Hey friends… just ordered my C8 Pro. I’m pretty active over @ the ST Community, and looking forward to being here! Finally got frustrated with the difficulty and limitations of working in the SmartThings environment after being a proponent since 2015. Im heavily invested in ST routines and customizations so making the switch is a bit daunting, but from a future proofing standpoint I think this is the right move.
The final nail in the coffin was my local LiFX LAN Edge driver not working properly with new LiFX bulbs.
Any tips and tricks for making this migration? Anything I should be aware of? I use ActionTiles now so would like to continue using that so I don’t have to train the family on a new interface.
Welcome to the community. I came here from Vera, so i can’t really comment on the move from ST. The Hubitat hardware and software are very stable. As with any new platform, suggest you just dive in and learn how it works, rather than how it differs from the previous platform.
Have fun…
I made the move from ST in 2020. You will notice that there are lots of built in apps to handle situations that involved tedious rule building in ST. The other thing that is great is the ability to update the firmware when YOU want to and, if there is a problem, roll back to a previous version. Once you get used to the platform you will be happy you made the switch.
Welcome to the other side of the fence, where the grass IS greener.
I also started with ST, and switched to HE because when the ST cloud was down, my lights and front door lock, along with everything else, failed to respond to commands.
My knowledge of home automation is on a grade school level compared to most everyone else in these forums.
with the exception that the zigbee stack is deficient, randomly drops or refuses to pair zigbee 3.0 devices. so, you consider that stable? and the developers / support have refused to comment / fix the issues?
I highly suggest Webcore for your automations. It is a built-in app now in Hubitat, so it is easy to install. I also left ST for the very reason that they were about to sunset the groovy cloud and I could no longer use Webcore.
While the Webcore UI has an internet dependency, the automation pistons themselves run locally on the hub.
Since moving all my Webcore pistons over to Hubitat, I have now converted all my piston logic into custom groovy apps and drivers, but Webcore allows for a much simpler way to create complex automations, and it has the ability to send emails, texts, and web requests. If you know some coding, I've found writing my own apps to be the best way to automate things now, so that may be something you want to look at in the future. Once you have logic working in Webcore, you have a framework to write that logic into custom apps if you have the interest and some time.
I am also a ST refugee. I come over a few years ago when they started eliminating perfectly working hardware.
Webcore is fine if you are use to using it, but the built in rule engine "Rule Machine" is very powerful as well. There are also some really good built in apps like Room Lighting, Basic Rules, and the Notification app. I would suggest taking some time and checking them all out actually.
There is also a wealth of community supported apps and integrations as well. If something isn't working quite right you may want to check the community for options.
Speaking of Community apps probably one of the first one you would want to install is Hubitat Package manager or HPM for short. That is a tool many use to make their apps easily accessible to users of the Hub.
You may also want to implement the HubInfo Device Driver as it can provide extensive information about how your hub is doing.
The last thing I would say is anytime you have a question hit up this community. There are allot of great folks here that will help with anything they can. This community is probably one of the best things about Hubitat.
I also I feel it is worth noting two gotcha's that seem to get people here on occasion.
First HE has done a good job of keeping there chips fairly current with the latest and greatest available from the vendors. This means unlike the ST hardware the C8 has Zwave 800 and Zigbee 3.0 chip which unfortunately means there have been some device compatibility issues with very old hardware. These issues pretty always return back to remote device not following the Zwave/Zigbee spec fully. The old Iris devices are a good example of that . You may want to take some time to search the forums for each of your devices and identify if any of them have known issues. If you have a C8 you will most certainly have issues with Iris.
Lastly unlike the ST with it's cloud keep in mind these little boxes are quad core Arm based units with limited Ram and CPU. They are very capable but you may need to rethink some processes considering limited resources. Some apps or rules need to be designed to be less intensive when running on HE to run more efficiently. I have seen users wanting to poll devices every few seconds. That is pretty intensive on a small box like this, and ST being a cloud based solution would just scale with the load.
The majority of people are not having problems with the c8/c8-pro 3.0 stack and pairing 3.0 devices. I probably have at least 20 3.0 devices paired to my c8 and haven't had an issue. There are problems with iris v1 devices pairing to 3.0 controllers but hubitat already said they are not going to attempt to fix that. I myself had only one problem with pairing a couple of tuya 3.0 water sensors and it was resolved with a driver fix. By and large though people aren't having problems. You do see a small subset here having issues but that's because this is a support forum which complaints if you wanna really try to average it out sit around .05 percent of overall hubitat c8 sales. (give or take)
I probably have at least 20 3.0 devices paired to my c8 and haven't had an issue.
I have around 70 version 3.0 devices connected and have had an ongoing issue. And I'm now getting device 'drop outs' requiring 're pairing'.
I myself had only one problem with pairing a couple of tuya 3.0 water sensors and it was resolved with a driver fix.
A driver fix isn't down to a 'pairing issue', that's simply a functionality issue as the driver makes the properties of the device available for use.
You do see a small subset here having issues but that's because this is a support forum which complaints if you wanna really try to average it out sit around .05 percent of overall hubitat c8 sales
I'm really not interested or ready to comment on anecdotal evidence, but I'm seeing a reasonable number of people moaning about the stack compatibility.
Then likely somewhere in your mesh you have a bad device or two...
Actually in my case it was because for whatever reason it would not pair at all until the driver was updated. This was repeatable and discussed during the c8 beta
Actually in my case it was because for whatever reason it would not pair at all until the driver was updated. This was repeatable and discussed during the c8 beta
In which case then, we're back to stack compatibility...
More like tuya follows what they want to follow and we've all had tuya devices as well as xiaomi etc devices that don't follow the specs properly. Not Hubitat's problem. Hubitat has a compatibility list. If you have something on that list that is having an issue, then hubitat will address it. Outside of that they will not guarantee anything.
Open hab and HA don't have to stay within certification guidelines. Hubitat does. This goes for z-wave and matter as well. You can only fudge so much before you lose that cert. That said, take a look at the hubitat certified device list.
That also doesn't mean you don't have a bad device. I would start checking with your logs and then ask support to pull your engineering logs (which you don't have access to)
