Making the switch from ST...mostly for execution speed (good choice?)

Why Hubitat Elevation
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I have been on SmartThings for the past few years at our previous house, and things were fine since there were only a few automations handled with the Smart lighting app (e.g. turn on hall lights when doors open, voice control through alexa for various lights, etc.).

We moved to a new house and plans have changed (and my V2 hub died...replaced with a V3).

The plan is to replace all recessed lighting in the kitchen/breakfast rooms with Sylvania Smart+ RGBW Zigbee recessed lights (already purchased, just need to retrofit the existing cans). The kitchen has 4-way switches (3 locations), which have now been replaced with Inovelli Red-series switches for scene control (plan is to disable the internal relays and rely on scenes to turn on/off the recessed lights). The current dumb lights are hooked up to the main switch, and the aux switches act as scene buttons to turn the main switch on/off through ST Smartapp (I didn't like how direct association behaved)

ST service went down the other day and my wife freaked out because nothing worked right and was very wonky, hence my decision to go to Hubitat. Also, she commented on how the lights are too slow to respond when controlling from the aux (scene) switches.

Once the full switch is made to Hubitat and the smart recessed lights, should I expect a speed increase when turning lights on/off using scene controls? Currently, it takes about 1-1/2 seconds for things to respond after a button press for lights to go on or off, and even shaving off the 1/2 second would do wonders.

Thanks!

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I've recorded a consistent speed of about .5 seconds on my scenes from SmartThings, and about a 1-second speed increase from my TP-Link Kasa Wi-Fi Bulbs. I did a local test the other day and disconnected my Cable Modem to test the Hubitat and loved the fact my LAN based and Zigbee based devices still worked. If anything that's the biggest benefit I've seen so far is the local capability.

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Probably, yes. But not guaranteed - depends on how heavily you load the hub, what your logic looks like, how many cloud integrations you put on it, etc.

But I would say in general things like normal lighting automations are noticeably faster in Hubitat versus SmartThings*.

.* That is, if your SmartThings automations were going to the cloud. The things that were local in ST are about the same speed as Hubitat.

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Ok thanks...I'm not exactly sure what's going to the cloud, but I'm using the Inovelli device handlers and the SmartThings IDE shows execution as "cloud" for these, so even if the SmartLighting app is executing locally, it may still use the cloud for something. Considering they weren't working when the ST service went down the other day I am assuming they were cloud executed. This is also supported by the fact that there were sometimes multi-minute delays and lights seemingly turned on randomly when service was restored...upon checking logs, these were responses to button presses that took place while the service was in the process of wonking out.

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0.5 seconds on your scenes while using Smartthings, or a 0.5 sec improvement?

I actually just timed it again, and the delay in SmartThings from the aux switch (acting as a scene button) was closer to 2.5-3.0 seconds. Again, any improvement on this would be great for usability!

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Improvement ; as in it's .5 seconds faster for all of my lighting consistently. I'll be doing more tests as I install more items but for me my home.

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Welcome... Since my switch to HE from ST .. I have been amazed at the speed... You made the right choice ..

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Yes, any time you use a custom device handle in ST it has to go to the cloud. So for any of those devices, I would expect Hubitat to be much faster. If it isn't, then something is amiss - so post for help before giving up.

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Since moving from SmartThings to Hubitat I have yet to have the "Samrthings is down" issue where buttons and events don't fire or random failure of events. I would say I have seen varying degrees of performance improvement with Hubitat depending on device and their drivers. With my Inovelli switches I have seen the most improvements and next is the Samsung buttons. Lights almost instantly turn on and off with the buttons and rule engine running.

I would say you will be happy with the performance as long as you don't go "rule crazy". But I have over 500 rules/scenes/etc and about 100 various types of devices and I have yet to see a slowdown or have to reboot my Hubitat.

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Significant, noticeable improvement when switching from ST to HE. In general, if toggling a single light from a dashboard/homekit/etc, my lights respond in .3 seconds or less. My lights are z-wave, so the mesh can saturate. For example, if I hit a button that turns off the entire house, it might take a couple seconds for every one to have responded. But there's zero waiting for a round-trip to the internet.

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Maybe there's something wrong with my Hubitat setup but my speed increases haven't been drastic. It might also be because I have 1gig internet so ST was always relatively fast.

I had somewhat expected HE to be close to instant but that's not really what I've experienced. Also, for some reasons, when I haven't used a switch in some time (at times minutes, at times hours), I get latency with my HE hub. As an example, I just turned on a switch and had a 13 seconds delay!

dev:1182019-12-20 06:40:38.991 pm infoP was turned on

dev:1162019-12-20 06:40:38.927 pm infoBen was turned on

dev:742019-12-20 06:40:38.815 pm infoBedside Lights switch was turned on

app:302019-12-20 06:40:38.350 pm infoTurning On: [Bedside Lights]

dev:242019-12-20 06:40:25.994 pm infoBedside Lights Switch: Button 1 was pushed

dev:242019-12-20 06:40:25.985 pm debugBedside Lights Switch: CentralSceneNotification(keyAttributes:0, sceneNumber:2, sequenceNumber:42, slowRefresh:true)

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I would say 13 seconds is way too high.. I would look at a mesh issue..

Have moved all of your devices, or use a few? If only a few your mesh is probably weak. A little more information will be helpful in the troubleshooting process..

For instance, what kind of button. The Samsung buttons are notoriously slow to wake up. It’s not uncommon for a 1-3 second lag when they’re pressed if they’ve no been used in a while.

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Thanks!

I use Inovelli switches that send Central Scene commands. From the logs, the Hubitat recognized the button press pretty quickly. The issue is that it then took 13s for the ABC controller to send a "turn on" command to my "bedside lights" which are hue bulbs. Most of the delays I find involve hue bulbs so not sure if Hubitat just struggles with them. However, I do find delays that don't involve Hue also at times (I do think they mostly involve button presses but that's majority of what I use).

It's weird, the performance hasn't been consistent and that's exactly what I expected since it's all local. I only have about 30 devices (about 15 light switches, 2 Wemo devices, 4 motion sensors, ecobee thermostat, 5 hue bulbs, a TV and 2 harmony remotes) so don't expect hub slowdowns. What's further weird is my ST was decently reliable but I haven't found HE to have improved on the reliability.

There are also times when Hubitat leaves the hue bulbs on/off. As an example, I tried to turn off the P switch yesterday and it got turned off and then immediately turned back on. No idea why but keeps happening

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Try figuring out where the issue is by manually controlling the hue bulbs from hubitat, are they taking 13 seconds to turn on?
If so look at your button automation.
If not, then there's an issue with your lan integration with hue.
If your hue bulbs are directly paired to Hubitat and take 13 seconds to turn on via the driver page, you have a mesh problem of one sort or another

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I think it's always fast from hubitat directly. BTW, I'm connected using a Hue Bridge.

All of a sudden, I'm no longer getting long delays. I updated my hub yesterday from 2.1.7.214 to 2.1.7.217 so maybe that fixed it. I've turned on logging from all my devices though so if it starts happening again, I'll post here.

It's also possible that the hub slows down after being left on for some time. Do you guys experience such issues. Never had to restart my ST hub but should I be scheduling my HE to restart at different intervals?

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Okay, I just had a bit of a similar situation even though nowhere near as bad as the last time.

In this case, it took 1.5s for my lamp (a Hue bulb connected using Hue Bridge) to turn on after the button press. Most of the lag seemed to have come from the time it takes HE to recognize the event till the ABC app recognizes it (so all HE internals I'd think). HE recognized the button push at 42.635s but ABC button mapping didn't recognize till 1 second later (43.517s). Then, it took another 0.5s from the command to turn on the hue bulb till it actually turned on.

1.5s isn't too bad but don't understand why it's so inconsistent. At times, 0.5s, other times 1.5s and at other times, more than 10s. Anyone can help with my system here please?

dev:1172019-12-22 12:27:44.119 pm infoMain was turned on

app:2432019-12-22 12:27:43.592 pm infoTurning On: [Main]

dev:972019-12-22 12:27:43.513 pm infoDining Motion Sensor is active

dev:1002019-12-22 12:27:43.525 pm infomZone-Non Bedroom is active

app:2432019-12-22 12:27:43.517 pm debugLiving Room Lamp: Button 1 was pushed

app:2432019-12-22 12:27:43.495 pm debugtimeOk = true

app:2432019-12-22 12:27:43.471 pm debugdaysOk = true

app:2432019-12-22 12:27:43.461 pm debugmodeOk = true

dev:982019-12-22 12:27:42.849 pm infoKitchen Motion Sensor is active

dev:1632019-12-22 12:27:42.635 pm infoLiving Room Lamp: Button 1 was pushed

dev:1632019-12-22 12:27:42.607 pm debugLiving Room Lamp: CentralSceneNotification(keyAttributes:0, sceneNumber:2, sequenceNumber:69, slowRefresh:true)

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Ok so I have started migrating to HE from ST...basically moving the devices that aren’t tied to too many automations over (e.g. dining room light, hallway lights, etc.).

I gotta say that the remote execution speed of the Inovelli and Zooz switches that I moved over are noticeably faster. I tested the “cloud” speed by disabling my Wifi on my phone and controlling through the Hubitat app, and it’s almost instant. I then tested a “scene” between 2 different switches/lights and again, the speed is definitely a noticeable improvement, and this is using the Inovelli customer drivers.

Now the only problem is figuring out what to do with my 2 month old SmartThings hub when I’m fully migrated over. Anyone know of a black-market forum or should I just throw up on Facebook Marketplace?

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I have kept my old SmartThings hub for one purpose and that is to update Zigbee firmware on my Zigbee Sengled and Samsung button and water sensors. Until Hubitat comes up with a way to update firmware I always pair new Sengled and Samsung devices with SmartThings and let them update their firmware and then move them over to the Hubitat.

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I've got a ST hub and am looking tp switch, I have a range of zigbee and z-wave devices IP cameras, a yale alarm integration, google homes, the flasher app, humidity app and virtual garage door controller app and action ties

I understand the speed and local processing benefits but what are the down sides

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Not many but a few currently:

No ZigBee or z-wave firmware firmware update support yet (I think z-wave is coming soon on ST)

Not supported yet.

I don't think this is supported.

UI is not the best but it gets the job done.

That's about it I would say? But for everything not supported just link to ST and link the hubs. That way you get the best if both worlds, all the important things fast and reliable and all the extras work as before. Then once it's supported move things over.