I may very possibly be wrong, but my impression from OP's original post was that they were under the impression that Hubitat could integrate wifi stuff at the same level & ease as zigbee/z-wave.
I myself wouldn't consider that a reasonable portrayal, but I acknowledge that one person's concept of what's easy & possible can be very different from someone else's.
Agree. There was a similar post about a month ago. I suspect some who see 3rd-party reviews or follow other SH forums might see mention of -say- TPlink ports and think all wifi devices work.
But these are primarily misconceptions. There are compatible devices, and currently incompatible devices is my point. Bluetooth devices cannot be joined to HE, that’s a hard fact. They are, for the most part, incompatible with HE (bridging is the only means of using them). WiFi, IP, Zigbee and Z-Wave have varying levels of compatibility on HE and for that matter every single hub on the planet has varying levels of compatibility.
Far too often I have heard reviewers erroneously say things like “Hubitat doesn’t support WiFi and that leaves out WiFi device compatibility". That was never true, other than to say that previously you couldn't connect the hub itself directly to your WiFi network. But you could always join certain WiFi devices when the capability was made available either directly through the platform (Yeelight was made available very early on) or via a community driver.
Often I would hear reviewers compare Wink's ability to join their hub to a WiFi network, as an inherent capability to support WiFi devices in general. 100% false statement. They never joined any WiFi device directly to their hub, and don't support all WiFi connected devices. WiFi devices are usually joined to the router and communicate with a hub via direct IP or the cloud. Same as everyone else. It's a complete misunderstanding of what WiFi is. TCP/IP is how WiFi connected devices send and receive data to the cloud or directly to a hub. WiFi is merely a wireless connection layer instead of a physical Ethernet connection layer.
Fair enough, but when discussing Hubitat's wifi capabilities, I just think we need to be carefully cognizant of the audience at hand - most HA newbies don't have a very good understanding of wifi, let alone any of the other HA protocols.
To them, all wifi devices are equal - if they happen to have yeelight that's great, but that's one of a gazillion brands of wifi HA stuff you can buy on amazon. To that audience, all of those wifi things are the same & interchangeable -- they expect full plug-&-play compatibility simply because they don't know any better. These definitely aren't the people using Shelly.
Expecting those folks to jump right in with community drivers and navigate workarounds or to have the exactly right compatible wifi stuff simply isn't realistic, so I think it's a bit disingenuous to imply that wifi stuff is somehow easy or all fully baked into Hubitat by design (as compared to z-wave/zigbee).
Of course they can learn and be taught, but as we all know from personal experience, HA tends to have a steep (and often expensive!) learning curve.
It's not my intent to disparage the OP's knowledge or capabilities, but from my read of the original post, I got the impression he/she was expecting straightforward wifi integration with Hubitat.
Not a single person in this tread wrote or implied this.
I didn't mean to touch a nerve or come off as accusatory in anyway - my apologies. And with that, I bow out of any further discussion on this topic.
OP - best of luck once again, and please bring any question you have to the community here!
Thanks to everyone that reply and give some advice. I understand that wi-fi may not be the best way to use the Hubitat and there are very limited wi-fi devices that have drivers to work with Hubitat but my issue is that I couldn`t find any IR or RF controller that works on zigbee or Z wave and I have more than 10 devices that I control through these IR/RF controllers and would like to be able to control them all in one place. When I select to buy them (these is for example the IR - Smart Universal IR Remote WiFi Tuya for Smart Home Control for TV DVD AUD AC Air Conditioner Works with Alexa Google Home|Remote Controls| - AliExpress) which is Tuya and as I have other Tuya devices like (Zigbee switch) which worked well with Hubitat so I was hoping that I would be able to connect this one as well.
If anyone knows about an option for such a controller that could work with Hubitat and would be more than happy to buy it and change the existing ones.
There's a few IR implementation around here. Broadlink was one. The Bond controller was another. No where near as inexpensive as that TUYA device, but that doesn't seem to be very widely integrated with hubs from what I can find. Often the Home Assistant community has integrated the Tuya stuff, but not that one.
You could also use a Harmony Hub. They are IR and RF, not just IR like that Tuya you linked to. But caveat emptor. It is still unconfirmed by Logitech, but the word on the street is retailers are being told they're discontinuing the entire Harmony line. Support, they're being told is to last for 5 years unless that division is sold off to someone else. So I would go that route only if you're willing to accept that you'll potentially need to find another solution in 5 years. That's probably fine for most people.
If you go the Harmony Hub route, then that has a local integration. I use it myself, and it's really good.
What kind of device are you trying to control with IR? Hubitat supports a z-wave/IR gateway by Remotec, but that is geared to function as a thermostat.
With the IR I am controlling TV, Set top box, Audio system, Air conditioning. With the RF - several different lights - spot lights, lasers, led controllers, etc.
Thank you for the detailed response. I was actually looking initially at the Harmony remotes but the price of 250-350$ for the remote made me look for other options and that is how I found the Tuya devices on AliExpress. But the Harmony Hub might be a good option. I will check out the other options that you mention.
I also started thinking about the option for workaround integration of the already bought Tuya devices through Google Assistant or IFTTT. I know that I would be reliant on the servers of these services but might be a good and cheaper option. Does anyone have experience with using them? If so I would appreciate any feedback.
You can get just the Harmony hub. You don’t need the remote. They’re usually around $100
Logitech Harmony Hub for Control of 8 Home Entertainment Devices https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00N3RFC4Q/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_EAT10JFY1T6CZ7FVG4V8
I have lots of LAN ones, some are WiFi to the network, WeMo, MyQ but many do not even have any WiFi on. Yes, there are several WiFi device with no driver that can be integrated through Alexa or Google Home but you have to have those items too and then there is that damn cloud you mentioned. I wish the Ecobee integration was LAN not cloud !!!
It use several cloud integrations!
No the problem in the HE LAN discovery is a 100% disaster to you most write apps to get around it.
Wink used the same cloud method HE uses for many WiFi device like Ecobee or MyQ. There are several smarter the HE people out there making other WiFi devices like WeMo and AVR receivers, Roku, mVidia, Logitech and Smart TVs work directly through LAN.
Lets face it, Hue and Lutron got support because the sold a lot of them long before HE came long. Lutron has been into home integration for decades before anyone else still around. Hue had a big media push when HA was a new media darling. I never got any since it was proprietary which always loses in the end. Even Apple had to give in to Linux and put their own interface on top.
Personally, I just use Harmony Hub, it can connect to hundreds of not thousands of devices that the Hubitat never will and just use that App to get access to the huge selection of devices. I can find just about anything. It found a DVR that was only release last October. How I have no idea, with device like Roku or nVidia Shield it was really easy to go with a complete list of commands, it find my NVR, light bulbs, shades, TV's, etc. I doubt there is AV device in the planet it can not use. Maybe not the AC but everything else.
In my setup I find that a multi-pronged approach works best for me. When I find a new device I want to add I first check to see if it is Homekit compatible, is there a HOOBS plugin or is it compatible with my HE C-7 and I find that I am able to add whatever I want to add. I am a very happy camper!
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