Having 2nd thoughts about Hubitat

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Hi guys,
I'm very frustrated right now with Hubitat. Maybe I got my hopes higher than what Hubitat can deliver? I just swapped from Smartthings a week and a half ago. The first couple of days after getting all of my smart home devices switched over from Smartthings, most of my lighting automations worked fine. I still haven't been able to have my Schlage BE469 Z-wave deadbolt unlock using my iPhone as a presence sensor as I did successfully and consistently with Smartthings since 2016, but I had been overlooking that as most of the lighting automations were being triggered by motion. But now, even the lighting is taking a LONG time to trigger the lights, if it does at all. Am I missing something? Prior to buying the Elevation hub, I read how fast it was. Even when the lighting was being triggered by motion, I didn't see a radical difference in how fast it was being done in contrast to ST. But now, it's so slow that I can no longer call it a "smart" home.

Is there help for my situation or is this as good as it gets? Forgive me if I sound negative, I've been racking my brain trying to figure this out. It was no small task getting all of my lights, lock and thermostat unpaired from ST and paired to HE. I'm trying very hard to keep an open mind about this but I'm beginning to lose that battle :face_with_symbols_over_mouth:

Thanks in advance for any help you can render.

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There are a lot of possible causes for many of the issues you describe, so it's hard to say where to start. I'm sure others will chime in too, but here are some ideas to start. (And: welcome to Hubitat, and sorry to hear you're having problems! Many of us came from ST, too, so you're at least in good company there.)

For the lock: that Schlage model (at least the non-Plus one) is notoriously problematic for some people. Firmware version seems to influence luck here, but I don't believe the firmware is upgradeable on the old ones. Having a strong Z-Wave network, including beaming-capable repeaters (preferably near both the hub and the lock) can be helpful. Some people have found that dedicated "repeater" devices like the Aeon or Ring are particularly helpful, perhaps because you have more control over their location (or they have better placed antennas and aren't shoved inside a wall like many repeaters), though they shouldn't theoretically be necessary.

Related to the issue you mentioned involving the lock, the mobile app's geofencing is unfortunately unreliable for some. Many people combine multiple options into one (or just use another solution entirely) in order to make this more reliable, which is a separate issue with several threads here you can probably find with ideas (or I can try to find some of them, too).

So, the lock issue could really be caused by geofencing events not being generated when they should be or the lock not responding to commands the hub sends. Device event history may help you narrow this down: under "Devices," find your presence device (perhaps the mobile app device), go into its page, and click into the "Events" button at the top to see history (for real time views, the "Current States" on the device page will be more helpful). "Logs" on the left side in the admin UI will also normally show you a history of what events happened when as long as you leave "Enable descriptionText logging" turned on for devices (as it is--and remains--by default, at least in stock drivers), though what appears here depends on the driver.

The lag with some of your automations could also be a few things. If they're Z-Wave devices, for example, your Z-Wave mesh might be weak. The presence of "ghost devices" is also known to wreak havoc: check your Settings > Z-Wave Details page for any items without anything in the "Device Class" column or possibly without an associated Hubitat device in the "Device" column (which isn't inherently problematic, but the "Discover" button you should see there instead will make one; if it gets added as a generic "Device" and you see nothing under inClusters, secureInClusters, and outClusters [all of them; one or two blank is fine] under "Device Details" on the device page, that could also be a ghost...this recently changed so I'm not sure what the best recommendation on how to find them is). A weak Zigbee mesh could also be problematic, as could mixing Zigbee bulbs (besides Sengled, and likely also newer bulbs that are anecdotally reported to behave better) on the same network as non-bulb devices.

Just a few ideas for some of the problems. If any of these ideas sound like promising leads and your own investigation doesn't reveal more, feel free to share more details about that part of your setup, and someone might have more ideas!

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I'd suggest starting from a Device Info page and clicking its buttons. If the lights follow On / Off reliably and quickly then you can put them aside. Next try the same for the motion sensors. Look at them on their Device Info page and when they are Inactive, cause them to go Active and determine if they report quickly or not.

If EITHER don't operate from the Device Info page correctly (quickly enough) then you have either a Mesh problem or a Hub resource problem. Having just moved a fist full of devices from ST to Hubitat AND with "It was no small task getting all of my lights, lock and thermostat unpaired from ST and paired to HE" there's a solid chance you have ghosts. (Node IDs consumed with no real device using that Node ID.) They usually occur as you repeatedly Include a device. The includes that don't work leave a Ghost behind. Go to Settings:Zwave Details and just look down the column of numbers... the very first NodeID possible is 6 (The hub reserves 1-5) Every time there's a jump in numbers, that's a place where you probably Included a device more than once. (It's possible you Included a device, changed your mind and Excluded it correctly. just not the most likely. :slight_smile: )

For Resources, remember ST is a Cloud computer. It may be 10x the compute power of the Hub. You can have some amazingly bad automations that work fine on a scalable resource. You need to explain more about how your automations are built after you've tested the devices themselves. RuleMachine? Basic Rules? Motion? Simple? WebCoRE?

Given the symptoms you've presented, I guess I'm not ready to comment on this other than to say.. The fastest ST can be (local) is not going to be faster than HE. Far more important though is repeatability. In general, a properly working Hubitat Hub is going to be repeatable to a degree not possible with any cloud dependent Hub.

So get us some facts to chew on and our advice will be more specific too. :slight_smile:

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Thank you very much for taking the time to give me some perspective on this.

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That isn't normal at all, things should be nearly instant. Maybe you could post screenshots of the rule or whatever rule you are using to turn the lights on/off? And what device name and model is this? Some devices are problematic, and it might help us if you can tell us what you are using here.

The other guys gave you good advice about trying things from the device settings page and so on. Those are great first steps to diagnosing what is going on. But it is always useful when we are talking about the same things by seeing it in screenshots.

I cringe every time someone mentions that these aren't working. There are tons of posts on here and many other forums debating whether these locks are great, or junk. I have been on both sides of this, they have been both great and bad. They were even worse on Wink, so my opinion is that the locks are fundamentally flawed somehow, and Schlage refuses to update the firmware to make these consistently work. With that being said, mine have been fairly reliable lately, the one thing that seems to help most people is to have some very good Zwave Plus repeaters near the locks. Things like light switches and other line powered devices theoretically repeat, but their placement is not optimal to repeat, they often are in metal boxes, and in locations not conducive to being repeaters. I added a couple Ring range extenders (gen 2) and between the two of them, they are repeating for almost every one of my 50+ Zwave devices. I would strongly recommend adding at least one repeater if not two depending upon your house size and hub location within your home.

Phones in general are problematic for geolocation. I can't speak to the Apple stuff exactly, but I gather it is similar to Android in the sense they both have some very aggressive power saving measures. They shut off the radios when the screensaver activates. They kill background processes and apps, like the Hubitat app. Then you get into the newer Androids (Apple too?) where they randomize the MAC address for "privacy" reasons, which breaks things. So I suspect that the phone thing will only get worse for presence over time.

What does work for presence is a combined presence model where you take multiple inputs and determine if you are really home. For example, you can combine wifi presence with geolocation. Or Wifi with the Hubitat app. Or a Samsung presence fob with Wifi. And there are many other variations of this. There are a couple of these presence combining apps here, you might try one and see if it helps you. It seems to work for most everyone who does that method...

I am personally really apprehensive about auto-unlocking any lock (or opening a garage door), there are countless ways that can fail either on the locking or unlocking side of things. I mean, do you really want your lock to unlock if you reboot your phone? That could trigger that you arrived just from losing GPS for that few moments. Or what happens if the battery goes dead on the phone? Maybe this worked with Smartthings, but I really would not ever recommend doing this no matter the hub. There are many things that can be automated, but unlocking security devices is probably not one of them.

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You mentioned which lock you’re using, but which lights and thermostat? And what about the motion sensors? Some of the advice you’ve gotten so far re: checking for z-wave ghosts is likely on the right track, but it’s harder to know how to help without some more details.

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Yup, iOS devices too.

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@merrilltom Let's start with the basics. Can you post a shot of your z-wave settings page? Next do you have any zooz products in your z-wave mesh. Do you have any zigbee bulbs paired with hubitat? If so what brand(s)? Let's work from there. I have always found this a good place to start (and probably people at this point think I'm a bot script of some sort)

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I too came from ST 3.5 years ago, never looked back and never had the issues you are dealing with.

Hang in there it will get better

Presence, I only use Life360 and for my 2 Android phones, it's 99% reliable. My wifes' was a bit problematic until I found it wasn't updating on movement.

Lights and timing, all mine are super fast, except for the BLE bulbs that must go through Alexa then into HE

Unless I missed it above, do you have any dashboards? If so, please don't add all devices to a dashboard then configure the dashboard, known to cause significant performance issues. Only add the devices you want to have on a dashboard then configure those devices

I was helping a buddy of mine with a new setup (aka former ST user) he too had very sporadic issues with slow lights or lights that wouldn't turn on/off at all... "Removed" his ghost nodes and all his issues went away

Don't give up, you're gonna love it I'm sure :slight_smile:

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Regarding locks: I dumped all of mine for the Wyze Lock with optional wireless keypads outside near each door. The lock replaces the inside knob on any deadbolt and takes just a few minutes to install so no need to adjust for mechanical differences between a new lock and the old deadbolt. It works with Alexa and the Wyze phone app. The lock will tell you when the door is locked and unlocked or if it is opened, closed or ajar using an internal gyro. Supports automations with the app or Alexa. Auto lock/unlock is supported by the app (geofencing) and has worked flawlessly since I installed them. The lock is about 100.00 on Amazon and the keypads are 20.00.

They use a little WiFi/BT gateway module that plugs into any socket inside the home. I already had a passel of Wyze cams and recently got the Wyze Smart Watch and along with the locks are all managed through the app so the locks made sense when the change out took place.

I simply gave up on the digital/mechanical quirks of my prior locks. Screaming PITA that was.

PS, I have no commercial or retail association with Wyze, before you ask.
Just one man's solution to large clumps of hair torn out. :nerd_face:

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I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, but none of my automations are working now. I can turn the lights on and off on the app, but they're not turning on by motion trigger :face_with_symbols_over_mouth:

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I have my Philips Hue Lights on it. I'm not sure what I've done, But none of my automations are working now. I can still turn the lights on and off on the app but none are being triggered by motion. I can still turn them on and off with Alexa and google assistant, but not by motion

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Can I suggest you pick just one automation and give a full screenshot of the setup so folks can have a look

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In devices can you see the motion sensor going active when triggered.

If yes then go into your automations and turn on logging to see what's going on. Also in RM you should click done to exit the rule even if you think you haven't made any changes.

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I just triggered one. Under "current state" it says "active"

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That's good - now what do the automation logs say? Are you using RM or the motion lighting app?

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motion and mode lighting app in my dining room

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I just realized I may have it on 2 apps

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If you bring up the info page for a device, you can see what rules and dashboards the device is in.

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Ok, I'm about to check that. Thanks