Migrating from Wink

🎬 Get Started Migrating to Hubitat
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Migrating over from Wink, with whom I had been with for years. They had made a lot of improvements, but ultimately it was just too limiting on the logic it could do. I had considered getting Smartthings, but I love Lutron products and ultimately it just didn't seem like there was enough difference to justify the switch. Apparently the jump to complicated logic and full local control pushed me over the edge for Hubitat.

The process was pretty easy. I did a rolling change over - removing a few items from Wink and adding them to Hubitat. I was surprised that the Lutron Zigbee Remote didn't work with Hubitat, but the ability to use Pico's with a Caseta Pro hub made the Zigbee remotes irrelevant anyway. Getting my Zwave mesh up and going took a few tries - it seems that the range is less on Hubitat than it is on the Wink. That wouldn't be too surprising since the Wink has the antenna build into a larger device. Once the mesh network was up, my coverage increased and it didn't matter anyway. All it really meant was I had to move the hub around to get some of my zwave outlets that were wired in the wall.

The speed difference isn't actually that much better, as Wink had been implementing local control for quite a few devices. What I'm loving is Room Manager. I'm coming from the commercial world of advanced lighting control, where you have one sensor that has a 5, 15, or 30 minute shut off period. Having sensors with a 30 second timeout, and having the software use the amount of activity seen over a few minutes is a totally different way of thinking for me. It makes a lot more sense, particularly in a house. The only issue I run into is if I want the lights off while I'm in a space, as the system would keep turning them on every 30 seconds or so. I believe the solution is a button to disable the system in these situations, as they would be rare. Maybe one of those giant Fibaro red buttons that disables the whole house (for the WAF).

All in all I'm very pleased with Hubitat after a week of use, mainly due to the ability to use Pico switches and Room Manager.

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I, too, have been considering making the jump from Wink to HE , but after reading enough posts to make my eyes bleed I can't see an advantage that goes beyond that of (full) local control. Many here seem to be integrating HE with their existing systems (Wink, ST, Lutron, etc.) which seems to make HE just another add-on rather than a replacement. Why purchase a Lutron Caseta Pro device just to use Pico remotes (especially when Lutron Connected Bulb (Zigbee) remotes do not work with HE)? The USB dongle HE uses has been long discontinued by its manufacturer (Nortek) and the "hub" is an off the shelf device that could go the same way. When these devices are no longer in surplus, to what device will Hubitat re-direct their code and what will it cost users to remain "current"? I'm looking for a compelling reason to move, but so far I can't find one.

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I migrated from Wink to HE, with a quick stopover in Smartthings. I initially made the jump from Wink out of frustration over the lack of flexibility offered by their platform. I wanted to be able to automate more of my devices but was restrained by their closed robots. While they seemed to be pushing their product forward with a lot of steam, towards the end it seemed to die down; fewer and fewer advancements and integrations were being made. I would not be surprised if their parent company sells them off to another tech giant soon. In ST I found the flexibility I was looking for but was incredibly disappointed by their weekly platform outages. Having everything being local made sense and I now can't help but giggle whenever friends complain about outages. While Wink does have a very refined and user friendly platform, (friendly enough that I was able to get my technologically challenged mother into making her home smart) it was not enough to keep me there. What makes HE a great platform is not so much the hardware, but the software and community behind it. It is still in its early stages and will only continue to improve and refine with time. (FYI - My 62 yo mother just purchased her own HE, her idea, and is going to take the plunge into true local control). To touch on the Lutron aspect, I experienced nothing but difficulty with Wink and my Lutron lights falling out of sync (didn't even know that was possible). While you can't use the Connected Bulb Remotes, I have found that they're more expensive and harder to come by than the Pico's. Having the ability to use Pico's to control any aspect of my system has opened so many doors for me and was worth the jump for that alone. I think it all comes down to what are your priorities. For me, the local control and Picos are worth the lack of refined front end and any growing pains that may come.

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Wasn’t this device discontinued too?

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Yes the bulb remote is discontinued, and whilst the nortek stick is no longer in the retail channel, it doesn't mean they aren't making them for us...

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I've have Wink, Insteon, ST, Hue and now Hubitat with a SmartBridge Pro for pico. I have 6 Connected bulb remotes I still use with Hue. You lose some flexibility with them and they can't be programmed outside of Wink, but they're still good. Frankly, Wink's ability to program only 1 press on 4 buttons isn't that useful compared to what can be done with Picos in HE, and the response time of a programed connected bulb remote vs the .5 second response time from a Pico in HE is worth the change. Since connected bulb remotes are discontinued, it's really a moot point anyway.

I really considered making Wink my primary hub at one point, but the robots really are quite limited and although it's nice that Wink supports so many mainstream connected home devices, when they don't support something, or don't do it well, you have no options. ST really scratched that itch, but they have such an unreliable cloud, which they rely on nearly 100% to make anything work, it was a no brainer to make the move when I learned I could use almost identical groovy code with Hubitat and not have any reliability on the cloud if I didn't want to.

If you're more inclined to just stick with more mainstream products and you don't really like to tinker, then HE may not be for you. But if you're frustrated by not being able to use what you want or feel limited in what can be accomplished with Wink, then you'll be pleasantly surprised at just how much can be integrated with HE. Did I dump my Hue or Insteon investment to make way for Hubitat, NO of course not. I've been able to integrate them with a level of reliability that simply cannot be done with ST, and doesn't exist with Wink.

My Hue bridge is controlled by HE now. Only the one Hue remote and Hue motion sensor are still controlled by the Hue bridge

Wink is still running, but performs only one task. I use it to ask Alexa if my August lock is locked or not when I'm upstairs. Honestly, that is probably not going to be used much longer, since I can just ask Alexa to lock the door if I'm unsure.

ST is now decommissioned. Anyone want to buy it? :wink:

I still have Insteon switches, dimmers and sensors. They are good quality, and thanks to Homebridge and the Hubitat port from @tonesto7 of the driver for Homebridge, I'm able to link it together with Hubitat via HomeKit automations. Maybe we'll get a driver in HE for Insteon, maybe we won't, but what I have now is a very comprehensive rules engine to control Insteon devices, and its 100% local. So I never have to think about my internet connection or Insteon's cloud service to keep any of that working. Best of all, I'm controlling Insteon devices with Pico remotes. Never would have been possible with Wink unless you use another cloud service like Stringify and even then, it's not easy, reliable or fast.

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I haven't had any problems with the Lutron CBR, which is why I invested in them. Since they are such "generic" devices (and one of the few remotes available) an effort should have been made to include them. Similarly, theOsram/Sylvania/Lightify/Centralite remotes are all the same device, and are also "generic" (but not "Wink compatible") and, since they are out there in great numbers as well, they too should have been a priority. Having to dump the CB remotes and spend $140.00 on a Caseta Pro hub to get a @15.00 remote to work with your hub doesn't make sense to me...especially when HE cost less than that.

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I believe that the Lutron connected bulb remote has been discontinued. Probably why they're so hard to find now.

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I don't mind "tinkering" I have a Wink Hub 2, three Relays, 20+ zigbee devices, and a several Zwave devices - I don't want to end up with a box full of useless stuff sitting around when that stuff is so generic.

There is no doubt that I will pick up a HE, I'm just waiting for the ability to integrate more of my devices.

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Good to know. Hopefully the Nortek stick I have here in the drawer can be a 'spare'. :wink:

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I’ve been a Wink user for 2 years now and the platform has been generally reliable. But something is amiss at Wink and I suspect that they’re lost some key developers. First, their email notification system has been down for months and if you need to change or recover your password or are expecting email notifications from robots you’re SOL. Then there’s the Wink store where everything is “Temporarily Unavailable”. Add to this that their blog (which wasn’t very active to begin with) hasn’t been updated since March and they’ve seemingly stopped pushing out firmware updates. All of this combined with a very restrictive ecosystem to only allows you to use products from a limited number of Wink partner companies (or use generic versions of ZigBee and Z-Wave devices) and their stubborn reluctance to provide any kind of user community has had me considering moving to another platform for quite some time.

I’ve been considering ST for a quite while and have been a regular ST Community visitor but ST’s cloud reliability has been a complete turn off. HE seems viable but I still can’t figure out what I’d been giving up. I have a second home located 600 miles from my primary residence. Being able to manage lock codes for my Schlage Connect and remotely lock and unlock it, open and close the garage via the GoControl/Linear GD00Z-4, check on the status of lights and sensors are all hugely important to me. While Wink allows me to do this effortlessly, it’s not clear to me if I can do this with HE without a VPN connection or poking holes in my firewall. Would I be able to do these things now with HE?

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VPN or port forwarding would be needed for remote admin access to your hub. VPN being a much more secure option than port forwarding, the hub doesn't even have a password.

But you can create dashboards that run in any browser window to allow for remote monitoring of sensors and control of devices.

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In addition to what Mark said, the Hubitat Dashboards can be securely accessed outside your home via a Hubitat cloud endpoint URL. No need for any port forwarding. As Mark said, that would be a terrible idea.

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Thanks for the replies--sounds good.