I like my Hubitat but it’s been an exciting but rough week on the forums 😊

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This post is sorta just to kill some time, provide my observations and opinions as someone new to home automation (HA) and just a general Hubitat Elevation (HE) user. Hopefully it will provide something worthwhile for anyone who runs across it later or at least provide another thread for general chitchat of some sort.

I bought HE after researching local based HA solutions. I never got into recent HA because of external or cloud requirements and all of the things that come with it.
I was split between HE and HASS.IO. After reading that HASS.IO was going to be doing a complete architecture rebuild and understanding that it could be pretty complex to get going with, I decided to bite the bullet and pick up HE.

I currently only have two things connected to HE right now, an Inovelli plug and a Aeon Multi Sensor 6. But, I have two dresser drawers filled with over 50 brand new devices waiting to get implemented. Each one has been carefully purchased based on the original compatibility thread, the new compatibility page, and reading tons of threads.

The only reasons I haven’t hooked them up is because lack of time and because I am going to implement all the HA stuff just enough to really surprise the wife with my new secret obsession. She has no clue what I’m up to.:joy:

I know I have a lot of work to do and it won’t be as simple as “click - done”. But, I don’t expect it to all be overly hard either.

From lurking on the forums the last week or so, one might think HE needs a ton of work to get going, is super buggy, and doesn’t provide a lot of desired capabilities. Or think that official support can be lacking and untimely at times.

While in some respects I guess that could be true to a point (hear me out first). Overall I don’t believe it is all those in the grand scheme of things.

Since purchasing my HE last year, I have seen official documentation get better, more and more devices are supported, and more community apps and device handlers (DH) have been created. It has come a long way that is for sure.

Honestly it is quite impressive when you think about it all. Sure there are some issues to some extent. I am sure I’ll have quite a few when I cover my house with all the things.

I say it is impressive because it is.
I mean the forum says that there are 7 admins/staff and 1 moderator. Who knows how many other people are officially working for/on HE, but it can’t be a lot.
God only knows what sort of income stream they get from running this platform. Purchase cost only? That isn’t much when you think about what the profit could actually be on each one, especially after having to maintain web services for the website, forum, cloud integration, etc, etc. So my general assumption is that they aren’t rolling in dough from their new business just yet, especially for what it seems they have to put into it and continue to do daily. (Soon they’ll have a new model out and maybe the smartphone app)

Guesstimating, lets say they sold 5,000 units by now at $125 each (actually between $99 and $150). That equals $625,000. And let’s be super generous and say they get to keep more than 50% of that... so 325,000. If only the seven admins/staff had to split that, it’s only roughly 46,428 each. That’s not much to be throwing a party over. And with all that math, I’m believe I’m being super generous.

From reading threads, you could come to the conclusion that there are roughly 75 people (guesstimating) developing apps, DHs, and providing technical input and feedback all to support HE and things they enjoy. And they do it all for free.

So at the end of the day, it is pretty darn impressive what HE has become in such a short time.

To end my novel of a post, I just want to say kudos to everyone involved at HE and here in the forums. It’s a really awesome start to a cool platform no matter what anyone else says.

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One thing to note about following any forum. Those that have problems will always be the LOUDEST. Not picking sides or saying anyone is right or wrong. Just saying when reading through the posts, the 'problems' will always be front and center. Most people don't even visit the forums until they have a problem and come here for help. That's just the way it works.

We all started somewhere when it comes to HA, glad you choose HE to start your adventure. Now get going and install some of that gear! And remember, when things don't go just right, we are here to (hopefully) point you in the right direction. :wink:

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Valid points. Good read.

As said above though, don't judge on forum posts alone. There are other forums such as facebook that have others as well. Very few people post thanks but there will always be a lot of posts asking for help with issues.

A lot of us came over from smartthings too. Good luck trying to get any response from support in their forums. :slight_smile:

I came to HE knowing I was buying into a beta product. I think I jumped on right when they opened the forums to the public. I think it was @SmartHomePrimer that may have introduced me to it.

I still consider it a beta product. They are still working on catching up but when they do look out.

75 people is a lot. I think there are way less. I always see the same people in various threads and they are always trying to help when possible.

No matter what platform you use.. you will run into issues. And the forums is where you go to get some help. Its just a lot nicer here.

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So I am one of those people with issues this week.

To be fair to HE most of the issues I've had were not following the instructions as closely as I should or getting impatient or Installing and writing custom drivers and apps. A lot of us are experienced enough to be dangerous and are testing the boundaries of the platform to see whats up. Support and the community has always been great. If you keep it simple and stick with HE drivers and apps at first you will most likely have a decent experience. Give your self some permission to make mistakes though.. Rule Machine and other apps take a little getting used to - there is a curve but not insurmountable and the community is there to help. Also this is a system in flux and things are changing/improving rapidly there will be some bumps but most are manageable.

Again one of the major upsides in all of this is local control! No internet required - unless on your terms and speed. Much more responsive than Smart Things for the most part.

Also I would say that the loudest voices are also some of the most passionate. They see the awesome potential and really want HE to succeed as do I.

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Welcome and good for you for being ambitious. I could have started with SmartThings, but I didn't. Started in HA with Insteon because I thought at the time it was going to get me all I wanted or needed without having to deal with code. I learned pretty quickly that while that system has excellent hardware with pretty advanced features, it wasn't going to fulfill my desire to tinker and build.

So when I had a chance to buy a Wink hub for $20 (because I missed the 1 cent deals), I thought I'd be satisfied with shortcuts and robots (Robots are what Wink calls automations). Didn't take me long to get frustrated with the large, but narrow list of supported devices. I supplemented with cloud services such as IFTTT and Stringify, but those had limitations and issues of their own. That led me to try SmartThings, and that really brought a lot of satisfaction until the outages began to drive home the realization that, the more I built on SmartThings, the greater potential was that I wouldn't be able to control a thing in my house when the cloud and/or internet was down. That happened too, and in front of my wife more times than I care to recount.

The desire to have a local platform was answered when I stumbled across a post about Hubitat. It was like I had made a big wish, and it just suddenly came true, without having to go as deep into the system and its maintenance as would be necessary with HASS.IO or similar.

So you thought your post was a novel :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: Nice to meet you. :rofl: I like to talk about home automation. Can you tell?

Anyway, I'm just offering that you're going to encounter all types here. Most are very helpful. A small number are short on patience, but they usually don't hang around long. I'm hoping your "rough week" was not an encounter that didn't make you feel welcome. You are learning the ropes of this very unfinished thing. I'm not just talking about HE, I'm talking the home automation segment as a whole. It's so incomplete, it's no surprise anyone new to it is confused.

Couple of things are going to help you a lot.

  1. This one is the most important. Always be honest with your partner :wink:
  2. Questions are not dumb. Pretending to not need to ask any questions is.
  3. We're all learning. From the founders of Hubitat, to the top tiers of Amazon, Google, Apple, Samsung, etc., right down to the enthusiast on this forum and others. So ask the questions. I've seen fantastic ideas and great developments come from a simple question.
  4. Yes, there are quite a number of people in view and behind the scenes working really hard to make this the best home automation platform there is. Their strong resolve is what will make that a reality.
  5. It's not a race. Take your time and enjoy the journey. You don't win by finishing your home automation quickly, you instead drive yourself crazy searching for, and thinking of new projects to work on. :grin:
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Oh, and yes @gavincampbell it was I that introduced you to HE. Heard you interviewed on Stacey Higginbotham's The IoT Podcast and knew it was where you belonged. I'm glad you jumped on it quickly. The talent you and others bring to the platform is what keeps making this a better and better place to be every day.

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Love that show. And Home:On w/ Richard Gunther.

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@SmartHomePrimer I personally haven’t had a rough week, at least not with HE, but I know others have.

I am definitely taking my time, I like to research and plan everything I do.

Wish I would have done a bit more before I bought this darn Ubiquiti USG Pro 4 though. :joy: It’s a great device but you can’t run it inline nicely behind pfSense like I was hoping.

I understand forums pretty well and how people can be in general... or at least I like to think so. I have supported tons of startups, foss projects, Linux distros over the years.

I guess in a way I hoped my post would help shed light on HE and help people understand things that we sometimes we forget. Plus I was really bored not implementing the two drawer of HA devices. :yum:

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Going to have to add these to my list to check out, thanks for sharing.

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Ahh. Yes. It was the hometech podcast. Back then I was still messing around with homekit. That was way too limiting and frustrating. ST was driving me nuts with issues. HE ended up being the best choice for me.

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Ah, hahaha, I got my podcasts mixed up. Right, it was the projects project was it?

@ACKmySYN, HomeTech is another if that's not on your list already.

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Yea they used to be a very professional installer based podcast but have been pretty consumer lately.
Honestly sad I forgot them as I end up listening to them the most since they're almost weekly?
Home:On is only once a month and affiliated with Hometech.fm , but it's worth the wait.

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I'm biased to Home: On, but I really enjoy both The IoT podcast and HomeTech. There have been a few others that seemed promising, but just stopped. It's not an easy thing to keep up if it's not your full time job. I'm impressed with those that can do it.

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Great thread everyone... nothing really to add except more of the same.

And, honestly, I needed to read this too, because I too have been impatient at times. But, coming from SmartThings, when @bobbyD realized I'd found HE and was here, he was incredibly welcoming. He and the whole team are really doing some amazing things, and I know they are as passionate about this stuff as most of us are.

Oh, and I agree with @SmartHomePrimer - always be honest with your partner... even when you have to rip out all of the 1st Gen Z-wave devices in your house (over 25 switches plus several smart bulbs) to get to Z-wave plus devices... I'm still smarting from that dubious decision to go with the 1st gen stuff... but, now that stability and speed are coming back up, she (mostly) forgives me.

Strangely, the light automations aren't really what makes her happy. It's two things:

  1. My 'Shower Mode' rules which use the Multisensor 6's humidity sensor to kick on the bathroom fans if the shower steam gets to be too much
  2. The ability to tell Alexa 'Goodnight' and have all of the lights in the house properly go off.

So, my advice is find the things that your partner wants fixed first, and aim for those. Here's wishing you a great journey here with HE. :smiley:

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@gavincampbell 75 might have been a stretch, but I have seen threads and post by some that aren’t super active and I was roughly adding those too.

The community is small in general for sure, especially the “pros”. But it’s insane the knowledge, skills, and experience in here.

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Fixing things for my wife is at the top of my list, part of those things are because I can’t fix my wife (kidding).

This morning she called me to ask me to turn off the porch lights because she thought she left them on. I am a “lights off” pain in her butt, she’s bad about not saving on electricity so I can buy more toys. :grinning:

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Any reason those porch lights don't turn themselves off? :wink:

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@ogiewon haha you got me, well it’s because I haven’t implemented much, but I have tested a few of the devices I have stashed. Everything is hidden in the dresser drawers to also keep me from going nuts setting it all up. :blush:

I plan on taking some time soon to start implementing the “important” things.

Honestly, like I said in the original post, time is my enemy right now. Between work and rebuilding my home network and lab with 10GB Ubiquiti gear I don’t have a lot of it. If the network doesn’t work my WAF drops like a rock in the ocean.

Also my wife only works 3 days a week so she is always here. Plus she will know when I start messing with the important items, especially if I don’t implement it fully.

I want it to be like that one HE intro video. :blush:

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I've found WAF/PAF/SOAF is a really helpful metric. Keeps me grounded in what is practical and helpful as opposed to all the cool things I COULD do..

I was surprised my wife was okay with the Zooz Toggles for our upstairs even though they remain centered and look a little different than our normal non-smart ones (as an aside centered switches are more consistent functionally - UP is always ON).

Under the WAF metric I did have to replace every switch upstairs with the Zooz for a "consistent appearance" though - which I was okay with.. :grin:

E.

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Just curious, how did you arrive at those #s?