Hubitat won't resolve 12+ Days Support Ticket

My recommendation is to forget about using the Hubitat Mobile App for geofence-based presence detection. There are many other options available that are much more reliable, and still utilize only built-in Hubitat code. My family has been using the free version of Life360 for over 3 years now with Hubitat. It works reliably probably 99.8% of the time.

For Push Notifications, I use the built-in Pushover Notifications solution. (I actually wrote the original Pushover driver for Hubitat, so I am a little biased ;). The built-in version is essentially my original version - perhaps cleaned up a little by the Hubitat team.)

I really do not use the Hubitat Mobile App for anything these days. It is installed on my phone, and I use it sometimes to access dashboards, but there are simple ways to access dashboards from your phone without using the Hubitat Mobile App as well.

My motion based lighting automations occur in about 250-400ms. There is no appreciable lag. I use Zigbee motion, contact, and leak sensors directly paired to my Hubitat hub on Zigbee channel 20. This helps to avoid WiFi interference as long as my WiFi uses 2.4GHz channels 1, 6, and 11. For lighting, I use a combination of Philips Hue lights attached to the Hue bridge (using Zigbee channel 15 to avoid conflicts with Hubitat's Zigbee on channel 20) and Lutron Caseta Switches, Dimmers, Fan Controllers, and Pico Remotes.

This has been a very solid, reliable, fast performing combination for my house. When I moved from SmartThings to Hubitat back in Jan/Feb 2018, I learned that many of my issues were related to my old Z-Wave devices. These were the non "Plus" versions of GE's Switches and Dimmers. On Hubitat, they still caused numerous issues, and thus I replaced them with Lutron Caseta (which requires the SmartBridge Pro hub.) Afterwards, my wife actually asked me to automate more of the house!

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@tpfenner

My experience is similar to @ogiewon's. Replacing legacy equipment has made a huge difference in my home automation experience. So much so that after moving to Hubitat, I have run out of things to automate!

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Thank you for the reply. I will have that a shot tonight. I still have a few more days before my return window closes so I will try these things. One of my issues with my switches is that my home is older and I have no neutrals and so it's near impossible to find switches that work in my home these days.

If you look at for instance this morning. You can see that the lights turn Ono both digital and physical, which neither were true. So 5 minutes later when I danced in front of the sensor trying to find my shoes to leave the house I had no lights because it would appear the system thought the light was already one.

dev:732021-03-16 06:51:55.066 am infoSide Indoor Light is on [digital]

dev:732021-03-16 06:51:52.320 am infoSide Indoor Light was turned on [physical]

dev:752021-03-15 06:56:01.352 am infoSide Door Motion motion is active
So here is a for instance. This mooring when I left. This light did not turn on to motion.

My personal favorite are the Inovelli (https://inovelli.com/red-series-dimmer-switch-z-wave/) but no neutral are becoming more available, I believe that GE and possibly Zooz also have them. Several people on here swear by Lutron Caseta but it requires the Lutron Pro Bridge to fully integrate.

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Thank you for this! I will consider this for sure. You all are getting my hopes up again!

Correct here are links:

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Thank you both

@aaiyar @ogiewon
So here's a for instance that I don't understand. I hit my Zooz remote switch that sent the command to turn on several lights. This couch light took longer than any of the others in the command. I also never physically hit the switch. It's something like this that I just don't know what to do with. Any thoughts?

dev:362021-03-16 07:58:08.389 pm infoRemote Switch - Living Lights button 1 pushed

dev:412021-03-16 07:58:28.851 pm infoCouch Light Switch was set to 75% [physical]

dev:412021-03-16 07:58:13.535 pm infoCouch Light Switch was set to 4% [digital]

dev:412021-03-16 07:58:13.533 pm infoCouch Light Switch was turned on [digital]

It would really help immensely if you could share all of the details of your devices (brands and model numbers) so that the community can provide you with much more meaningful suggestions. For example, you've mentioned a Zooz remote switch above, which is supposed to control several lights...right? What App are you using to perform that automation (please share a screen shot)? Also, what type of lights are they? Zigbee, Z-Wave, Philips Hue bridge attached, WiFi? There are just so many possible permutations of end-user systems that it is very difficult to assist with so little information. Help us help you, please. We're data junkies and need lots of information to formulate a hypothesis of what the problems might be.

I can help with Zigbee and Lutron Caseta devices, as well as things like Alexa, MakerAPI, Geofencing, etc... But Z-Wave is not my strong point, as I am not using it any longer. But other are and have good luck with it. However, there are many old Z-Wave devices that just don't work well at all with the Hubitat C7's 700-series Z-Wave chip. This is due mainly in part to the firmware that is supplied for that 700-series chip, from its vendor...not due to Hubitat's code. The old SmartThings hubs used a 500-series Z-Wave radio, which behaved differently than the new 700-series radio. Many of the Z-Wave issues with the 700 series radio seem to be caused by devices being paired with S0 security, which can bring a Z-Wave network to its knees. Also, energy/power reporting Z-Wave switches and outlets are also know to flood the Z-Wave network and cause massive slow-downs. Some devices need their own firmware updated to work reliably with Hubitat. Yea, I know I said I don't know too much about Z-Wave...but this is just information I have gleaned by reading other community members' posts over the past few years. :wink:

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Thank you I will try and be more specific. I know you said Z-Wave isn't your think (even thought you're right you know a great deal!) I thought I would still provide as much information as possible. Though it just sounds like my problem is like you said, so many legacy devices.

I have a Zooz 700 Series Z-Wave Plus Mesh Network Remote Control & Scene Controller ZEN34. I'm using Rule Machine which can be seen here.

The Couch light is a JAS12724 - GE 12724 Z-Wave(R) in-Wall CFL-LED Dimmer Switch. It is my only switch that uses a neutral because I ran this one myself.

The TV Light is a GE Z-Wave Wireless Smart Lighting Control Lamp Module, Dimmer 12718

And the End table light is a Philips Hue.

My Hue is connected via LAN and is in the same network switch as the Hubitat.

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Is this the sum total of your z-wave devices? I ask because the Zen34 isn't a repeater. So depending on the geometry of your house, and the materials of construction, signal propagation can be a real issue.

Z-wave networks are most responsive when there's a strong mesh with multiple repeaters available.

This document might help:

https://docs.hubitat.com/index.php?title=How_to_Build_a_Solid_Z-Wave_Mesh

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So, as a quick test...what happens if you remove the two GE Z-Wave devices from the rule temporarily, and just have the Zooz Remote as the trigger to turn on the Philips Hue light?

I am curious to see if your problem is really a Z-Wave mesh network issue. The two GE devices you have listed are the very old Z-Wave (non-plus) generation of devices that caused me so much grief while I had them. For me, replacing them was the only solution.

If you could show a screen shot of your Settings-> Z-Wave page, which I believe will show all of your Z-Wave devices, their Z-Wave security, and their speed. It may also show if you have any Ghost nodes that need to be removed.

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@ogiewon @aaiyar

No no those were just the devices involved. I have combinations of battery and AC, but I think I have 1 mostly non Z-Wave Plus devices. Which then begs the question, if everything worked flawlessly with Smart Things(outside of needing the cloud), will I get this to work with the C7 Hub and should I maybe look for a C5? or keep ST?

I have:

  • 11 GE/Jasco non neutral switches all over my home.
  • 3 Zooz Z-Wave Plus S2 Motion Sensor ZSE18
  • 2 Aeotec Smart Dimmer 6
  • 1 Aeotec Multisensor 6
  • Go Control Garage Door Controller
  • 2 Leviton DZPA1-2BW
  • 1 Leviton DZ6HD Z-Wave Dimmer
  • 3 NonPlus GE Outlets
  • 3 GE Z-Wave Wireless Smart Lighting Control Lamp Module, Dimmer 12718
  • 2 Kwikset 910 Deadbolts
  • 1 GE Z-WAVE PLUG-IN OUTDOOR MODULE

Zigbee

  • 4 Smart Things Zigbee Button Switches
  • 5 Innr Zigbee Smart Plug

Hue (Plugged in via LAN)

  • 23 Hue bulbs of various combinations
  • Lutron Aurora Dimmer Switches



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I don't see any ghost nodes, which is good. However, the vast majority of your nodes, including the many z-wave+ nodes are all communicating at 40 kbps. A few nodes are communicating at 9.6 kbps, and just a single one at 100 kbps. That isn't so good.

I'm not sure what the solution is. But I'm sure someone more knowledgeable about z-wave will pitch in.

Tagging a few people here in no particular order: @erktrek @JasonJoel @kahn-hubitat @tony.fleisher @lewis.heidrick @thebearmay @bcopeland

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I see many non-plus z-wave devices here, which is not ideal, of course, but I understand the issues with older equipment and lacking neutral.

A few question that might help us understand things a little better:

  1. How long since the last hub reboot? (It will help understand context for some of the metrics.)

  2. How long since you last ran network-wide z-wave repair? Have you added non-plus mains powered devices to the hub since then?

  3. Are you running the z-wave poller app? if so, which devices are setup to be polled?

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Hi Tony,
Thanks foe reaching out. I’ve had these switches back when Revolv was my hub. I loved that thing.

  • Last reboot has been probably about a week or so.
  • No non+ mains have been added since then no. They have all been installed for weeks.
  • I am running the pollen app on all main switches except the single ZW+ switch I have in my basement.

Honestly it’s almost an argument for me to find a C5 hub no?

No, because that much polling would affect a C-5 just as badly.

What happens to your zen34 remote response times if you turn off polling for 30 minutes?

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From my 2 second peek at this - It looks like the large # of S0 devices AND polling is part of what's killing this hub.. If you can't replace a lot of those devices (and I understand completely why not) and you want to stick with the HE echo system then maybe go to a multihub configuration and pair all the S0 devices with no security using a UZB-7 or Z-Stick as a secondary controller.

edit: in fact that's the first thing I would do is change the S0 pairings to no security then see where you are.

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+1

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