This community rarely gets off topic. Are oranges named after the color or is the color named after the fruit?
My understanding is that HE arose from ST. As a result a lot of the projects can be ported. There is also a community project called Hub Connect that lets you run multiple hubs - including ST. So you can keep everything connected to ST and start migrating as you are able. I have not used ST myself so I can't really provide any insight there.
If you want to code custom apps then those are done in Groovy. Even without writing custom apps there are already a lot of built in and community apps. Most people find all they need there. Take a look at the compatible devices list and determine if you have anything not on the list. Ask here if you have any devices you are unsure about. Somebody may have a solution that isn't on the official list.
Ask specific questions, start new threads, see what's here. The community has been extremely helpful.
Wonderful. @lairdknox Thank you for your prompt response. Definitely seems that it is developed from ST now that you mention Groovy, which is the same language ST uses.
Excellent. Now I just need a hub, and not from eBay.
Once this happens I look forward to collaborating with you all. Stay Safe and Sane!
I'm a recent convert to Hubitat and here's my advice to you:
Don't try to lift and shift. You will have expectations of how things "should work" but really it's just the way SmartThings works.
You'll find the logic of Hubitat is way more straightforward and "simple" after you start playing around with it. (even though it will take some getting used to)
Pretty much any Zigbee or Z-Wave device will work out-of-the box. That includes SmartThings branded devices...they are just zigbee. Lots of WiFi devices will work too, but you'll have to often download a driver or app.
Best way to start is to
Pick 2-3 of your non-critial devices.
Un-Pair them from ST
Pair them to HE
Play with them for a few days until you have an idea of how you will set everything up in HE.
Most (all?) ST branded devices Iām familiar with are zigbee and should work with hubitat just fine.
The only indication we have that the C7 hub even exists is from FCC filings. No announcements from hubitat, expected release date, etc. Personally I would not wait for this hub to be released if I were in the market for a Hubitat hub now.
As a starting point...first read about the built-in apps. (simple lighting, Rule Machine, notifications, Amazon Echo, etc)
Then, install the app linked below. Someone @dman2306 wrote a package manager and a lot of the most popular and more mature apps/drivers have provided manifests. Once you install it you can browse that library. Definitely a good place to start.
Just realize that some of the apps provide functionality you could do yourself in "Rule Machine" if you preferred, but they might just be big time savers.
After that look in the Developers category on these forums for more and more niche stuff.
@aaiyar How funny. I remember bravenel in many of the early ST postings, and he was indeed a huge contributor to that community. When Rule Machine came out, it was an evolutionary step. Very interesting indeed. Thank you for sharing!
Watch the YouTube videos that show the capabilities of the built in apps. I moved over in April and found many of the things I had to jump through hoops to get working in ST (lots of virtual switches and automations), were already built into the apps that come with HE. I ran into a few issues moving 100+ devices and lots of rules but it's now nice that my system is up all day, every day. Anytime I work on it now it's because it's something I want to do, not because something quit working, again. My wife only complains about Google now, never Hubitat.
Now, I don't want to scare you, but, I do want you to know that although on the surface HE and ST look very similar, there are some subtle but important differences in the design of each which leads to major operational differences.
A key point is the reliance on the cloud (ST) versus local execution(HE). In my humble opinion, this puts a much greater emphasis on the mesh (zwave or zigbee) in HE. What may have worked in ST may not work as well on HE and vice versa. Although, I'm sure that you will find that you can make anything that worked on ST, work on HE.
Furthermore, I'm sure that you will enjoy the more robust "rules" on HE than ST. This is a big difference and gives you unparalleled flexibility and control
Good luck, and welcome!
I'm new to this community. Also potentially looking to switch from ST after many years on that platform.
One thing I've seen on the threads is that there used to be a concern about having to reboot the hub on a regular basis -- has that been resolved?
The other thing I thought I understood was that there were some geofencing issues related to multiple locations / hubs. I have more than one location to automate, so that would be a concern.
Lastly, what is the C7 / C5 talk about -- versions of the hub?
Some users that were having slowdowns have reported that the issues they were experiencing were resolved with the 2.2.2.125 firmware release. There are lots of ways to slow things down though that don't have anything to do with the hub though. Ghost devices wrecking the zwave mesh, spamming a lot of deviecs at once and overwhelming the network, loops, excessive logging, power reporting spam, etc...
There are lots of ways to perform geofencing. The built-in function, Life360, Mobile, Device detection. It's not really an issue but you may have to get creative in certain curcumstances.
C7 is the new hub that was released with the 700 zwave chipset and software stack.
Dashboards are accessable remotely and there are community drivers you could load to be able to restart it, local control of everything else though. There's always ways around that limitation though.
Admin functions... Adding / removing devices, adding code, enabling Apps, etc are all functions that must be local. However, it's almost trivial to set up a VPN to connect your remote device (phone/tablet/computer) to your local LAN and thus have that access. On those occasions when I've wanted access, it's about 2-3 seconds to start the VPN and be in the Hub.
Mostly these days though I use the same VPN to look at my LAN based Cams. After two years with Hubitat hubs, I'm not 'experimenting' as much, and so I can just leave it alone.
Yea, it's kind of on set it and forget it mode now. I've been trolling the forums looking for things to do but I've pretty much got everything covered.
I know you use Groovy to do custom programming -- what is the authoring (and debugging) experience like? Anything like the ST IDE, or is it something else? Any integration with GitHub?
You can copy-paste code for apps and drivers like in the IDE, but there aren't GitHub links like in ST though. There's a community app Hubitat Package Manager that supports a lot of the custom drivers and apps written by @dman2306https://community.hubitat.com/t/beta-hubitat-package-manager/38016 Which is better than the GitHub integration in ST IMO.
