Over the years my smart home has grown with lots of disparate bits. Google Home, Alexa, Ecobee, Zigbee sensors, Z-Wave switches, Philips Hue, and now some Apple devices. And now Matter exists.
Everything is mostly working, but it's really complicated. It also has quirks. Sometimes Google sees multiple thermostats, sometimes Alexa understand what device I'm asking it to control, etc.
When I set it up I thought that I should give everyone access to everything, in the interest of reducing latency. For example Google directly talks to Ecobee, Google directly talks to Hue, etc. But now I'm wondering if it wouldn't be better to put Hubitat in the middle and have Google only talk to Hubitat, and same for Alexa.
Thoughts about best practices with integrating all these different platforms?
And should I have Google integrate with Hubitat through Matter, or with the old Hubitat intregration? (same for the other platforms)
That is not an option currently. Hubitat doesn't expose it's devices to other matter hubs, it can only use matter devices on other hubs. Personal Opinion: I don't let Google do anything but manage my email and web searches - they are good at that, Oh, wait I have some Coral devices but then again Google hasn't updated the libraries in years and they need updating. Same old Google.
Hubitat can only share devices with Google and Alexa using the old, non-Matter integrations. Same with Apple Home using the HomeKit integration.
Hubitat does not currently some acting as a Matter Bridge. Without that functionality, your Zigbee, Z-Wave, and other non-Matter devices cannot be shared using Matter.
Any thoughts about the other part of my question? Does it make sense to connect Google, Amazon, Hue, etc to the Hubitat exclusively, rather than interconnect them all directly?
I'm not in favor of confusing or useless duplication. Hue, when I had it was only available via hubitat (and the hue iOS app - only used that once). I share more things with Amazon, probably too many. Homekit gets a few devices. Home Assistant has a few devices, barely used and not yet shared with Hubitat because I can't think of a reason to automate the devices.
It depends… No right or wrong answer. Personally, for HomeKit capable devices like Philips Hue, Ecobee, and Lutron Caseta, I directly link those systems to Apple Home. This is all 100% local, robust, and reliable. I then share just a few Zigbee devices to Apple Home via Hubitat’s HomeKit integration. This way, if my Hubitat hub is down for any maintenance, my wife can still control most all lighting via her iPhone’s Apple Home interface.
However, for my Alexa integrations, I only share devices via Hubitat. This allows me to control exactly which devices are shared with Amazon Alexa, versus having everything from systems like Hue and Caseta shared.
However, if having Alexa control of other systems, while your Hubitat Hub is down for a firmware update, then directly pairing those systems to Alexa may make sense.
My rule of thumb is to limit the number of hops a device needs to make between different clouds. The less the better. So for example, I have the Ecobee thermostats connected to Hubitat's cloud for automation purposes, and separately connected directly to Google's cloud for voice control.
The best practice is to use local integration whenever possible over a cloud integration. For example Hue integration on Hubitat is local, whereas Hubitat integration with Alexa/Google is cloud based.
Hue integration with Alexa and I believe with Google too, is also local, so it doesn't make sense to use Hubitat as man in the middle as you might be missing out on some local integrations on the Alexa/Google side.
In the long run this is where Matter might shine, as it could make interoperability seamless and all devices will communicate with each other over local network for fast, reliable and private processing. But we are not there yet, though we have started to see a glimpse of what it might be possible one day.
