How is Hubitat planning to stay relevant long term?

Before choosing a hub I read about all the smart home systems and chose one I thought would be the right level for me. I started by choosing SmartThings as I thought it would be an easy introductions to smart home logic flow as well as a simple dashboard type of app. Once I had the idea of how it all fitted together I progressed to Hubitat which I think might have lost me if I had started out with it. Unless one is too short of money to buy more than one hub ever I don't see anything wrong with that approach and having different systems to suit different people and needs.

3 Likes

I've only been using Hubitat for around 18 months, probably not that long. I've played with SmartThings (which led me to Hubitat), HomeKit, and Home Assistant. Hubitat was easy to get the base system setup, probably the easiest for me. (I do remember the prompt to install the basic rules app.) I've always come back to Hubitat as rule machine, basic rules, and room lighting are just easier for me to work with than the tools available in HomeKit or Home Assistant. But the one thing that I've never really came back to were the dashboards. Home Assistant, though it requires a lot more upfront investment in time, works really well for me as a dashboard. Something that I don't think my wife would have problems interacting with, especially via her phone. The actual HA dashboards are easy for me to set up and maintain, provided you don't add/remove devices a lot.

Hubitat has a great community of users and developers who selflessly write drivers for pulling in a whole host of devices (ecowitt, netatmo, govee, etc.). I am grateful for them and the Hubitat staff. My wish list basically consists of one item. Better dashboards. Something that is more flexible and modern looking that doesn't require me to break out CSS tutorials and the like. I'm sure it's not a small thing to implement, but that's the one thing I'm really jonesin' for. I'll probably take a look at SharpTools over the holiday, but something native/local with the flexibility of the home assistant dashboards for newbie people (all UI based, no CSS or coding) would be very welcomed.

8 Likes

Please give me drag and drop and I can live with the dashboards. I use them for status information, rarely to initiate actions.

7 Likes

Lots of great shared experiences and stuff being posted.
Years ago it was things like this that really sold me on even trying Hubitat.

Well, that and the few original commercials. Does anyone remember those? They were awesome. :smiling_face:

Hubitat has stayed relevant to me by delivering and sticking to everything here:

Iā€™m just starting to migrate from my C4 to a C7 and C8 with Hub Mesh.
I did buy two C7s a few years ago. One for myself to migrate to (lack of time stopped me), one for a friend, and to support Hubitat with some cash flow.

The C4 remained relevant to my home that whole time cause once it was set up and everything, it just did its thing as promised.
Heck I hadnā€™t logged into it for at least a year or more several times. Similarly I didnā€™t even up date the thing for the same time periods.

We donā€™t really use dashboards, although I did set a bunch up. We donā€™t really use the Hubitat iOS app much, we would use it more if it didnā€™t have that strange issue of duplication of rooms and devices under Lights/Switches.

The main thing I used app and dashboards for was for some ā€œtravelā€ dashboard tailored for checking on things (HSM stuff, away lighting, battery levels, random junk) while we were away from home for 9 months.

Instead we (really just my wife) use Alexa voice and app functions for any manual control of devices that I have even shared with it.

Since finally updating my C4 awhile ago in preparation to migrate to the C7 and C8, I was happy to see the changes that did happen to the platform and the new apps that already have made themself useful to setup/redo some simple automations.

So at least for me to stay relevant, Hubitat just needs keep doing what they are doing.

6 Likes

I see I'm late to this party, but this really hit home (except not this home here!)

This, was laughable, to me. I'm just coming up on first anniversary here, but I've been on many forums, many product support sites etc. I've never been involved in a site as supportive and informative as this, with active product team support that wants to solve your problems.

Even flame posts by users who have maybe not exactly tried (at all) and to make things work and are just spewing are treated with respect and the staff and users really try to help them.

I'm on another site for a (pay) software product that I use. Its somewhat of a niche market and product, and there aren't really many competitive offerings. It does some things I need(ed) and I regularly use it. The tech support is somewhat good, the tech leads can be good and the member users can be good. But the business end person(nel) runs an iron fist dictatorship and will have no comments that are out of line.

345 "tell us why we are so great" posts and surveys..., "no you are using it wrong", "no its some other software/issue/thing, its NOT us.", "that use case doesn't make sense"... and if you veer off the edge, out come the cannons. Its their prerogative (and its freely noted that its not a democratic platform...) And thats fine; I'm free to not visit, and not pay going forward. Licenses are forever but you are locked at a major version (so no updates if you don't renew).

Just mildly challenging one of the "complement us now" threads with a little bit of reality got me temporarily banned... I've never been banned from anything. And the person(nel) took the discourse offline with me to email (my forum email) , with a lightly veiled probe to try to tie me to my license and maybe remove said license. (Said license was attached to a different email than the forum). In the end it just petered out; and in the end I never upgraded again. And I mostly don't visit.

I'll pop over every once in a while when I think I may want some of the added functionality in new release. A few minutes on that forum straightens me right out.

5 Likes

The Vera forums where getting like that when I jumped ship to Hubitat. Even worse was high quality developers getting banned for thoughtful, constructive posts highlighting serious issues with the platform.

Thankfully that isnā€™t the case here. @bravenel even implements my ideas occasionally (the Predicate feature in RM is still awesome!). :sunglasses:

4 Likes

Thanks, I really appreciate good ideas that are brought forward. I certainly don't have any sort of monopoly on them, even if I am an opinionated SOB. Most of the recent major features in RM came from users, and I'm grateful for the improvements. Same holds true for Room Lights.

I just wish I'd do better at not coming across as a mean jerk, because I'm not one, at least most of the time. :zipper_mouth_face:

25 Likes

Tone can be really, really hard to convey in text, I certainly struggle with it.

5 Likes

Oh FU, Derek. You're great. :wink:

6 Likes

Humm, I donnnnooo about that. There's an awe full lot of folk in this community that spends pretty close to that ballpark when they go shopping on Ubiquiti's website. And while keeping uptime on your home network, wifi, internet, and network security is critical ...I can see folks feel exactly the same about their home automation once they commit to it.

Maybe the "yet to climb aboard" customer of the home automation market hasn't seen the hub they'd feel comfortable enough building a solution on....and relying upon it. Control4 is way at the other end of the offering spectrum so never mind that.

All due respect to the HE platform...but I think we all can come up with the short list of things that likely thwart a less technical population of potential buyers. Behold Homey looks to have prioritized exactly those kind of things, as flashy as that might seem.

I agree $400 is too much...but if they come on strong with a solution that checks all the boxes for the average Joe in the FIRST 10 minutes of looking at multi-media about it...I'd think they'd pay twice what HE charges (assuming the user didn't have to buy another model in 3 years for whatever reason). The remaining hub market for the kind of user HE aligns with....is A LOT smaller than what's out there waiting for intelligent & easy button simple solutions.

Speaking of staying relevant long term:

It's awesome what a bit of marketing does. We've been short in that department for a long time, but watch where we go next...

17 Likes

I wonder...majority of friends I talk to about HA that aren't too familiar but maybe are interested, are focused on how they can get voice control over devices. That's their key top of mind "automation" desire, along w/security which I tell them HE is not purpose built for.

When we talk price and they hear ~$140 for an HE hub, and then $20 to $35 (and more) per device for things like switches/dimmers and bulbs, along w/the need to change out switches and dimmers if they want the best experience (e.g., avoiding folks using existing dumb switches to turn of smart bulbs), etc., I see a lot of drop off in interest. Costs more than they expected and the "hassle" factor is higher. In that context, starting near $400 just for the hub does not seem like a price-point that is going to hit much of the mass market who are currently uninvolved. More bleeding off from other platforms...

3 Likes

Smartly.

3 Likes

I certainly agree with @danabw .
In talking with clients, the most common thing that is requested is voice notification & voice control. (Maybe mostly voice control).
Also, most upscale clients have alexa/google home/homepods already. (Also, a lot have Sonos stuff, but that's without a microphone).

1 Like

:rofl: love you too mate. :vulcan_salute:

4 Likes

here someone made a tutorial how to have drag and drop

1 Like

Totally agree overall.

Hubitat user for 1-2 weeks never had any experience with home automation.

strong:
Had a great onboarding with hubitat + youtube videos very helpful.
Very well documentation!

mid rating
Basic rule engine is ok but not "wife/noob friendly"

improvements needed
Forum to not be able to use the browser search is a turn off e.g. in posts like this

Dashboard looks just like from an old android version / early 2010s and need some stae of the art look.

Overall UX could be improved to appeal to younger and non IT people :wink:

1 Like

You can. If you used Ctrl+F or Cmd+F to bring it up in the first place, just do it again to use browser search instead:

Screenshot of search feature

(But note that the page only loads content as needed, so you may very well need regular forum search first to find what you really want.)

6 Likes

Just stumbled upon this YouTube video discussing the future of Home Assistant. Thought some of the discussion points were applicable to Hubitat. The guy's point about Home Assistant making the right market survivable steps in The Move to Matter (as a small player) is relevant.

I'm left with some greater appreciation of the dilemma to compete in the Mass Market Easy-Button-Simple (for Beginners) Hub vs being the best Easy-but-Deeply-Configurable/Flexible Hub for those that want to dig in and do more.

3 Likes

I wouldn't be worried for the future of the likes of Hubitat and Home Assistant. No matter how many developers the SAGA (Samsung, Amazon, Google, Apple) brings on board, they will be busy making their platforms work for their company's main goal. Whether that means to drive more customers to their store, search engine, or to buy appliances and phones, they will always be a step behind the developers who are solely working on making the best home automation platform work for everyone.

14 Likes