Hub load severe, over active Third Reality plugs?

mavrrick58 · April 18, 2026, 1:52pm

Nothing about the devices you listed screams problem to me. I didn't know Aeotec made a Zigbee range extender. The Aqara sensors when they first came out were a mixed bag and could be problematic for reliability, but i don't ever remember hearing of them causing extreme load.

Lets see if that makes a difference. It is a bit of a stretch it will help, but not impossible.

It is a driver not a app. Go into the devices page and click on the option to install a virtual device. Then when selecting the driver for it to be use the Hubinfo Driver. The driver acts as a central point to retrieve certain metrics of the system at a few different poll rates. Once it is installed go into the virtual device and access it's preferences tab. From their you will setup the preferences to determine when groups of metrics are collecting by selecting the Poll group they belong to. Then at the bottom you set the value for how often the Poll groups are collected. In this case the most important metrics are the memory, CPU, and DB Values. the rest don't exactly help us in this discussion. Memory can be collected fairly frequently. It doesn't do any good to collect the others any more frequently then 5 min general. At least for testing and validation i would set poll group 1 to 30 seconds and then poll group 2 to 5 min. Then only have memory in poll group 1. Then the CPU and DB metric groups to poll group 2. Here are my preferences settings as a point of reference. But this is based on my desire to collect them. If you don't need everything you can turn them off. I actually have some turned off myself

To graph it you have a few options. You can use a Dashboard with it's graphing option, webcore with its integration of Hubigraphs, WatchTower, or i use InfluxDB and Grafana, Each of them have their pro's-con's.

I have only tested the first and last option myself. The big problem with using the Dashboards is that it can only graph based on the event retention your hub keeps. So if you only keep 10 values of event history you can only graph 10 points of data ever. InfluxDB and Grafana are great becuase they take most of the weight of the task of graphing off the hub. They are commercial tools with free options for home use. That said because they are commercial options they tend to be a bit more complicated to setup. Once configured though i have found it to be a rock solid option.

The other two options are probably in the middle of complexity and such, but still keep all the data and load on the hub for performing those tasks. If you are not a Webcore use i would probably suggest just using Watchtower. That said all of them are better then not having anything to do that task.

Here is an example of using the dashboard for graphing.

And here is an example of using InfluxDB and Grafana with a dashboard design by @jtp10181

That is a good point. I would think if it is constantly scrolling maybe how many lines per second, That said i was looking to just see if we could find something that is very busy in the logs. and consistantly busy.

If it is only triggering at that action unless you are arming and disarming frequently it is unlike to cause heavy load.

In some cases a bunch of small tasks can create short spikes of load that are impact. Again these seem to be related to HSM which in of itself should limit by how often they are triggered. Another item to consider is any of these rules could create conflicting logic and create a circle of actions between other rules.

I can't say much with this. I used it for a while, but then ended up having issues with my locks and keypads because of it. I ended up removing it and managing codes independently on my devices.

Yea this is typical. I can watch my graphs and sometimes see when HPM runs. The key thing is that it's load doesn't persist. It is momentary and then goes down.

What apps do you have loaded on your hub. Clearly Rule Machine, Lock Code Manager and HSM, but what else.

If you reboot the hub, then wait for it to settle down, how long does it take for the load to reoccur. Does it happen fairly quickly, or later in the day at some point.

It seems you have done allot of automation around HSM and i am wondering if that has something do with it. If you disarm hsm and then perform a reboot and don't touch HSM and leave it disarmed I wonder if the problem would return.

I feel like this is either a race condition you are getting into either by something happening faster then it can update, or more likely a loop being created based on logic between things.

Both of those can be hard to pin down.

krstevens87 · April 18, 2026, 5:36pm

I do, and I had not noticed any connection, but I’ll certainly watch for it now. What did you discover regarding this?

krstevens87 · April 18, 2026, 5:50pm

ok, I got this set up again. Gonna let it poll for a few hours.

oh, no nothing like this. I’ve actually never seen any info on my live logs because all of my event triggers are device interaction based, so it’s veey rare that anything happens that isn’t caused by my initially doing something around my house.

Basic button controller, get attributes app, HPM, Hubitat dashboards, HSM, lock code manager, notifications, preference manager, rule machine, simple switch off timers

It was happening within 24 hours maybe 12. Interestingly I have not seen it again in the past 24 hours or more.

I bought my Hubitat specifically for Home Security. That is its only function right now, so I doubt there would be load issues if I didn’t use HSM because it doesn’t do much else haha.

mavrrick58 · April 18, 2026, 6:30pm

HSM itself isn't really a heavy load. The first thing i did with my hub was HSM as well. When i switched to hubutat from Smartthings it was because Smartthings killed off the Smartthings ADT Alarm Panel Hub.

That said i have minimal rules around HSM myself. The rules i have that interact with HSM are very simple and limited. They are also very specific in that they only execute to wither make HSM arm a specific mode, or act when specific modes are turned on. IE i have a rule that puts the house to sleep. It turns off lights and such as well as setting the alarm to Armed Home. I also have a rule that documents fan speed when the alarm activates alarm away.

It sounds like you have many rules with logic around HSM being set to something. Maybe disable those rules for a while and let HSM continue to operate. You should still be able to have a alarm system without external rules.

I see you dont have a keypad device. How are you arming and disaming HSM. Is it with geofencing or something?

krstevens87 · April 18, 2026, 7:53pm

Yes, at the simplest level, my alarm arms and disarms as I come and go. I researched for weeks trying to find a keypad that would work with the Hubitat and essentially my discovery was that they’re just aren’t any being made right now or maybe there was one, but it was completely out of stock. But I can control my alarm using a Hubitat dashboard that I built into a panel of sorts. I also have that Sonoff four button controller that i set up to manage locks, temporary armed state bypass, and arming/disarming using a combination of single press, double press, long press and tiered virtual switches, combined with required expressions for the previously engaged switch group, to allow for different functions of the same button. That’s why the basic button controller app got installed.

LearningHubitat · April 18, 2026, 9:36pm

I just noticed it only happened to me after I had done a remote admin. If I didn't remote admin then it would go days with no issue.

There is some testing being done right now for a possible fix if what was found was the actual issue. Keep an eye on it and see if you notice the patter of it happening after you remote admin into your hub.

mavrrick58 · April 18, 2026, 9:56pm

I feel your last comment kindof puts more weight in my thoughs about the load. I don't think it is HSM, but one of those other things related to HSM. I would try disabling fhat other stuff.

krstevens87 · April 18, 2026, 11:33pm

I guess I’m not sure what you mean by “that other stuff”. All of the rules that I have created are there to manage the different components of my security system. Sure, the four-button controller, for example, is not essential and is a convenience item, but it has no triggers other than when I push a button on it, and most of the actions just flip a virtual switch that automatically turns off after 10 seconds.

The first button press or “command” is a double press that only flips a virtual switch to on. These switches represent the different functions of the controller like lock/unlock or arm/disarm for example.

Then I long press a button, which flips a switch from the second group, which represents devices or locations like back door / front door.

I have a few simple rules with required expressions for each of the group 1 switches, so that the second button press will only fire the action for the intended function based on which of the group one switches are on from the first button press.

I realize you didn’t ask for an explanation of any of these rules, but I just wanted to share that so you get an idea of rules I’m building and the actions and checks that are happening. There are not many rules I could disable that would not cause my security system to malfunction or fail to operate critical components.

mavrrick58 · April 19, 2026, 1:15am

It soulds like HSM may be a very small part of the solution you are designing. Traditinally you wouldn't need all the rules l, virtual devices and such to have HSM perform the alarm function for you. As i said before HSM is very resource friendly. The only time i have seen HSM impact a environent when the alrm was triggered and i tried to turn on all the lights in the house at once.

I am trying to eleminate HSM from the problem by removing all the custom rules involved with controllong it and seeing if that stops the issue from reoccuring. Sounds like you can't do that. So since you brought it up what are all the suplemental rules and devices doing that they can't be removed. Hsm itself can function as an alarm system so aside from changing hsm mode what is are those supplemental rules and virtual devices doing.

danabw · April 19, 2026, 2:33am

Could this help? Requires access via a dashboard...

krstevens87 · April 19, 2026, 3:42am

Well, we’ve stumbled upon what might be an even deeper issue here, which is my experience with this Hub or any similar technology. It could be that I was simply unable to figure it out at the time, but when I was setting everything up over the course of a few weeks as parts and things came in, I just kept running into problems with HSM limitations. For example, I wanted to be able to bypass an exterior door during an armed state without having to either bypass it when I armed the alarm initially (leaving it bypassed the whole time), or turn the alarm off and then back on. HSM just didn’t seem to allow that. So I took the doors out of the monitoring inclusion of the HSM and built my own rules that will trigger my alarm siren if those doors are opened during an HSM armed state, but allows me to press a single button to have a 60 sec passthrough without turning the alarm off and on.

The HSM also didn’t allow much custom customization of the siren, and the one that I own plays a lot of different sounds and has a lot more I can do with it if HSM is just not involved.

The HSM is actually like you said a small part of my system. For the hub to operate properly, the HSM needs to be included in my security system so i set it up to monitor just my window contact sensors, and I have built the rules myself for the doors and intrusion/alarm events because I found the HSM to be far too simple and rigid. But it is all still based on the HSM states so it is the foundation of my rules.

I’ll include some screenshots of some of my rules here and I think you’ll see that they’re very simple and direct, although I didn’t have a clue how to write these types of rules when I got started, and I’m sure I still have plenty to learn, so I would welcome any input you have on cleaning them up or more effective ways of doing it.

krstevens87 · April 19, 2026, 4:00am

Thanks! I found this actually, and gave it a shot. I didn’t really like it, and just using the Hubitat legacy dashboard worked a lot better for me. I appreciate it though.

mavrrick58 · April 19, 2026, 4:30am

I think there is some confusion around the bypass function. It is my understanding that when bypass is enabled, it bypasses while in the arming state. This would mean it creates a momentary bypass. You need to first have the doors included in the bypass then have the button press activate that mode. Once the armed mode is initiated HSM goes into arming mode and the delayed arming interval starts and you can exit. It is technically initiating a arming cycle again, but starts the cycle for bypass again. You can trigger this with button press. You can have HSM actually do this directly i believe without the need for button controller. I will test tomorrow morning to confirm. Once HSM is managing that it also can also create several of the messages it looks like you were creating as well.

The aeotec siren you have is the same one i own so i am familiar with it. What you need to so is assign the alarm and beep tones in the device preferences. The alarm tone would be used when the alarm command is initiated. This is a standard for the capability of alarm. You can still use the command to play custom sounds when you want to as well.

I think you may have made the alarm stuff accidentally to complicated. It can easily get messy. i was the developer of ADT tools on Smartthings and managing alarm conditions isn't a easy task. I wouls strongly suggest a keypad. I have the Ring gen 2 Keypad.

krstevens87 · April 19, 2026, 5:33am

Really? Man that would have saved me a lot of time haha. It’s definitely not clear that it has that function. It probably is time for a major review because I have learned so much since I started building all this.

As for the Siren, you’re totally right I forgot about that since it’s been a while.

Oh for sure haha

Honestly the keypad is the least of my concerns. I have no problems controlling the alarm with the dashboard and my little button controller. But I forgot a crucial detail earlier which is that there are no keypads available that meet my criteria. Ring and most other big brands are not options I’ll consider, which severely limits my selection of products, but that’s because of my own choices and opinions but it’s worth it to me and that’s just something I’ll need to deal with haha.

krstevens87 · April 26, 2026, 11:46pm

Thought I would just come back and give an update. Something we tried seems to have resolved the load issue on the Hubitat, which is great.

I went back and created a backup of my hub in case I ruined everything, disabled all of my alarm rules, which was 99% of my rules, and tried to build my alarm system entirely through the HSM, and I have no idea how anyone does it. It’s so limiting and confusing (vague, non-specific explanations, no detail on functions). It does not allow for almost any of the functionality I’ve developed for my alarm system. It’s just incredibly basic and rigid. I’m actually considering removing it altogether, and just using modes and my own rules, and even the modes aren’t technically necessary I haven’t used modes at all in the past several months. But after revisiting it and seeing just how very little of my alarm system even requires the HSM to be installed, it seems to be almost completely unnecessary.

Anyway, overall, the report is good. Everything’s working well here. I do not understand how the HSM could be utilized in a way that would come anywhere near the functionality of the system I’ve built, and maybe it’s not meant to, but after all of our conversations I wanted to try, and I thought I would just share what I found.

Thanks again for all your help. I learned a lot from our back-and-forth.

mavrrick58 · April 27, 2026, 12:57am

I would really be curious about what you see are the shortcomings of HSM.

krstevens87 · April 27, 2026, 4:11am

Ask and you shall receive!

As Hubitat makes explicitly clear when you start using the HSM, it is not meant to be a home alarm system, and should not be used as one. This is clearly true because, liability aside, this app is meant to be used for monitoring certain aspects of your homes safety such as water leaks, temperature change, or other changes that could be harmful or damaging, but it just isn’t designed for and doesn’t work well as a home security system for securing an active home. Below are my very candid thoughts on the HSM app and its contents.

Configure HSM menu:
- Configure arming/disarming/cancel
  - Immediately locked into three modes, armed home, armed away and disarmed. No choice or customization or additional options.
  - These can only be controlled by mode switches. Unnecessarily limiting.
  - There are several entry fields for delaying arm/disarm and associated alerts, which is useful for sure, but clearly designed for a semi-urgent specific event, not a home intrusion. This is also the only feature setting that is customizable for the entire auto arm and disarm section of the HSM, which is extremely limiting from a security system point of view.
  - It’s also annoying that all of these lines can be set to zero and yet you must choose a contact sensor to be delayed upon arming away. I use presence sensing for my armed away hsm state so there is no exiting after the HSM is set, making this completely unnecessary and a potential security risk if not set up appropriately.
  - There is one alert setting for this whole section that is used both for arming failures and bypass warning, making those two events of equal importance in terms of alert urgency, which is definitely not how I want my alarm to perform. It’s also just a weird combination in general. I would like very different alerts for these two areas and frankly, I wouldn’t want any alerts for bypasses, but I would definitely wanna know about arming failures. But I can’t separate these if I use HSM.
Intrusion away/home/night
- We’ve now introduced a third armed state that wasn’t customizable or mentioned when configuring the HSM. Is this something that is independent and stands alone? Does intrusion night apply on top of in intrusion away or intrusion home? I really don’t know because there’s no description or explanation. I’m sure I can find that answer here, but it doesn’t make it any less confusing to a new user.
- I am essentially forced to categorize every contact sensor into “must be closed when armed” or “automatically bypass when arming”. This is not some easy access, quick select menu that you can switch up before you set the alarm every time. These are relatively permanent settings that requires a bit of effort and possibly a refresher on how the HSM works if you want to go and make changes to this. There is not a single door in my house that I want automatically bypassed every time I set my alarm. But there are several doors that I would like to go through when my alarm is set without having to turn the alarm off and back on. I just want to tap a button so that I can pass through that door for a set window of time without it triggering my alarm. After that short window of time passes, I want it fully armed again, triggering an alarm if it is opened. My current set up will bypass a door and unlock it for me at the tap of a button. You can’t possibly do this if you utilize the HSM.
Next, we get to custom monitoring rules. There we go. This is where I can finally start building some of those custom rules I want… nope. Again this is a very limited range of options to choose from without any format for any type of monitoring that is not one of these specific devices. Again, it’s a very rigid, very structured environment, forcing you to create a very basic and linear system of alerts designed with one idea in mind.
Then we find ourselves at the configure/arming/disarm menu again, which we’ve already done and is repetitive and a bit confusing. And that’s it. There’s nothing else here to utilize or customize.
Honestly one of its biggest flaws is simply ui/format. It’s incredibly confusing and poorly laid out, it’s just not intuitive or user friendly at all.

The Hubitat is not what most people would call a user friendly a piece of technology. It’s difficult to understand until you have some experience with it. I consider myself a very knowledgeable person when it comes to tech, with a better understanding of these types of things than most average consumers, and I’m still far from understanding a lot of this devices functions features and capabilities. But out of everything I’ve done on this device so far, the HSM is by far the most clunky, awkward, confusing, and unhelpful component I’ve come across. I would rather write my own rules to replace everything this offers and even then I’ve only created about 1/6th of what I’m looking for. Your mentioned that I might have accidentally made my alarm system more complicated than it needed to be, and I agreed. But now it seems clear to me that the unnecessarily complicated component was trying to build it around the HSMs limitations instead of simply uninstalling it.

As I’m reviewing this, I’m trying to figure out why I even decided to utilize it in the first place, and aside from simply having a lesser understanding of the entire device’s system and structure when I set this all up the first time, I mostly wanted to be able to use the HSM tile on the dashboard because it was convenient and hard to duplicate anything that complex myself on a tile. After reviewing this all again I see that more or less, my system only uses the HSM’s state as a trigger/condition for some of the arming/disarming rules I’ve created, which can be replaced with modes, so I’m currently looking into simply removing the HSM app from my hub entirely to simplify the whole structure.

And I’ll say again, in closing, that Hubitat explicitly says this isn’t a home alarm system and shouldn’t be used as one, so I’m not exactly complaining that it doesn’t do the thing Hubitat says it shouldn’t be used for. But since it is very much promoted as the best tool for home alarm setups by this forum and community, (and sort of unofficially suggested as such by design, using terminology like “arm/disarm, intrusion, etc), I just gotta say I completely disagree.

mavrrick58 · April 27, 2026, 12:48pm

I think it is allot bigger then just liability. True purpose built security systems have to meet certain regulatory requirements i believe. There is no good way to do that with a Home Automation platform. There are two many really poor choices for sensors that simply won't be reliable for true security purposes. When i setup my system i tested a few different contact sensors befor settelling on Ring Gen2 sensors. Several of them were somewhat unreliable, or didn't allow good device monitoring that ment I could never feel confident they were connected. That said the desire to use it has home security is at your own risk as if you feel comfortable with the environment you have the software will enable it.

HSM is a complicated app becuase there is so much it is trying to cover. As a solution gets more complex it can be confusing and start to get messy. I totally get that and don't exactly hold that against HSM, but i don't disagree there may be better ways to manage the setup.

You have to remember HSM was trying to fill a gap which was to provide a security option as a alternative to a traditional Alarm system. This was also being attempted while maintaining compatabilty with standards previously setup for alarm keypads, sirens, sensors, and such. Most alarm systems, or atleast all that I have had the opptrotunity to use, include alarm modes disarm,ArmHome(Stay),ArmedAway(Away). I believe Armed Night is realatively new, but is included on some systems.

I think if you compare HSM to most traditional alarm systems from the likes of purpose built ones in most cases you will find it is very comparable with one exception. I do agree that i think in recent times some alarms have built in methods into sensor devices to enable bypass at the sensor. That isn't something easily done with HSM.

Best currently avaliable doesn't mean it is the best alarm system though. Many like myself find it more then sufficient, but you have clearly created additional needs that are beyond typical alarm system functions.

Honestly as i reviewed what your posted above I could say allot more, but i don't think it is needed. I would just say this is more about how you want to do security then it is about HSM being a viable option for security. This is one of the great things for you about using Hubitat instead of a purpose built alarm system. With that understanding i would also urge you to not use RM for this, but instead work on learning groovy and get this in a proper smartapp. You will likely be happier with it later. I would also suggest you avoid using hub Mode and instead use a Hub Variable atleast. There are allot of other potential uses for Hub Mode that may be better then just for a custom alarm. Heck if you want a head start go check out my ADT Tools archive on Github as it may help with allot of what you are trying to do.

krstevens87 · April 27, 2026, 1:15pm

Thank you, I appreciate the insight. I do have a very different standard of what my alarm system should be able to do compared to a more traditional alarm, that’s true. But that’s why I’m building my own alarm system in the first place. I got the Hubitat because it allows me complete control over every detail and every function and every device. As you said, I don’t have to use the HSM, as I apparently really haven’t been this whole time, and I’m not really complaining that it’s not good at being an alarm system since it’s not what it was intended to be. I just wanted to provide some insight into why it doesn’t work for me and my set up, because I feel it limits the Hubitats options and wide range of customization to a very narrow and basic set of functions.

I don’t have a clue how to write groovy apps, and never would’ve even thought of that because my knowledge of the topic is so narrow, but now I’m quite curious and I think I will look into what that could look like.

I’m a bit embarrassed to admit that one of those things I mentioned not fully understanding in the Hubitat is the hub variables. I haven’t used the variable feature once. I don’t even know what it is. Perhaps it’s time I dig into that side of the hub.

Thanks for the insight and the info. I appreciate it.

mavrrick58 · April 27, 2026, 1:34pm

Understood. My comments are just as much for others as they were for you. I don't want others to get discouraged about usinb HSM if they saw your above comments.

The main reason i suggest creating a app is because then you can make it do whatever you want it to. Plus it also gives you the ability to create one app, or a main app with children that do it all instead of several RM Rules to consolidate activity. This can help prevent Rules from stepping on each other.

If you start to go down the Groovy smart app path here is a link to my Partial Port from Smartthings repo. I wrote that sevearal years ago to work with the Smartthings ADT Alarm Panel system. At one point i started to port it to Hubitat, but never finished it. That app was more about integrating the Smartthings side of the hub and the ADT Alarm side of the hub, but in many ways it does creates a Alarm system environment.

That would give you a decent start to build an alarm system so you don't have to start from scratch.

Another potential option is have you tried the smart app Nyckelharpa. You can install it from HPM and it is a extension app for HSM. I am not familiar with it so i am not sure if it addresses any of your asks though