Hey all! With Smartthings' recent announcement that they'll be killing Groovy, I think it's finally time for me to bite the bullet and migrate over to Hubitat (been considering it for a few years now).
I see that the current C-7 hub has been out for a few years now. Would it be worth it to hold out for a few months in case a new hub is announced? I see that the C-7 is currently heavily discounted (50% off) which leads me to believe that there may be a new hub just around the corner. Has anyone heard anything about when a new hub might be available, and what upgrades it will have?
Thanks for the replies! I look forward to getting started with migrating over my system (hopefully it won't be too hard to get my custom devices to work on hubitat) and participating in the community!
While Hubitat (or any company for that matter) does not disclose their future plans, I see no evidence they are going to release a new hub soon. The C7 was implemented partially because of availability of Z-wave chipsets, (shortage of 500 series) and probably the promise of the 700 series being "better" than the C5's 500 series Z-wave chipset.
I suspect they are not going to go to the 800 series Z-wave, they will likely skip to whatever the next chipset is, or whatever is commonly available in the future. I suspect that the next hub update will also deal with Matter, if that becomes a thing. Jury is out on that one.
Disclaimer here: I have no inside information, so I cannot tell you with 100% certainty that there is not a new hub. Just there is no evidence of it, or information or rumors about it. Or any need to revise hardware for that matter.
My opinion is don't wait for the reasons above. If you wait, it might be a month, or it could be 3 years. No way to tell, and you may as well enjoy the hub and your home.
I wouldn't wait. Join the groovier side. It is here to stay, unlike other platforms with confusing and agonizing moving targets that get pushed around as the wind blows today.
Welcome to the community! I migrated from ST years ago and have not looked back.
Some thoughts:
By design the Hubitat Elevation is local, therefore even IF Hubitat, Inc were to get bought out or change direction ala Samsung you would still be able to continue to run all your local automations and likely most of your cloud ones as well. You are in control..
Just be aware that there will be a bit of a learning curve, the UI and some concepts are different enough that you might get frustrated. Start with the native Apps first and go from there once you get comfortable.
The shift from using the 500 series Zwave chips in STs hub to 700 series in the C7 could cause some heartburn as well. Older Z-Wave (non plus) devices can be problematic - consider replacing if you can.
Old Z-Wave devices may require polling which also add to network congestion and additional resource usage.
ST had the advantage of cloud processing - and could offload some of the more problematic processes, Because it's local, HE does not have this so resources are a bit more constrained. This is almost never an issue but a good thing to keep in mind the more custom apps/drivers especially cloud based ones you deploy.
If you used WebCoRE with ST it is also available in HE! In order to be cloud free you might want to run your own UI server if possible.
The community here is awesome and can help with a lot of things.
My take (I also have no inside information) is no. All hub hardware revisions dating back to the original C-3 continue to work, so if what you get works for you now, it should continue to well into the future, based on history. The biggest changes have been moving the radios inside on the C-5 (a USB dongle was required on the C-3/C-4...and C-5 for non-North-American Z-Wave frequencies) and the switch to 700-series Z-Wave with the C-7. There is technically 800-series Z-Wave now (though few, if any, devices), but it's not radically different from the 700-series, especially on the controller (hub) side, and that alone would not push me to upgrade.
Matter won't, either, at least not now--I think we'll have to wait years to see if it fulfills any of its promises. Hubitat would need a Thread radio to become a Thread border router, but if you already have one, it seems like the rest is basically software (Matter itself is just an application layer with a few "native" options for the physical layer). And there's no guarantee any of this will take off to...matter...in the first place. But there sure is a lot of hype.
I'm not sure what else they could change. 800-series Z-Wave seems most likely if it's still current whenever the next hub comes out, but again, there's not a lot in that for hubs. Range, speed, Z-Wave Long Range (also long-promised...) compatibility, etc. are all the same. But the chips might actually be available (soon?), I suppose, a problem that has plagued many manufacturers...
Thanks so much for all of the excellent information! I always heard that the Hubitat community is awesome, and you surely didn't disappoint!
I went ahead and placed my order for the C-7 based on everyone's feedback. Can't wait to get the hub and begin to put SmartThings behind me (which hasn't been the same since the Samsung acquisition). I'm sure I'll have more questions as I work on migrating over all of my devices. I'm glad to know that I'll be able to poke in here and get such great responses!
[So it worked again! Can't believe how gullible these SmartThings uers are!! Bonus to us, since Hubitat pays us for each new user. Shhhh...don't tell anyone.]
Thanks for the info. Even lack of info is still useful. My Hubitat arrives this evening. I have 2 SmartThings hubs that I am working on replacing. Tonite starts the transition.
Were it me, I'd get on it now; why wait for something that may be way off? The hubs aren't that expensive, and even if a new one comes along, will it have some new, special, whiz-bang feature you MUST have? I doubt it.
A long time ago it was time to get my mother a new computer. She asked if she should wait because they were always changing. Yes, at that stage, they were. But, virtually everything om the market did what she needed, and then some. I got her a very nice machine, and it lasted her for the rest of her life
Also used the ST's act of cutting the cord to move over here. I had started thinking about moving away from ST about a month ago, this was just the final straw.
The forum has been great just over the last couple of hours since I joined. I am glad to see my groovy coding experience won't be wasted. (Just little stuff, but it really simplified automation on the ST side.)
@AC7SS I'm in the same boat. Over the last 5 years I've written or modified several custom device handlers and smartapps. With the change, I would lose more than half of my devices. It made switching over to Hubitat an easy decision. I'm hopeful that my custom device handlers will mostly work out of the box, but we'll have to see.
I was really dreading using WebCORE. The majority of my usage is automated, with several of the automations being fairly complex (stuff that wouldn't be handled with routines).
It's going to be interesting to see where SmartThings goes from here. They're getting rid of everything that made them so great. I would expect there to be a mass Exodus to other ecosystems once they completely end support for Groovy.
Join the groovier side. It is here to stay, unlike other platforms with confusing and agonizing moving targets that get pushed around as the wind blows today.
