Hubitat to be delivered tomorrow - Hello and a few questions in the meantime

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Hello all.

Just to put the questions up top so you don't have to read my life story below :slight_smile: : (I did a search and looked on the list of the supported devices)

  1. Are iHome switches supported? Via Smartthings and Homekit they are setup via a cloud service.
  2. Has anyone come up with an integration for Global Cache (its an IP to IR device used to control A/V equipment)
  3. If no, are they on the road map at all?

Coming to Hubitat via a slightly circuitous route. Currently I have Ecobee, Lutron Pro Hub, Philips Hue Hub, Smartthings and Homekit running in my house. Everything plays together nicely for the most part, except for the usual Smartthings issues. I also used an app called SimpleControl to run all of my AV gear, which had fairly extensive Lutron integration - it would monitor Pico button presses and via a 'trigger' control pretty much anything else. For instance in my office I have 2 5-button Picos, one to control the Hue bulb scenes and another to control Power and Volume for the AV equipment in the room (I used the pico for window shades which sort of looks like a TV). I have a pico for Christmas/Landscape lights (attached to iHome smart switches). The benefit of this setup was that I could control everything via Simple Control, physical wall switches, or the individual apps for each product. All of this had a very high wife acceptance and worked relatively reliably for several years until....

A few months ago Simple Control deprecated many of the features I was using it for, and at the same time replaced the UI. Not only did you need to rebuild anything that was customized from scratch, they took an elegant, flexible and configurable UI and turned into a horrible mess of swipes and gestures. It was the first time in nearly 5 years that my wife and I were looking for the old IR remotes. Combined with the hostility of their customer support, I'm ready to move on.

In addition, I don't trust that Smartthings is going to make the upgrade path out of their 'classic' app pain free (considering they don't even have a way for you upgrade to the new hub without starting from scratch). Since it is flaky and way too cloud based (we have missed important notifications like water leak alerts). I'd like to move on from them as well.

So, how I got here. One of the main things that makes Simple Control so important to us was the Pico integration - without that, we have a house full of unused Picos on the walls. Up to this point the only product I knew of that would do it natively was the ill-fated Staples Connect. I found a topic in the Smartthings forum which would allow me to run node.js on my Mac and setup a Smartthings app, when someone said at the end of the thread (not verbatim) 'Dude, just get a Hubitat'.

I found this page and had one ordered within a few hours.

Going over the supported products list and the search feature the only thing I see missing is iHome integration and (this is a long shot) any sort of Global Cache integration. The A/V portion isn't as important, (it is possible I could build an Anymote/IFTTT solution), but I'd really like to turn my iHome connected landscape / Christmas lights on via the Picos.

Could anyone help with the questions I have above?

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Welcome to Hubitat! I think you're going to really like the Lutron Pico support built-in to Hubitat.

As for HomeKit... No native support for HomeKit within Hubitat currently. There are some users who are having success with HomeBridge for Hubitat. That may be one option for you to consider. It does require running a HomeBridge server on a separate computer, like a Raspberry Pi or similar. Here are the instructions....

Another option might be to use a Lutron Caseta Smartbridge Pro2, since it has native Homekit support, I believe. I have not tried it personally, so I do not know if Pico remotes can be used to directly control Homekit switches and dimmers. Maybe someone else will chime in with whether or not it would work? I do not have any Homekit devices to try to test with. I just love the Pico remotes!

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Hi ogiewon, thanks for the quick response. I might not have been very clear, I'm not really looking for Homekit integration ( I realize the hoops needed for that one). I do have the Homekit Lutron Pro so I am good there.

I'm looking for iHome, which is a company that makes smart switches iHome iSP6X SmartPlug . They have a cloud integration on Smartthings, IFTTT and Amazon so I was hoping that there was an option on Hubitat as well.

Thanks for the homebridge information - that may be a good route to take if there isn't native support. I try to stay away from IFTTT for anything critical.

EDIT: Missed your question earlier - Homekit stays synchronized with Lutron Plug in modules and dimmers, but doesn't recognize the Picos as devices, so there is no monitoring of button presses etc. Pico setup is done entirely in the Lutron app. You can do some work arounds with rules, so for instance you could setup a spare Lutron plug-in dimmer and set the Pico to control that, then use Homekit to trigger other things based off specific brightness levels that are set by the Pico ( for instance top button is 100%, bottom button 0% and then maybe 50% as a 'favorite' on the center button ). It is hard to get the up/down buttons to work in this way since they ramp the brightness up and down instead of setting a specific value. It works but is pretty wasteful, a $50 plug in module to get 3 buttons to work on a Pico.

That is where Simple Control came in for me, you look for Integration Number and Button ID (from the manifest you can retrieve from the Lutron app) then trigger an action (say a Hue scene) from there. It sounds like Hubitat will work in a similar way which is what I am looking for.

I'm not one for talking to my electronics, so the most I would ever do is to show off that I 'can' do it via Siri. In real life, I just want a button on the wall.

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I've had Homebridge running and "connected" to Hubitat for a couple months now. I added it when it first got ported.. and had it running along with SmartThings and my Honeywell IP Thermostat. When I added the Lutron SmartbridgePro2, it shows in Homekit as expected but I've never clicked that.. and won't except in error.

I've removed it a couple times to validate it is or is not affecting things... so far, I can't find any evidence that it is. It's quick and responsive to Hubitat events. Siri works as well as Siri does for controlling my devices, but other than as a demo to visitors, I have no need of it... or Alexa.

I have two StaplesConnect hubs if you need one!!! All my expectations for how Pico's should work came from 2014 when that StaplesConnect came out. Hubitat works exactly the same, ignoring the extra expense of an external bridge. Recently Hubitat added "Release" to their button code and that's the moment 2014 fell behind. :slight_smile:

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I used homebridge with SmartThings and just added hubitat to homebridge. It took an additional minute. Installing docker and homebridge on a raspberry pi was so easy, and I really don't like raspberry pi...

Let me know if you want help. BTW it's very fast. Haven't looked to see if it's local. I can't see why it couldn't be...

Edit: I'm only 3 days into hubitat myself.

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I'm trying to think of a smart hub I haven't owned. I believe the Staples Connect was one of the first I bought, returned because a few days after I bought it - the website said something to the effect 'we will no longer be supporting this product' . Thanks for the offer though.

You mentioned 2014, funny how things change. Back then I had to have everything running through Roomie/Simple Control. Back then they ONLY wanted to do A/V control and wanted nothing to do with Home Automation ( In the years since they have flipped it to where the app focuses on Home Automation instead ). Setting it back up from scratch I realized that 95% of our viewing is via the Apple TV and I no longer need to switch between DVRs, Apple TVs and BlueRay players for content. A $29 sideclick for the AppleTV remote takes care of nearly everything that isn't handled by HDMI-CEC.

Definitely looking forward to the Hubitat.

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Thanks for the offer. I setup a very early version of Homebridge for Smartthings. Not sure why I never pursued it - I think it might have been when Smartthings added iHome support I no longer needed it?

Actually a lot of my automations run within Homekit very well. If it wasn't for the desire for physical buttons for lights and how well the Pico remotes work. I could probably get away with that integration alone. Hubitat is really a Smartthings/Simple Control replacement for me.

Although setting up Homebridge might be the icing on the cake. I have a dedicated Mac that exists only do server/security/home automation stuff, so it would be relatively easy to get going again.

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My Homebridge is running on my Mac Mini that is also my Media Server (and dns and dhcp and...)

So again, if you have questions....

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It's funny, like @csteele I too was running homebridge on my Mac mini Plex server and I was having some issues and control was a bit slow.
I bought a raspberry pi, not only was installing docker and homebridge way easier than on the mac, but the control was lightning fast! And that was with SmartThings. I haven't put it through it's paces with Hubitat yet.

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Hubitat delivered an hour ago - added the Lutron and Philips hubs, added a few picos and my hue lights and have my first rule operational (turn 5 lights on and set to White and 75% brightness when the top button is pushed on Pico 11). Not too shabby!

I'll probably have questions once I mess with it later, but so far a good start!

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OSX and Docker?

I didn't go that route at all. I installed node.js directly, then was able to install Homebridge directly,

It's been more than a year since I did the install (back when I was using SmartThings), but there's an installer there (.pkg) that worked fine for me, still is.

I started with step 4 of the Homebridge install...

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Not yet - I just got it an hour ago!

I'm not really worried about Homekit integration at the moment. My main goal is to get the Picos working to get our lighting straightened out. The only reason I really NEED a bridge to Homekit is if there isn't a native option on Hubitat for my iHome switches.

Is there a way to 'duplicate' a rule? A lot of my rules are going to be very similar with small changes in brightness level/color etc. Would be nice not to start over each time.

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:frowning: no.
Sadly, no.

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Sorry I guess I misspoke. The OS X implementation was native.
On Raspberry Pi I installed Docker with the homebridge container.
Was super easy.

One problem though. Whenever the Raspberry Pi looses power my SmartThings and now tested my Hubitat devices all loose their configuration. My one LED from another configuration does not. I feel like there's something wrong with the ST/HE plug-in as far as memory persistence...

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yes, I've certainly experienced that BUT not recently. I had pushed devices into Home (Homekit) rooms and it probably takes an hour to do. Then I lose it all a month later. Rinse, repeat. Today, I only have Honeywell & Hubitat in my Homebridge config and it's been stable, and I have added and deleted devices multiple times.

The big difference I believe is I only have "switches" on Homebridge/Home/Homekit. I no longer authorize the sensors. Not from any intent, but when we see a slow down or something unusual, I was happy to jettison community Apps that were optional. Homebridge was the biggie for me. I would delete it and then add it back weeks later cuz it is just too cool. Then delete.. add back. Several times. But through it all, I could never conclude Homebridge made a delay difference. With all that discard, add, I eventually just added it back with only switches (no sensors) and figured out later, it's pretty stable.

Lucky accident?

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All I can say is a raspberry pi is cheap. I was blown away by how much faster the raspberry pi was compared to my Mac!

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I need to load my Mac Mini some more I guess :slight_smile: I say "Hey Siri, turn on the Office light" and before the words copy to the phone's screen, and before she can say done.. it's lit. it's at least as fast as a Pico.

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I think maybe I haven't been clear, I'm not using Homekit and iHome interchangeably.

iHome is a separate company/product, a line of switches and other home automation accessories that are Homekit compatible. They are also compatible via cloud service with Alexa, Google Home, Smartthings etc. I have 8 of their plug in switches that I use to control Christmas / Landscape / Fans etc.

So when I am talking about native iHome support in Hubitat, I'm asking/suggesting that Hubitat talk to the iHome cloud service directly. If the Hubitat developers are not interested in that, using homebridge or even IFTTT (there is an iHome channel there as well) would be a workaround for me.

Hope that makes sense.

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I think we understand your question, but got sidetracked with Homebridge trivia once it was clear Hubitat isn't actively pursuing a iHome integration. Only 1 occurrence of "iHome" in the search result other than this thread.. from back in February.

You've said you may have to pursue Homebridge if there was not going to be Hubitat integration. I may have jumped the gun, hearing only silence regarding iHome, and concluded: no integration.

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It is my fault for talking about a dozen products in this thread.

To be fair, it was one iHome question buried in a thread of other things. Hard to believe I am only the second person asking considering how many platforms iHome supports and that you can pick them up at Home Depot Best Buy etc.

I'll put a request in the Feature Requests and see what happens