Hubitat for everything wifi, zigbee & zwave
Home Assistant - to integrate my solar install when it gets fitted, big steep learning curve, but getting there makes Hubitat feel very slick.
2 Likes
Home automation is about convenience. It should make your life easier, not busier. I still try everything that comes on the market, because smart devices are my hobby. But for my production environment I keep everything on Hubitat, two C7 hubs and a Hue bridge, totaling 300+ devices: one C7 for LAN/Cloud connected devices and one for mesh networks.
The reasoning is simple, after years of bloating my previous controllers I realized that the key to a successful home automation environment is to keep things as uncluttered as possible. Adding interconnected services is fun and challenging, but ultimately it becomes a second job to maintain, because if you think it is too good to be true that everything works seamlessly together, sooner or later you'll find out that it is. And that's when chasing your tail begins (been there, done that, way too many times that I would like to admit) 
12 Likes
I have one HE for my zigbee & zwave devices and most of my automation. I have a second HE that interfaces with my security panel using Envisalink, and controls ancillary systems like outdoor lighting. I have a third that handles most of my wifi integrations or integrations I consider "iffy." And then I keep a fourth to experiment with. I have three Hue hubs, mostly because I use the Hue sync box and you can only have one active sync box per Hue hub. Bummer, but there it is. I have a Lutron hub to talk to my Caseta switches and an Ecowitt hub for soil moisture sensors and to monitor the hot tub. And then I have a Bond hub to control a bunch of devices with RF remotes. Finally I just installed a headless Pi in anticipation of moving Echo Speaks from Heroku.
To @bobbyD's point it should be about convenience and make my life easier, but honestly I've gone too far down the rabbit hole for that.
3 Likes
I asked a similar question back in Dec 2019. Lots of interesting responses there as here. Since I am now in a temporary rental house, things have changed to be slightly less complicated.
- Hubitat (Obviously. 2 C-5 hubs and 1 C-7)
- Lutron Pro Bridge and Picos
- Tasmotized Sonoff RF Bridge
- Raspberry Pi with Node Red
- Android Phone with Tasker
- Logitech Harmony Remote
- Alexa
- Google Home/Assistant
- Home Assistant (mostly to experiment)
If you want additional similar reading from the past:
2 Likes
Ooooooo... your a multi hub guy. I feel like I'm one of the few with a single hub these days running everything. I have a lot of devices too.
2 Likes
I don't want to take the risk of introducing latency on my mesh networks if my router decides to throw a fit, or AWS has hiccups and decides to tell me every 5 ms that a cloud service cannot be reached. 
1 Like
Sounds like maybe i should setup a second hub also for cloud integrations.
I have 3 ecowitt installs at various locations.
A Honeywell home integration
A older Honeywell tcc integration.
Kasa integration for switches but they are still running local.
Which hub would you out this on?
Hubigraphs.
Konnected alarm panel local but which hub?
Hue bridge integration. Which hub?
Tesla
Husqvarna auto mower.
Open weather
And another openweather for colorcast weather alerts with lights.
An older darksky weather integration.
Rachio sprinkler integration.
For integrations like this and others that create devices do you keep them on the cloud hub and duplicate the with hub connect to the device hub or put them direct on the device hub?
Alexa tts integration
Smart ups devices that integrate locally but over the net... again which hub for these?
Finally, my sendmail integration to send out notifications that goes over the web. Thinking
This would run on both hubs otherwise no way to alert for hub issues?
Kasa integration was actually the reason I moved everything connected via network on own "LAN" hub. It brought my main production hub to its knees, at one time, many months ago, so it was one of those "lesson learned" type of experience for me. It was because of my router, mainly, but still.
On that hub I have the Tempest integration, Sonos, Chromecast, Google, Alexa, Ecobee, Rachio, etc...
The only exceptions that are LAN and run on my main hub are Lifx and Hue.
2 Likes
So all rules and dashboards etc are still on the main non lan hub?
If end point is LAN or cloud, the rule runs on LAN hub, if end point is a mesh device, the rule runs on mesh hub. Dashboards and mobile app are tied to LAN hub. I use Hub Mesh to link devices that are used in rules on the other hub.
1 Like
Thanks seems confusing to me to have rules in more than one place and on top of that there really is no lan or cloud endponts ?
I can see the cloud device updating device attributes on the lan hub, but once that is done and a rule fires against say an attribute changing that in essence is now local not cloud or am i missing something?
I see changing attributes on devices that would propagate out to the net like setting a ecobee or honeywell therm as being cloud endpoints is this what you mean? But once an attribute changes on one of these devices a rule that triggers on say a temp change... that is local?
So this rule is both local and cloud based .. assume it would run.on the lan hub?
Essentially what I have done except I do have the Amazon Echo Skill connected to my main hub. Otherwise I would have to share way more device via HubMesh to keep WAF high. She like to be able to control EVERYTHING!!
Oh and I do have one more C5 with zigbee for my Aqara devices.
2 Likes
What I meant by "end point" above, was the end point of a rule (the action). If the action involves a device connected to the LAN hub, the rule runs on the LAN hub that might otherwise use a Hub Mesh sensor (EG turn on Kasa plug when door opens). But if the action involves a mesh device, then the rule runs on mesh hub (EG turn on lights when Tempest lux is less than some value).
1 Like
My wife and I have separate houses which means I get more places to run more things.
I started the DIY route with SmartThings, running hubs at both houses. A few years ago I decided to get involved with HE (C7) and see how that would work out. You don't know how something is actually going to work until you try it.
As of today, my wife's house continues runs ST. We don't use motion lighting so sub second response and cloud dependence isn't as much of a concern as it is to others. We don't use webCoRE. The mobile app has a high WAF. Alexa and smart switches are our input methods. I decided to stick thru the Groovy->Edge evolution and see how it all shakes out - so far so good. We also have a Control4 implementation for our home theatre and upstairs audio.
My house has both HE and ST. ST mostly for development (wife's house is "prod") and HE for other stuff. Both platforms have their pluses and minuses, its nice to be able to use the best tool for the job.
I have Ecowitt and SensorPush implementations that aren't complete yet (ST doesn't support either). Honeywell TCC on both platforms. No RaspPi's involved in HA as of yet.
Fun thread to see what cogs everyone has in their machines! Thanks @sburke781!
5 Likes
Please let us (me) know how that goes. I will probably do the same.
@bobbyD , can you expand on this a little? I run everything on one HE (approx 50 devices). I'm not sure that I understand your setup.
I have considered running another HE. But why? Everything seems to be running fine here. But I am always tinkering and creating problems when I should just leave well-enough alone.
1 Like
What kinds of things does your wife do with the mobile app? Dashboard stuff? Device access? My wife has the app on her phone but probably never uses it except for notifications that I set up.
In general, polling of any kind can have an impact on hub's performance and may introduce latency. Many LAN connected devices rely on polling to get updates. Even more so, when connection is not available, the polling rate increases, so devices can generate events at much higher rates. Isolating these devices ensures that latency doesn't impact radio performance.
3 Likes
When you say "LAN connected" devices, are you just referring to devices that are not connected through zigbee/zwave to the hub?
Correct, network connected devices (local or cloud).
1 Like
