I feel like, naturally, there are a lot of posts on the forums about things that need improvement with Hubitat. That's understandable as it's a place people come largely to find help or report issues. Upon reflection this morning I realized I've probably posted far more critical posts than positive ones and that isn't reflective of my feelings and experience with hubitat.
I don't think there are enough posts about the general awesomeness that is Hubitat. So I wanted to add a post to the positive side becuase there should be more!
It's pretty amazing what this little $79 box has done for me:
successfully replaced my Wink Hub 2 with far far more functionality
has allowed me to build a very robust DIY home alarm that I can monitor and arm remotely without subscription costs (many older standard monitored alarms don't even allow for this)
has completely automated the lighting in my home with time and motion based events
allows me to remotely monitor and lock all my doors
monitors my dumb smoke detectors and performs a bunch of automations for safety in the event they are active (turn on all lights, text neighbors, unlock the doors if we are home)
monitors all the leak detectors in my house and will turn off the main water valve if a leak is detected
integrates with all my Hue bulbs and Lutron switches
allows for the creation of lighting scenes
similarily has allowed me to do some pretty awesome things with the awesome little Lutron Pico remotes
monitors my garage door to ensure it's not left open or opened unintentially
has allowed me to very cheaply build a wall mounted tablet that monitors and controls almost every light in the house, the tv, fireplaces, lighting scenes, temperatures throughout the house
gets the house ready for us to go to bed with on push of a button
shuts the house down when we leave and fires it back up when we come home
provides us useful real time info verbally through our google homes around the house
Honestly, both me, and even my wife, would feel like stepped back in time if we had to go back to before a lot of this was in place.
So to Hubitat and the community and specifically the owners who are so active on the forums like @bravenel, @mike.maxwell, @bobbyD, I say thank you and hope that critical posts are taken with a grain of salt as the critical posts wouldn't be made if people didn't care and truly find value and utility in their Hubitat hub. We all want to see the platform do even more and ensure that this little mighty box keeps on providing the value and utility it does currently, for a long time to come.
Add me to the happy camper list. I have always had excellent, quick help from Bobby in support. I think the support from the whole Hubitat team is superb. I have had many HA controllers over the years but this it's the most satitsfying. There are some problems, but nothing I can't deal with. When your product is required to integrate with an ever expanding array of peripherals development can be daunting. And your product may be blamed for the shortcomings of other devices.
Have you been sniffing my RV’s WiFi SSID??? It’s called Happy Campers. (Yes it’s cheesy)
And you can count me in the Happy Hubitat Campers Group too.
I currently have 7 hubs. A server hub, the three worker hubs, 2 for HubConnect development, and of course one in my RV.
I experienced my challenges and frustrations, especially early on. But things have improved greatly and for the most part, the bugs which I have reported have been fixed.
Once the hub slowdown issue is fixed I will not have a single complaint about the platform.
While I wont include myself in the Happy Camper column (Hopeful Camper for me), I will say that the level of engagement the Hubitat team has shown, is like nothing I have ever seen. These guys seem to live and breathe HE. I'm sure @GregT already knows the great esteem that this community holds for @bravenel, @chuck.schwer, @mike.maxwell and @bobbyD. Despite the stability issues, Hubitat is the best consumer friendly HA product out there and has, hands down, the best team I have been privileged to annoy on a regular basis.
Thank you all for the kind words. We wouldn't be as energetic if it wasn't for the enthusiasm that customers have unremittingly shown since Hubitat Elevation was launched. And while we are more visible than others, we wouldn't be where we are today, without the tremendous effort that others have put forth behind the scenes.
I'm another extremely happy customer. This has been one of the fastest improving home automation products I've ever used. Can't wait to see what's in store in the future. It's kind of exciting like back in the days before Samsung bought SmartThings.
It sets a smoke or CO alarm condition upon hearing a dumb smoke/co detector go off. For example, I have interlinked (non-smart) Smoke/CO detectors in my house. I placed a single ecolink firefighter next to one them. Because they're interlinked, they all go off if there's an alarm condition. That condition is detected by the ecolink firefighter and then I use that in an automation to do the following:
Send me a message if I am not at home
Wake up the occupants via Sonos speakers
Turn on all lights, set CT lights to be at >6000K (easier to see through smoke in high CT light)
Turn off the thermostat (so smoke doesn't recirculate)
Unlock the front and back doors
Raise the garage door
Cut power off to a number of high volt/amp devices
It is just another option, the ecolink device is another option. I prefer the relay mentioned above cause I was able to place it in an inconspicuous place and I went with a powered contact sensor, so no need for batteries.
Add me to the Happy Hubitat Campers club! Are there problems? Yes. I was taught that anything over 10 lines of code has a bug. Or, in my case, anything oven one line. And that line is a comment.
