Hi everyone, new in the community. First topic, I hope I put it in the right place. No native english speaker. I hope I can get some advice from you.
I work in the electricity/programming scope as a installer/PLC programmer. My sister bought an apartment with 7 motor -controlled roller shutters and asked me, as a "jack for all trades brother", to automate them on the budget. I bought 7 shellys 2.5, and 1 amazon echodot. My sister has used the installation with alexa routines at home and shelly app for remote control for 1 year and she is happy as a child with a new toy so far. The point is that some of her neighbours with same apartments type could be interested in getting the same work from me ( control 7 shellys 2.5), paying me for it as a installer. I am considering the idea of accepting the `proposal if I find in the market a reliable hub that does not depend on the cloud, has free remote access to activate the shellys and that does not requires maintenance/ manual updates... once installed.. Do you think that , from the maintenance/reliability point of view as a installer, installing 8-10 hubitat hubs in 8-10 apartment just to control 7 shellys 2,5 each, would be a piece of cake or a pain in the neck ?
Thank you in advance.
Welcome to the community. There are several community members who are system integrators and use Hubitat hubs in their customer installations. Tagging a few folks for their thoughts @erktrek and @silverton38
I personally stick to Lutron Blinds. They are a little expensive but they are 100% reliable and super easy to self install. Hubitat with a Lutron Hub Pro and Serena Blinds is probably the perfect solution. If you are looking for a super cheap solution you should look in to Tuya branded stuff. It tends to be WIFI and will not be reliable but it can be fun.
Thank you!
Thank you. I will check products, prices and availability of Lutron and Serena in Europe. I live in Spain. I know nothing about these brands.
Do you discard always the option of installing any wifi actuator, even with a specific net for them?
The hubitat hub itself requires any manteinance/update after completingthe installaton?
While the hub doesn't need routine maintenance during normal operation, it should ideally be on a UPS, and even then, the hub should be powered down during a power outage to decrease the probability of a abrupt power loss resulting in filesystem corruption.
Recovery from filesystem corruption is relatively simple but not automated; it requires manual intervention.
I use these for my UPS. They work great.
Thanks, good to know. Any other advice in addition to the UPS?
Yes, you should pair a sensor to your Hubitat that indicates when power is out. Then create a Hubitat automation to shutdown the hub when power is out.
Never thought that a power outage could be so critical for hubitat hubs. It is the only issue pointed out in the comments in this topic. Thanks for sharing measures to minimize the risk of files corruption in this situation.
I have some experience with clients who turn off the pwer, on their Hubitat.
From personal experience, usually it doesn't screw up the database, but it does sometimes.
In my experience, it's about 70% doesn't and 30% does.
As a result, I also put in UPS devices, but I use a different type:
https://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-Standby-UPS-600VA-Outlets/dp/B073Q48Z95/ref=sr_1_11?crid=1O4D95163L8VV&keywords=UPS&qid=1663848229&s=electronics&sprefix=ups%2Celectronics%2C88&sr=1-11&th=1
In order to determine if the power has been cut, I've found that the simplest way is to use the zwave extender from Ring:
https://www.amazon.com/Ring-Alarm-Range-Extender/dp/B07ZB2VP4K/ref=sr_1_3?crid=3F9T0WYVATJ4P&keywords=ring+zwave+extender&qid=1663848325&s=electronics&sprefix=ring+zwave+extender%2Celectronics%2C88&sr=1-3
The only issue that I see with using Shelly products is that you should be careful about your wifi router and its capabilities.
Thank you. I am aware of the importance of the quality of the wifi network for the good performance of the shellys. From the tests I have done I think that a specific wifi access point or specific wifi mesh (if necessary) just for the shellys and to connect the hub should be enough...
Thanks for your points about the power outage and how to deal with it . Good to know. Any other common issues with your client´s hubs?
Any computer is susceptible to data corruption if power is interrupted during a write operation. There are various hardware ways to mitigate this, but adding them to a ~$100 hub would raise its price quite a bit.
I have encountered data corruption only once. But that was my signal to put the hubs on a UPS and use a sensor to shut them down when power was interrupted.
It is always best to shutdown the hub properly. The UPS that I recommend lasts days so I generally do not have a shutdown routine.
My shutdown routine kicks in when the UPS is down to less than 15 minutes of runtime. So far, the only time this happened was during Hurricane Ida. After a couple days of generator power, I decided that it wasn't worth keeping the hub up and running until utility power returned.
The problem with DC UPS that I use; it is not smart so I have no idea what its status is. I know that I have had hubs running for 2 days on it.
I'm an integrator, and have done many different systems, even going back to the old X3 home automation devices.
I'm fairly new to hubitat (2 yrs xp) but so far I've come to love it. I've done a few hubitat installs (less than 10 clients, mostly medium sized projects with simple requirements). I also use hubitat for myself since.
HUBITAT itself, in my experience is super stable and reliable! It's usually the devices that give me headaches - but not so much... and most of the time the device just needed a reset (which does get annoying) - so for me, my pitch to clients is that, things may not be 100% reliable, but they can always count on me (my company) to support it - and that usually gives them confidence.
And one more thing, related to system corruption - always make a backup of the config. Every little change we do, we export the config and safekeep it for the client.
I would say go with Hubitat. With 7 devices and turning logging to minimal will really help on database corruption. Adding in a UPS then your chance of corruption is super low. In term of cost and reliability,. There's nothing out there right now compare to Hubitat.
I agree with the backups but I can only setup customers with a 100% reliable solution. That is a Hubitat with a Lutron Hub Pro, Zigbee motions/plug sockets and Ecobee Thermostats.
The OP talked about free remote access and I don’t think anybody touched on that.
The only thing that is available when remote is device control of the devices on your dashboard or you have grouped into rooms via the HR app (I believe anyway, I really don’t use the app very much).
But remote access to do maintenance is not free and requires a subscription.
