheap somewhat dubious smart home devices it's worth messing around with. IF you just want a "set and forget" system then sticking with the native HE environment and using compatible devices is the way to go.
clarification: not all devices need to be of "dubious nature" in order to connect to HA, just that you'll probably have better luck doing so than using HE.
My contribution would be find something that works reliably with HE and that is likely to work in your setup. That may include testing a small number of the sensors that make your shortlist, before you expand out to a larger list of the devices you need long-term.
I'd echo (no pun intended) the recommendation for Samsung / Aeotec sensors. They are expensive in terms of battery replacement over time, but do a great job.
A fair argument, but the setup time of HA is insignificant. No building the OS and then installing Home Assistant like in the past. It’s all ready to go for you. Just image a microSD card and pop it in the RPi, or download the ready to roll image for a VM like virtual box. For some, the latter will be plenty, and the spare computer already available for no additional cost. So even if you bought the most expensive Zigbee controller, which would be the ConBee 2, it’s less than the cost of one or two sensors (depending on the brand), and very frequently less than the cost of one smart switch.
Setup is pretty easy to learn, and for a device bridge, there’s not much you really need to know. Just adds so many options for so little cost, and honestly very little effort anymore.
Don't get me wrong I agree with you ... and for my use-case it's exactly what I am doing... I did fib a bit earlier, I do have Zigbee2MQTT setup with a Sonoff USB but no devices connected and am not really adding anything (I have a conbee stick and a few UZB-7s as well)... but again I like to tinker and am into most things tech.
There are smart people here who either lack the desire to go deeper with this stuff or maybe feel doing so might be too technical a challenge right now so for them I would recommend the "Hubitat Way"...
I think a key issue is (or should be?) what happens when I'm not here. I do worry about having too many moving parts in my home automations. I'm already over complicated with two hubs, three Pi's (actually four, but only three are currently linked to HE stuff) and now I'm playing w/using HA on another Pi for some of the uncooperative (but very small) Tuya contact sensors.
I've written up and keep current a summary of all my networking and home automation stuff, but regardless I can imagine how my wife will react when I'm turned to dust...and very glad I won't be there to see it!
Getting off topic here but you know you can probably consolidate a bunch of stuff under one PI using HA - that's what I did with Node-RED. HA has an addon for Node-RED and Mosquitto Broker and a million other things. It's kind of being used as my "external app" manager now.
You guys are funny. You know that no matter how simple you make it, something will eventually go wrong. When we’re not here and something goes wrong, our wives will throw it in the garbage like they have wanted to do all along.
Okay WAYYY of topic now .... but I recently switched Node-RED to HA + Node-RED. During the conversion I never realized how many sequences (rules) were added that just do our normal day to day stuff - things we all have gotten used to like door chime when someone enters or leaves. It was shocking and unexpected really.... it definitely creeps up on you.
The contact sensors are very very simple devices, there shouldn't be any problems to make these work when paired directly to Hubitat. You can PM with the device details (the 'Manufacturer' data) and if they are Zigbee I am 99% sure that we can make them work reliably in HE.
I have taken the other road - everything that was previously paired to HA (with the exception of some Xiaomi WiFi and BlueTooth devices) is now working directly in HE. And I am also rewriting my Node-RED workflows into RM rules.
Yeah, I'm really using HA at this point as more of a "new toy" to have a little fun exploring something new. Longer run I think I'm going to get something like the Sonoff Zigbee dongle or similar appropriate repeaters and put them on my second C7 hub, along with the "picky" Zigbee devices like the Aqara sensors. Having everything on my HE hubs and not worrying about secondary systems like HA just seems like a better way to go in the long run, for me, anyway.
Ah, OK.. I am also using 4 Xiaomi/Aqara contact sensors, and I must admit that these are the best-looking window sensors that I have! I haven't changed the batteries for more than 2 years.
I had problems with these before, periodically dropping off the HE Zigbee network. But in the last one or more years, I don't remember any issues with them. Probably they have found their way to the HE radio through their favorite repeater (I have a dozen of repeating devices - a mix of Tuya, Sonoff, and Ikea).
This is what I want them for, in particular for an automation I created for my cooktop to turn on a lightstrip in the kitchen when the stove is on - keeps my wife and I (OK, really just me) from forgetting when I've got something simmering, or just plain walking away to eat and fogetting to turn off a burner.
It's very cool and does exactly what I want to do, but changing batteries on the sensors is a bit of a PITA, have to remove the front of the cooktop, so having very long-lived batteries in the Aqara contact sensors will be a plus.
Can I ask for assistance from the community here?
I am looking at the Visonic MCT-350 window/door sensor (sometimes sold under the XFinity brand name).
Apparently it can sense temperature.
Does anyone know if the device works and is supported by Hubitat?
). Tribute to HE's and HA's flexibility.
