Help Me Decide

Hi:

Been doing some reading but I'm still undecided about Hubitat. I am impressed with the advanced user features but am worried about;

  1. Lack of iOS App:
  • I realize that a dashboard can be created and viewed on an iPhone, but can it be used only on your own local network or can it be accessed over the Internet (remotely)? If yes, are there security issues with this option?
  • Can a dashboard be shared between multiple users/iPhones?
  1. Push Notifications:
  • Can device triggers (door switch opening) be sent out over the Internet to an iPhone as a "push notification"?

Any and all comments would be appreciated in helping me to decide to go Hubitat or not.

Thanks:
BCGary

Nop. You have your iPhone locked I suppose.

Yes, Pushover app works fine.

Yes, locked iPhone :unamused:

Hubitat Dashboard offers both local and cloud links. There's a bit of a risk with the cloud links, as all the authentication is carried in the URL (a very convoluted one), but you can revoke it if you need to. You can also use the local links remotely if you VPN into your own network first, avoiding this potential issue. The dashboards themselves can also be PIN-protected. There are also other options, like SharpTools.io that requires an account login.

There are a few solutions for notifications. Pushover is a popular one. I'm using a community app to send notifications through ST, where I'm still using an account.

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Thanks vjv and Bert for super quick and friendly comments. I'll do some more research on your suggestions.

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You can also use IFTTT via a webhook to send and email, text, push notification or even a phone call with the message. I use ifttt for important notifications and have the number setup in my favorites so the messages will still go through even if my phone is in DND mode.

There are drivers in the forum to do this as well.

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It's not supported by Hubitat, but in my opinion the best option for an iOS user is Homebridge.

There's a community plug-in and app for Hubitat. With this and an Apple TV 4 or later, you can control you hub remotely. Anything you can control locally can be controlled with the iOS Home app. You can even monitor sensors. You just need to build a Homebridge server using either a Raspberry Pi 3 or a spare computer. Not too difficult. Loads of instructions out there and many of us have done it, so there's lots of help here too.

That would also cover notifications too.

Wait, how do you make Homebridge do notifications? Can it create a device with the Notification capability that you can plug into any app that asks for one? As-is, I've only figured out how to get HomeKit itself to notify me when something happens (e..g, notify me when a lock is opened and my presence sensor, also done via HomeBridge, says I'm not home) ... something I wouldn't trust to happen 100% reliably with the way things have been going for me so far. :slight_smile: But that's set up in the Home app itself in any case. I might be interested in trying other ways still.

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No, I actually meant HomeKit like you're talking about. I agree though, door open notification isn't as critical as leak. For smoke, CO, etc., I have notifications from these things in the Home app, but also back them up with IFTTT and text messages. Smoke and CO have all three, plus the Nest app.

When it's critical, I'd rather get multiple notifications, than risk none.

This is an interesting one though. I don't really understand what the "Channels" means though. The free Pushed account includes 2 channels and 1000 messages/mth. Maybe that means the number of unique users that can receive notifications?

If you are going to use an RPi (and why not? :grin:) I have a very simple push notification server using NodeJS and sendmail and an HE device that communicates with it. You can create notification devices that send to specific email addresses. If you are in the US (don't know about other countries) you can send email to your phone (check with your provider for the address) and have it show up as a text message.

No outside services required..

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Everyone recommends pushover but it costs money. I recommend Pushbullet as it's free and I've had zero issues with how quickly it responds or how reliable it is. I use it to let my wife and I know when HSM is armed or disarmed and also when there's a knock on the front door.

It's easy to configure as well. In terms of a dashboard...yes it can be shared but if you plan to use Alexa or Google Assistant any at all you can use those as your dashboards with more ease.

Only issue is " This app is a "community app" and is not supported by Hubitat. Contact @rayzurbock for support.
Use at your own risk.
"

@rayzurbock is really being kind and still answering configuration questions about it, but really has not obligation of any kind to do so.

It's real simple to configure and setup and it's set it and forget it. I hope hubitat starts fully supporting it as a subscription based push system is just not practical to me especially when you have multiple users within a household. It adds up.

Best 10 bucks I've spent. (5 for me and 5 for my wife)

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Same :slight_smile:

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I was a LONG time Pushbullet user. When they switched to their paid versus free model, I gave up on them. On the free plan, they only allow 100 messages per month. For all the stuff that goes on in my house, my family can chew that up in a couple of weeks (or less).

Free accounts get 500 api push messages per month. That's 17 messages per day if you average it out. I've been using pushbullet for years and I've never exceeded that limit and I have notifications for every show grabbed and completed downloads for many TV shows automatically downloaded by Sonarr plus smart home stuff. My wife has her own account that I've setup for her to recieve smarthome stuff as well and it's been issue free also.

I don't use it for SMS or any other type of messaging though so maybe that's the difference here. The 100 message limit is for SMS messages.

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Ahhh, OK. I was reading Upgrade to Pro | Pushbullet. They state 100 messages per month. 500 is a little better.

I've actually hit that number of messages monthly on a number of occasions. That's the main reason I went over to Pushover. At $4.99 per platform, it was better than $3.33/monthly for me.

To be fair, everything in my house is tied to Pushover though; Sabnzbd, Sonarr, Plex, Hubitat (previously SmartThings/Home Assistant with a lot of MQTT sprinkled in), weather alerts, Ring alerts, etc. I tend to use Pushover as my logging system. LOL

So today I realised that my 500 pushbullet pushes were over! It's been a very busy month on my NAS :wink:. So I decided to try pushover but when I signed up it said I already had an account! I don't remember ever buying it but I guess maybe I did because it's working great (not a trial) and my previous device was still listed though not active for 5 years lol (galaxy note 5).

Setup wasn't straightforward but doable and I've got it working great. Even added an icon for hubitat and everything.

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Look at you.. :smiley:

off to SmartThings.. [But came back] and now integrating Pushover.. A very long journey and.. may the WAF stay high.

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