Hubitat not ready for mainstream?

Is Hubitat not ready for mainstream and should it be advertised as a beta? I've had non-stop issues with my hub, locks, lights and now my water valve which is the final straw for me. I have used Wink previously and rarely had issues but moved from it only because of recent reports of the company status. I purchased a Smarthings hub over the weekend and plan to migrate away unless someone has some last minute miracle fix.

I've given HE support a chance and they can't seem to tell me anything other than it's the fault of my other devices. I have done everything they've asked and have only seen things get worse. Locks and water valves are critical devices and when Hubitat can't make those a priority to work correctly I have little faith in making everything else work properly. I will be jumping ship soon and won't be recommending Hubitat to anyone unless someone can convince me otherwise.

i understand you concerns, im plagued with z-wave locking up on my system. i do think the is a difference between mainstream and development and there in the middle, not sure how long they have been going.

I wouldnt recomed it to anone who didnt want to tinker and have a basic understanding of z-wave/zigbee and understand coding (not necessarily groovy)

ST first (its a bit more reselant) then advance onto HE

Scrolling through your posts, they seem to focus on a Schlage lock issue. Lots of people having problems with Schlage locks and complaining (sorry don't mean that in a rude way) about them. Don't know what to tell you. So many people complained about them that Hubitat decided to remove them from the compatibility list rather than suggest they were overall compatible.

Now, I don't think you're right in saying that Hubitat isn't ready for mainstream, because it's owned by many users that overall seem to be very happy with it. I'm one for sure. I've had Wink and SmartThings. You couldn't pay me to go back to them (but make me an offer :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:).

I have a Yale YRD256 Z-Wave Plus lock and it works perfect. Always has. No issue with joining or use ever. So is the entire platform a write off because one device brand and model doesn't work well with it? No, I cannot agree with that.

If you have no SmartThings experience, then I think you should try it for a significant amount of time before you throw Hubitat in the trash. I'm still on their email list of cloud outages and yes, that's still very much an ongoing problem with them. There's almost no local execution there, and what there is, has a very narrow definition.

Good luck with whatever you choose.

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I'll hop on that boat too

I have a schlage zwave lock. It's problematic. I've been very careful not to mess with it's fragile state.

I, too, think you should try smartthings. I have both. I use smartthings for integrations that don't have significance. The outages are very real. Hubitat has been around long enough. Good luck!

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I don't know groovy. Or any coding language. Some html maybe.
I'm just a girl with some good ideas. Maybe that's why my hub runs well? Because I'm not changing a bunch of stuff? Hmmm food for thought :wink:

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I am concerned you are having issues. Below are some suggestions (I do not know your expertise, so if I seem to talk down, forgive me):

Location is everything. Assure that the Hubitat is located centrally to the installed Z-wave and Zigbee devices you have. Even with repeaters, the first hop range is always limited. If your wifi switch is in a less than ideal location, you could use the Ethernet port on a wifi range extender to connect Hubitat (I have done this in the past).

Z-Wave repeating devices: Try an inexpensive bulb or plug as a repeater. I had to do this to get my Schlage lock to work reliably.

In defense of Hubitat: I was on SmartThings and Hubitat if far further along that SmartThings was a year ago in the area of stability and of user customization, yet is significantly newer. And that was BEFORE SmartThings decided to be the Samsung versions of google home or alexa instead of a Smart Home integration platform.

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I have to respectfully disagree with using bulbs as repeaters. I use a zwave plus plug as a repeater for my lock. I have no idea if it helps because there's not a way that I currently know if to trace this.

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I'm sure you meant to reply to @tobyp24. I'll pass the message onto him. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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Agreed. Z-Wave bulbs could be as problematic as a Zigbee bulb. Not for all the same reasons, but for sure for one of the same reasons, and that's someone turning off the light switch and completely buggering up your mesh.

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Thanks for the reply. My test was I had a succession of problems that were resolved when I installed the bulbs. The plugs would also work; however, I wanted a controlled light for the front hall anyway. The Schlage devices are great - but their Z-Wave may be weaker than others. And, since I live alone, I do not have to worry about the friendly user turning off the light. But that is a problem

Dave

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My only regret is not buying a zigbee version of my schlage. :wink:

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Overall I have had a fantastic experience with Hubitat. It isn't perfect, but neither are any of the other platforms! I certainly would not consider Hubitat a mainstream product - Wink was the only one that was simple enough, and they bungled their product something fierce.

I consider Hubitat to be a middle ground... maybe a prosumer level. The rule workflow is extremely powerful, but it would never in a million years pass the mother-in-law test.

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I've used SmartThings for a very long time, and although I haven't used Wink, before that I used Vera, and others. I've really searched a lot for alternatives, and I have to tell you, that at the present time, Hubitat is very much "mainstream". It may not be as 'polished" a product as SmartThings, but in my humble opinion, it's a much more sophisticated and flexible product.

However, it's not the same as Wink and SmartThings, no matter how similar they look at the outset. I've said this in many posts, "just because it worked in SmartThings, is no guarantee that it'll work the same way in Hubitat." In hubitat, the key is the mesh. It has to be good for your devices to work well. It requires some tactical thinking, like "where do I put this?". I've recommended the following two documents to many individuals. They are more essential in Hubitat, than they are in other systems:
https://docs.hubitat.com/index.php?title=How_to_Build_a_Solid_Z-Wave_Mesh
https://docs.hubitat.com/index.php?title=How_to_Build_a_Solid_Zigbee_Mesh

Yes, you can make anything that worked in Wink work in Hubitat, but it may require more thought, more planning, and perhaps more repeaters. As well, you have a tremendous increase in terms of flexibility of rule automation.

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I'm tainted by two straight mornings when I woke up to a frozen hub, so I might be a little negative. But, this is a HOBBY. I have no experience with professional home automation, but I've had X10, Wink, Smartthings and Hubitat. There's no way any of these platforms are more than hobby vehicles. Much of this is due to the flakiness of Zigbee (not to mention Xiaomi's ill-advised bastardized Zigbee) and Z-Wave. I don't believe a day goes by that I'm not repairing some device dropoff.

Is Hubitat the best choice from among the sub-$100 platforms? I lean to "yes" but I'm not convinced. Even before my hub died daily, I'd begun moving some devices back to ST to try to address plain slowdowns on HE. (And, ST is no treat!)

WAF is below zero, but fortunately she tolerates my HOBBY.

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Thread is 1hr old and already 14 long posts I have to read through... must be a slow day today. :frowning:

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You aren't wrong there! The only reason home automaiton has been accepted in our house is that she can use Alexa rather than her smartphone. If she had to use an app to do everything there is no way she would bother.

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I love the size and the price of those Xiaomi devices - but- are they really worth it?
My leak sensors constantly fall off the grid.
After a while, I'm just going to give up on them - they're just not worth the extra effort (in my house!).

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Well put! Along the same lines, I'll repost what I tell people who ask me about smarthome options:

Home automation is a young field, and the available solutions on the market don't always map to the expectations/budgets of potential customers. When my friends ask about it, I give them a rundown of the "tiers" I've seen and interacted with:

Entry-level consumer tier: Using an Alexa or Google Home as the hub, or just having devices from one manufacturer (such as Hue) and using their app. Low cost. Generally easy setup and the promise of "it just works". (Though the reality usually ends up less reliable than that.). You hit the limits very quickly. "Can it do this too?" No... no, it probably can't.

Mid-level consumer tier: The other hubs. ST and Wink, etc. A little more expensive. Generally easy to use. More control and power. Ability to actually automate. Each has its own combo of disadvantages, whether it's unreliability of their cloud, lack of device support, or the company ceasing to exist and disabling your house when it's no longer profitable.

High-level consumer tier: A relative has a Control4 system in his house. He's probably spent in the upper 5 figures for it. Possibly into the 6 figures. Mostly it gives him fancy button panels on all the walls. Surprisingly, he has very little automation going on. (though I'm sure it's possible.) It opens and closes the curtains daily, and when he goes in his home theater, it turns on 5 different devices at once, but that's about the extent of it. Any time he wants to change something, he schedules a contractor to come program it, and then pays an invoice.

Sysadmin and hacker tier: The open source frameworks people spin up on Raspberry Pis and home servers. Extremely customizable. Learning curve is steep. I tried them out, and decided I didn't want to be a sysadmin off the clock. It wasn't for me, though from the number of contributions, some folks certainly enjoy it.

From my viewpoint, I see Hubitat fitting into the mid-level consumer tier, but without the disadvantages of cloud reliance, and with the ability to add in some of the hacker tier customizability if you're willing to put in the sweat equity. That's a great fit for me personally. I understand it's not for everyone.

But this is a space where desires and available solutions don't always line up. It's like my old beat up convertible. I would love to turn it into a shiny hot rod, but there are only two ways to get there. Do all the work myself, or pay someone an amount far in excess of its value to do it for me. Neither one is in the cards, so the car remains rusty and slow. (But I have a hot rod smart home! Take that, Randy.)

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Yes, my main issues have been with Schlage locks but recently I've had lights acting random as well as motion sensors and now my main water valve. I've spent hours troubleshooting and implementing suggested solutions from support and other users on the forum and I wish there was a solution in the end but things just keep getting worse.

Thanks for your suggestions. I have already tried moving my hub to several different locations and have added three Aeotec Z-Wave repeaters yet my issues still persist. My hub is hardwired and I've tried it on both levels of my house as well as different rooms. Now it's located as central to my locks as it's going to get and the issues haven't improved.