Migrating from Fibaro & Node-Red to Hubitat

[aleksmilanov]

Hi All,

Firstly, I am going to apologise in advance for the amount of detail I am posting, but I have a large and fairly complex setup; hence I have to be super cautious before making any changes. That said, I hope some people can make the time to help me.

My general request is that I'm looking for some support to understand the process to migrate to Hubitat from Fibaro & Node-Red, as well as how the solution would work across a number of areas.

I’ve been reading on the Hubitat forum for a bit, specifically around people’s experience with moving to Hubitat from other systems, so the following summarises my residual questions / concerns as of writing. I’ll update this post as I learn more, to narrow down/focus the questions.

Pending on how my research goes, I’ll pick up a Hubitat C-7 and start testing, though I wonder if it’s worth waiting for Thread to be released….

Background – My Fibaro Z-Wave Network

I currently have 2x Home Centre 2s in a master/slave setup with exactly 200 z-wave devices and I also run Node-Red for most of my automations via the excellent node-red-contrib-fibaro-devices node.

It is important to note that I do not have a traditional setup. I am planning to eventually move all automations from my HC2s entirely to Node-Red, so I have limited need from a controller for complex or even simple automations. I’ve summarised what I think I need in the list below.

There may be (there probably are) really cool features within Hubitat that I’m completely unaware of. Please tell me if I’m missing a trick.

Background – My Node-Red Setup

My Node-Red setup is made up of back-end automations: Scheduled tasks and Triggered actions as well as a series of UIs I’ve build for a large touchscreen (anything from about 13 inch up, and currently mainly running on a 22inch touchscreen in my kitchen). The UI’s are built using the (amazing) uibuilder-node. I’ve written them in VueJS (front-end framework), which provides limitless opportunity. It’s simply the best / most fun I’ve ever had developing my system, and I currently have almost 10 interactive UI screens, covering: Interactive floorplan, Automate Heating, Automated Lighting, Instant Hot Water and Cylinder Heating as well as multiple links direct through to Grafana dashboards, populated via InfluxDB, sourced from NR.

Initial Thoughts on Target State Hubitat Setup

I live in a 3 story house with a garden room and I'm looking to move from 2x HC2s to 4x Hubitat C-7s, where one of the C-7s would be the master and the other three would be slaves. The reason for 4x C-7s is that I have a residual of about 65x 300 series z-wave devices, that I don’t want to upgrade, and I also need to split my kitchen into two zones, all explained below:

a) 1x C-7 near the centre of the house to connect all 300 series devices across the 3 floors (garden room will all be 500 series). This C-7 will have about 65x 300 series devices on it. They are all low use.

b) 2x C-7s on the ground floor (with only 500 series devices connected) to connect my garden room, all ground floor rooms and some 1st floor rooms, and mainly to split my kitchen across two controllers as it has 11 lights which can sometimes show slight delays (1-2 seconds) when I turn them all on / off at the same time and when preforming multiple sequential changes. The 2x C-7s, for arguments sake, will have about 45x 500 series devices connected to each of them

c) 1x C-7 at the top of the house for all of the other 500 series devices on the 2nd floor and some on the 1st floor – again, for arguments sake, the C-7 will have about 45x 500 series devices connected to it

As some of you know, the slowest z-wave device on a network/controller determines the overall network speed, so I need to split 300 series from 500 series.

Expected Performance

The 1x C-7 running a network that will only operate at 300 series speeds, should (I hope) work very well, as all of the 300 series devices are very low use or relatively low reporting sensors, so there won’t (shouldn’t) be any performance issues with them all on one network. All my high use devices (mostly all) connected to physical circuits, are 500 series now and operate much better than when they were 300 series, even though my controller is still 300 series.

Go figure, 300 series just aren’t great on medium to large networks when you need fast switching, not in my experience anyway.

I’m expecting the 3x C-7s, that will operate on 500 series devices only, despite the C-7 controller being 700 series, to sing. I can’t see why they wouldn’t.

All C-7s, will be hardwired into the network and all connected to the same switch, so that message transfer between the master and slaves is superfast.

My 2x HC2 which are 300 series controllers, with one having about 120 devices connected to it and the other about 80, work reliably, so I’m hoping for a really rock solid network with the above setup.

Question: Any initial thoughts on the setup including any issues, complexities, limitations in functionality and/or performance limitations?

Functionality I Am Looking For from the C-7s

1. Easy to include / exclude of devices

2. Easy to configure devices including (very few) associations

3. Ability to group devices into rooms – or something similar, depending on how Hubitat works

4. Ability to mesh rebuild, just in case

5. A simple Mobile app to control individual devices, infrequently

6. Detailed device state history would be (really) nice

7. Integrations: Alexa (a must), Satel (nice to have), Sonos (even less nice to have)

8. A super-stable Node-Red Node for Hubitat: node-red-contrib-hubitat?

9. Stability and More About the Hubitat C-7

1. Easy to include / exclude of devices

Below is a summary of the devices I have installed:

Device	Series Chip	Count
Aeo6 Extender	500	1
AEOTEC 4-in-1mains powered	300	2
AEOTEC 6-in-1 battery powered	500	3
AEOTEC 6-in-1 mains powered	500	7
Fibaro Dimmer1	300	16
Fibaro Dimmer2	500	55
Fibaro Implant	500	9
Fibaro Motion	300	10
Fibaro Plug EU	300	8
Fibaro Plug UK	500	4
Fibaro Relay	300	12
Fibaro RGBW1	300	1
Fibaro RGBW2	500	30
Fibaro Roller2	300	16
Fibaro Roller3	500	1
Fibaro Swipe	500	1
Fibaro Switch Double	500	16
Fibaro Switch Single	500	8
		200

I’m not fussed if the Fibaro Swipe doesn’t work well with Hubitat. It can go.

Question: I have a z-wave zniffer, so can packet sniff when including / excluding devices to be confident that I know if each action has worked or not, so my question here is how well (generally) does the include/exclude process work?

On my HC2s it can run super smooth sometimes, most of the times it’s a little frustrating, occasionally it’s a right PITA.

I have written a guide on the Fibaro Forum on maintaining and repairing z-wave networks:

HC2 Repair & Maintenance Guide

The reason for mentioning the guide I wrote is two-fold:

• It may be helpful for people to read, it’s gold dust - a collection of a few super-users experience
• It frames the context of my questions, I’m not asking how to migrate devices or how to build the network itself (sequencing etc), it’s more about the user experience and Hubitat specific processes

This leads to the 2nd (and more important) area, device configuration.

2. Easy to configure devices including (very few) associations

Question: Perhaps more important than the above, how complex is it to configure the above devices?

I will continue my research to find out more e.g. does habitat use templates, what’s required to include and configure a device. I did find the link to the docs Hubitat com – with a list of compatible devices. It’s initially concerning as many of my Fibaro devices are not included on the list!

I also read this post on the forum: “Don't ever buy anything z-wave that isn't z-wave plus.”

I’m hoping that’s just a comment about how much better 500/700 series is than 300 series, which I know from first-hand experience and have already setup my network to work very well despite still having so many 300 series devices and operating on a 300 series controller.

Question: Can you give me an early heads up on any issues/complexities to configuring the above devices with Hubitat? Am I going to fall fowl when I try to configure devices i.e. is lack of compatibility going to be a deal-breaker?

Side-Question1: I am expecting to have to painfully exclude Fibaro devices from the Hubitat and include into my HC2 to deploy firmware upgrades, and then reverse back to include back into the Hubitat. Does anyone have a smart solution to do this i.e. is there an easier alternative?

Side-Question2: Does Hubitat work off devices IDs or device names? Please tell me device names. Not a huge issue as NR works off devices names, so no added complexity when having to exclude and include a device again as you can keep the name the same, requiring no subsequent code changes to update new device IDs J

3. Ability to group devices into rooms – or something similar, depending on how Hubitat works

I’m quite flexible on this, all I really need is a logical way of grouping devices. In the HC2 you can create areas and rooms, so I have areas for things like:

• Bedrooms
• Living rooms
• HVAC
• Heating
• System

And rooms like:

• Kitchen
• Master Bedroom
• Heating Central

I had an initial search for videos on this, but haven’t stumbled across one yet, but admittedly I was focused on the Mobile App. Next I’ll search for Hubitat setup videos, so I’m not looking necessarily for an answer here to something I can readily find, the question is more to users of the system…

Question: What’s the art of the possible here? How well does it work in the BUI and Mobile App?

4. Ability to mesh rebuild, just in case

Question: It goes without saying that I need to be able to mesh rebuild individual devices (rarely) or the whole network (perhaps only once, if ever), so how does it work?

Question: Does the Hubitat have any nice network diagnostic tools or other nice diagnostic tools?

5. A simple Mobile app to control individual devices, infrequently

I only need a simple mobile app (that hopefully can structure devices into rooms (as per topic 3 above) to occasionally inspect a device and turn it on/off. That’s all. If there is a way to integrate NR flows into the app, that would be absolutely amazing, but if not, it’s fine too.

Question: The mobile app looks like a relatively new addition, is it stable yet? Can it do the basic stuff I want in an easy way?

6. Detailed device state history would be (really) nice

This is a bit of a dream given how bad state history is managed on the HC2.

Question: I’ve looked into HASS, and state history for devices is excellent on the HASS. I’m hoping Hubitat have something close to HASS, if not, how good is it? Strengths? Weaknesses?

Why do I need device state history? Mainly for debugging.

7. Integrations: Alexa (a must), Satel (nice to have), Sonos (even less nice to have)

Alexa

I have close to 10 Alexa devices. It works relatively well, but not perfectly with the HC2.

I have one issue that I cannot get rid of: if I say turn [device] on or off to Alexa, I almost always get a response along the lines of the “I couldn’t find a device or group name [device name] in [my name’s] profile.”

I’ve tried everything. Completely removing all my Alexa devices, resetting my account, creating a new account, spending hours on the phone to Amazon support… nothing works. I can only think it’s the Fibaro-Alexa integration itself and/or that I have too many devices and it’s a timing issue causing the response or maybe something to do with the way the master/slave setup works – who knows, I curtained don’t. I wonder if it would go away when using Hubitat. To be clear, it’s just an annoying “feature”. Not a deal breaker, also not expecting a response here, but would be pleasantly surprised is someone had a fix / explanation that makes sense.

Question: how well does the Alexa integration work?

Satel

My satel alarm system integrates with my HC2, so that the Satel motion sensors can trigger automated lighting, automated audio etc. If there isn’t a Hubitat integration (which would be disappointing, but not a surprise), then I will continue trying to get a Node-Red Satel Node integration to work… having failed already on previous attempts.

If I can’t get either to work, it would be a deal breaker to start with, but might be a sign that I have to replace the (20+) Satel sensors with zigbee/z-wave sensors.

Question: I have googled Satel/Hubitat and it doesn’t look like there is support – any thoughts?

Sonos

Not sure if I care too much about this one. Sonos works well with NR. I think I’m more interested to see what’s been done in the community.

8. A super-stable Node-Red Node for Hubitat: node-red-contrib-hubitat 1.7.3?

I’ve started to search the Hubitat forum for the NR contrib and have stumbled across the post “Node-RED nodes for Hubitat”.

It looks promising, but at the end of the day, it simply needs to be rock solid and fully functional with all devices.

The NR contrib for Fibaro (fibaro-devices) is absolutely excellent. I can control all devices on my Master Hc2 from NR and I get near instant response times with return messages.

Question: I’m hoping that “fblackburn1”, the maintainer of node-red-contrib-hubitat, can comment, on the questions above, as well as actual users of the node?

Question: I never bothered with mobile geo-fencing on the hc2. It was too painful. I wonder if it works well on Hubitat and whether it can be accessed through NR? That would definitely open up a possibility or two.

9. Stability and More About the Hubitat C-7

Question: perhaps the most important question, how stable is the Hubitat C-7?

I’ve been reading multiple posts on the forum like this: “Lack of troubleshooting capability when hub slows down/crashed. Very manual/tedious process to try and figure out what's going on.”

To contrast, I bought my HC2 around 2012. It was a nightmare experience requiring many complete system rebuilds and many HC2 firmware upgrades until the system became kind-of stable around 2019, which coincided with me buying a zniffer and fixing, once and for all, my zwave network. At around that time Fibaro stopped developing the HC2, moving to the HC3. I’ve spoken to many users of the HC3 and they report that it is light years ahead of the HC2, but the HC3’s cost nearly £500 each and I'm wary of Fibaro.

Questions:

• As stated above, I have a zniffer, so will sort out any network issues myself, but how stable is Hubitat really?

• Do upgrades frequently / infrequently break your system?

• How rapidly is the ecosystem being developed?

• What’s still on the roadmap that you really want / need?

• I’m deeply concerned about having to upgrade my controller more than once a decade (max), but surely Hubitat need to flog off a new controller every few years else there cash flow will dry up i.e. How on earth is Hubitat going to survive in the long run given how cheap the controllers are?

Thank you in advance for anyone that has the patience to read my post and reply

[rakeshg]

@aleksmilanov

It looks promising, but at the end of the day, it simply needs to be rock solid and fully functional with all devices.

All of my automation logic is in Node-RED using MakerAPI and @fblackburn’s node. Works like a champ. Don’t have fibaro devices, so can’t comment in that.

[aleksmilanov]

Thanks. Will read up on Maker API.

[rakeshg]

@aleksmilanov

Will read up on Maker API.

MakerAPI is a built-in app in HE and "publishes" the devices to Node-RED. The "Prerequisite" section in this post is pretty much what you need to do

Node-RED nodes for hubitat

I want to share with you my recent development with Hubitat and Node-RED. node-red-contrib-hubitat It is some generic nodes to facilitate the integration with Hubitat. The challenge was to found the middle between generic and easy of use. I will be very happy to have your feedbacks and discuss about how to improve it Note that I keep this post updated with every release, no need to read all posts to know new features or changes. You can look at the CHANGELOG for news How t…

[aleksmilanov]

@rakeshg
Thank you so much, could have spend hours/days finding that post. It's incredibly helpful!
I'm so glad there are a number of NR/Hubitat users out there.

[csteele]

I have 4 Hubitat Hubs interconnected for my home with 165 devices. Much of my automation is done via Node-Red and MakerAPI. Each hub is connected to Node-Red and in that sense there's no master hub. Node-Red simply sees all the traffic from all the hubs for all the devices I've picked for Node-Red's need to know

I have zero 300 series devices any more, although that wasn't true 2 years ago. Hubitat has a polling mechanism for them but you're probably correct to isolate them onto a single hub. Over time, I hope that you would, like so many of us, reduce the 300 series from your home.

I chose to allocate 3 hubs to areas of my home. Approximately the first third of the home is on a single hub which I label "Front." This is an area that has the highest density of devices, and my goal is to limit a hub to 65 devices. There's a hub for "Upstairs" and another for "Downstairs." Note that "65" is my personal limit with entirely arbitrary reasoning. There are many people here that have 200 devices on a single hub. I Want, Need, Crave, multiple hubs.

The 4th hub is dedicated to internet facing actions. I have several internet products in use and they all funnel through my "coordinator" hub. Alexa, Google Home, weather, Presence, and so on. Additionally Hubitat's Dashboards are centered there and I send all the hub's traffic to the "coordinator" so that they can be visualized on a single set of 10+ dashboards. It is also the hub that connects to Homebridge and thus to Apple's HomeKit. I use Apple's Home app as a Dashboard too. I must comment that I barely use dashboards in real life, yet I've set up two complete sets, Apple's and Hubitat's. I think it's just historical.. when starting out, the Dashboards were an easy confirmation that the system was working as intended. As time went on, and the system remained stable, the need to constantly look diminished. These days it's mostly a way to discuss having a smart home with Guests.

Since all the devices are 'mirrored' to my "coordinator" and internet services tend to be single hub focused, that's where I connect to both Alexa and Google Home. I have a single Google Home that I use exclusively for announcements. It's mic is disabled and it never does anything but play sounds when needed. I don't remember the count of Echo's but Alexa is willing to turn my lights on or off as commanded. My wife uses it the most, my kids not so much, me, never... except to show off "smart home" to guests. I've never had my wife tell me Alexa is broken, and when showing off to guests, she's always worked. That's not much of a commentary on her reliability because the home is so highly automated that the usual tasks of turning on or off a light is rare. Let me detail the path that Alexi uses... the connection is via "Coordinator hub" which has zero real devices and 165 mirrored virtual devices. Alexa wants to turn on or off a light or fan, and she tells the coordinator which sends that to the hub that does have the Z-Device connection. That hub gets the command, does it and reports status. That status also gets mirrored to coordinator which informs Alexa. In other words a lot of moving parts but I haven't had an Alexa problem in at least 18 months, probably more.

I don't know, and can't say I've heard of, Satel but if it's a wired Alarm panel, then perhaps Konnected will be something to pursue.

I have never looked at Hubitat's Mobile App because I started my Hubitat journey long before it existed and by the time it came out, I didn't (don't) need it.. BUT it's largely just a combination of Presence + Dashboards + Notifications. Thus it's a reasonable product that seems to work.

You've read enough on this forum to know this but let me make sure: Hubitat is Event Driven. Devices connect to Hubitat via Drivers that convert device specific into Events, via Capabilities, Commands and Attributes. A driver, be it for Zwave, Zigbee or an Ethernet (WiFi) device, focuses down to an Event. Up, down, opened, closed, active, inactive, sunrise, sunset, 9pm Tuesday, would be a short list of Events. An Application on Hubitat is where one or more individual Devices are selected by capability. Got a device that reports wind speed? An app would be used to check that Attribute (windSpeed) for a value then perhaps checking doors and windows and respond with a notification.

Rooms are a new construct to Hubitat. They aren't full featured yet... You can certainly put devices into rooms.

@aleksmilanov

On my HC2s it can run super smooth sometimes, most of the times it’s a little frustrating, occasionally it’s a right PITA.

I think that's a good description of ZWave (and Zigbee, probably WiFi too) generally. Every day there's a report of something not working for one individual that works for several other individuals. Schlage Locks are an almost perfect example. (I have Yale Locks so I don't have any direct knowledge of Schlage.) People with the exact same model will have different experiences. Could that happen to you, yea, could happen, but quite obviously the Community will help as best they can.

ZWave supports Association but since the Hub is doing the same job, we don't see a lot of Associations. There's a vendor that's created a tool to assist with Associations, but I've never used it.

I think you've received enough data to understand that Node-Red is going to be easy for you with Hubitat. It's been perfect for me.

This is a long enough reply and although I can go on for another hour, I'll spare all of us that horror...

[aleksmilanov]

@csteele

there's a report of something not working for one individual that works for several other individuals. Schlage Locks are an almost perfect exampl

Thank you so much for your reply. It was very helpful.

In an odd turn of events, thanks to some support from a friend, I am going to buy another Pi4 and try out openHAB for a bit.

If I'm not happy I might try HASS, but just as likely I'll buy a Hubitat and play around with it.

I'd love to try all 3 at the same time, but literally don't have the bandwidth.

Depending on how it goes, I'll be back here again reporting on my adventure. Due to work/life commitments it's going to be a slow journey to migrate away from my current setup.

That said, I am very grateful you shared your setup. It's the exact confirmation I wanted that it's possible and that it works.

I expect your post will be a help to many others as well. Thanks again for making the time to write it up!

On another note, on the dashboard front, I don't use mine very often, but I couldn't live without them. My brain needs whole house views so I can see what's happening, but also so I can tweak settings which I do from time to time, for example I was tuning the heating just this morning for my bathroom.

Have you tried uibuilder in Node-Red?
It's on another level, but it's also literally a platform with unlimited capability for building UIs.

[csteele]

@csteele

I must comment that I barely use dashboards in real life

As unappealing as Hubitat's Dashboards are, they work. When there's just ONE person using them, ever, (me) then beauty requirements fall far down the list. A better looking dashboard is Apple's Home app. That there might be even better looking dashboard somewhere is not on my ToDo list because of bandwidth

[kevin]

Hi Alex, a familiar name on the Fibaro forums.

I’m going to re-read your post a few times to better understand what your key reason is to switch controllers. What’s the big benefit you want/see from Hubitat or the big problem with Fibaro , aside from the lack of development resource? It’s going to be a big undertaking so I can understand the research you’re doing.

People always say if it’s not broken don’t fix it and in general your HC2 system seems to work well, much better than I’d have anticipated really. NodeRED (and MQTT) both provide a way to abstract a controller to an independent system and so you could keep HC2 and add in Hubitat within NodeRED cherry picking features and devices from both; for example keeping Satel on HC2 or maybe all your 300 series devices. Within NodeRED which controller they are on becomes irrelevant. That would be my transition/familiarisation path rather than a total switch.

OpenHAB and HomeAssistant similarly have NodeRED and MQTT integrations and as you have invested so much time in the UI there it’s a given that really your system is NodeRED with HC2 controllers as peripherals. I myself use NodeRED but not too much with the controller integration nodes so I’m not versed with how easy it is to support multiple different controllers in a system with shared flows for logic, scheduling etc. I use MQTT and also have an HC3.

Focussing on NodeRED as your ‘system’ and controllers as peripherals affords great flexibility to adopt or evaluate new controllers as you wish. You allude for example to Thread/Matter - when it comes along just slot it in if you think it’s worthwhile.

One specific feature you ask about is device history. You might be able to implement this in NodeRED but within HE it’s there on an event basis per device although you can’t see what or who originated the change.

[aleksmilanov]

Kevin,

Thanks for taking the time to write.

Why move away from my 2x HC2 controllers?

Easy, they are 300 series. I want to have most of my network on 500 series controllers, hence the proposed split of 1x 300 series network and 3x 500 series.

Upgrading from 300 series to 500 series devices was a big jump in performance and network stability. From reports on the HC3, moving to a 500 series controller with 500 series devices is a big improvement.

Some might say that for larger networks that all-in 500 series is the first time zwave has worked as advertised, of course my HC2s with ~80 and ~120 devices work, but there are limitations e.g.

1. I can't turn on/off or change the colour of too many lights in one go, or more to the point, I can do it, but if I change my mind it's easy to flood the network, so in my UI I've put timeouts to block multiple sequential commands being issued, depending on the estimated volume of traffic being requests. It's crude, but it works, however I'd like to restrict that functionality to maybe 1-2 seconds max for very large requests.

PS: I'm talking about controlling > 10 physical devices simultaneously. In extremes, it's actually around close to 20 physical z-wave devices that can be turned on/off in one go. Smaller numbers like 4-5 at the same time are generally fine.

2. I can't help but think the HC2s are not optimal, especially when compared to 500 series or 700 series controllers. I just expect the newer controllers to be more stable/efficient.

On the whole I think it's worth doing the upgrade once, after which I'll stick with the system indefinitely, on the basis that I don't have it in me to do any further major upgrades to the underlying devices, so 700+ series is a pipe-dream for someone else to deal with.... tbh, I'm not sure what it would give me anyway.

Also, as a side benefit, being able to switch out some zwave sensors and add in zigbee, where they will be on a separate network and where I can turn on high reporting, will be fun and open up some new possibilities. BTW: I'm not saying it can't be done on zwave, it's just a nice option to be able to split the network again and have a new "pipe" to flood with high frequency reporting, whilst not degrading the performance of critical devices e.g. lights and heating

Keeping the HC2, but adding other controllers?
Yes, this is possible and is exactly what will happen as I migrate away from the HC2, however I would prefer the controllers to all be the same in the end. I don't want to have two sets of tech to deal with in the long-run.
When it comes to a mobile app (even though I'll barely us it), if all devices are on the same tech, then one app can easily rule them all - yes, I am sure there are workarounds or extra layers that can be added, but seriously, my system has enough in it already.

Node-Red
Agree with everything you say. I'd like to get to a point where I am agnostic of the controller and I do everything via NR (I'm quite close, but life gets in the way), however I still want a basic mobile app to do basic things, but yes, I could build it easily, but again, not enough time to do so.

Device History
There in lines a problem. For device history I would like to know who/what triggered each and every event, else it's not a material increase over what I have / what I can easily build in NR.

@csteele
In response to your reply, you should have a look at what is possible in NR. I think it's a step above what ANY company provides, if only on the basis that you can build WHATEVER you want.

Have a scroll through this link to see what people have built:

Show us your Dashboard!

Anyway, I'll stop flogging NR now Unfortunately there is no option to hold shares in it!

[erktrek]

You are not alone...

[rakeshg]

@aleksmilanov

however I still want a basic mobile app to do basic things,

I use Homebridge to expose my HE devices to Homekit and use Apple Home app as my "dashboard". All my automation logic is in Node-RED and basically, HE is just the controller. I also log all events and the HE logs. In order to know which automation triggered a particular device, all my "automated" actions have virtual switches that are turned on/off along with the other devices (eg: Virtual PM Lights gets turned on when the automation runs to turn on the PM lights and off when the automation turns them off). Since all the events are logged, it's relatively easy to see when particular automation ran.

[aleksmilanov]

@rakeshg

I also log all events and the HE logs

Where and how are you logging?

I've heard about himekit being used a few times now from people... Maybe a project for another day

[erktrek]

I am using Homebridge for my Ring and Nest integrations in Node-RED.. I don't even need Apple Home at all.. but it's nice to have and a lot of my clients are iPeople..

Note: I just noticed the timer switch is actually incorrect, I want the doorbell to only sound during the hours of 06:00 and 22:00 - I have both exits wired to the doorbell chime... sigh.

[rakeshg]

@aleksmilanov

Where and how are you logging?

Logging to a mySQL database using MakerAPI to publish the events to Node-RED. For writing the logs to the database, I use the websocket node.

Here is a link to the topic with the HE Logs -> Node-RED -> mySQL

Hubitat logs to db using Node-RED - LONG READ

A couple of people asked if I could document my process for using Node-RED to store and display HE logs, so here goes: Overall design Log data to DB : Node-RED WebSocket node subscribes to the data published by the logsocket connection on HE and stores the data into a mySQL database. If the log type is anything other than "debug", "info" or "warn", the flow sends out an SMS/email via Gmail using the email node. Display log data : Node-RED native dashboard ui_table is used to display the data.…

For capturing the events to db, I based it on this flow with the exception that I use Node-RED dashboards instead of Grafana:

Hubitat > NodeRed > MySQL > Grafana (LONG READ)

Just a warning: This is a LONG read. I'm a NodeRed junkie for home automation tasks. I find it easy to do everything from network monitoring to rotating log files and firing off complex automations in Hubitat that I don't find Rule Manager suitable for. With that said, the topic here is getting your logs and events from your Hubitat hub and finally into Grafana. I chose Hubitat because I want everything running in my house locally (with some exceptions like Alexa/Google Home, etc). Part of tha…

[rakeshg]

@erktrek

I don't even need Apple Home at all..

I ran into an issue using the Homebridge Node. I had multiple instances of Homebridge and Node-RED (one was test) and the node was combining devices from all Homebridge instances. Apparently, that's how it works. So I had to go the way of virtual switches and a small Apple Home automation to flip the switch when Ring saw motion....

[erktrek]

I think I hit the same thing.. so am only running one instance of HB... this is likely an issue with the HB Node not Homebridge?

[rakeshg]

@erktrek

this is likely an issue with the HB Node not Homebridge

Yeah - it's with the node. Not an issue per se as that is the way the developer wrote it.

No event published for Ring Doorbell Motion?