Migration from Wink to Hubitat

I have just about had it with Wink. I love my Wink Relays and the ease at which Wink allows integration. After this latest system outage from Wink, I am thinking of migrating over to Hubitat.

If I am understanding correctly, I will need a Hubitat hub $129 and a L-BDGPRO2-WH Lutron Smartbridge Pro to control my Lutron Caseta switches. I have 7 Wink Relays that I want to continue to work, about 20 Lutron Caseta switches a, nd several dimmers, Feit switches and lights, Amcrest cameras, ReoLink cameras, Nest Thermostats, MyQ garage door openers, Flume water meter sensor, Arlo cameras, Wyze plugin switches.

My Wink hub controls all my Lutron stuff as well as the Wink Relays scattered through the house. Most of the other stuff works great with Google Assistant but it would be nice to get it connected to Hubitat but most of it is wifi based.

My concern is that after spending almost $300 to get the equipment I need for the migration to Hubitat, will my system work or will I need to buy even more hubs or extenders to reach the far corners of my 5000 sq ft house. Will I be able the use my existing Wink Hubs to increase range. Will my Lutron brand plug-in lamp dimmers act as extenders for Hubitat? Am I going to get so frustrated with the conversion process due to the complexity of the Hubitat interface. It is very difficult to tell without purchasing the hardware an testing out the waters.

Any insight would be most appreciated.

Tony

Welcome to Hubitat! There are many of us here you migrated from Wink; I moved over in early 2019. There are several things that you should be aware of.

First the list of Hubitat compatible devices. These are devices that have been confirmed by Hubitat engineers to work with Hubitat and are supported by built-in drivers. This doesn't mean folks aren't using devices which are not on this list; such devices may work with built-in drivers or a driver written by a Hubitat community member. Your Wink Relays fall in that category - they work with a driver written by @josh (Josh Lyon). Here's the community thread about Josh's driver

There are also community integrations for Nest Thermostats and MyQ garage door openers. The MyQ garage door integration will require a Hubitat-compatible tilt or contact sensor to monitor door state. Meaning - a zigbee/z-wave sensor separate from the one that MyQ comes with.

You havent' described any zigbee or z-wave devices. If you have those, you will need to build strong mesh networks to get those devices working. The Hubitat Documentation describes how to create z-wave and zigbee mesh networks.

https://docs.hubitat.com/index.php?title=How_to_Build_a_Solid_Z-Wave_Mesh

https://docs.hubitat.com/index.php?title=How_to_Build_a_Solid_Zigbee_Mesh

No.

Lutron's Caseta line permits the first plug-in dimmer to act as a repeater for the Caseta Pro Bridge. So position the first plug-in dimmer you add to the Caseta Pro bridge wisely. It should be placed such that it can transmit ClearConnect signals to about half your house. And must be in range for the Caseta Pro Bridge.

Anything new can be frustrating at first. However, after having used Hubitat for 2 years, I am frustrated by the time I wasted on Wink! I'm sure there are other former Wink users here (@neonturbo, @SoundersDude, and many others) who agree.

You'll also find the Hubitat community to be super-helpful. Be sure to make use of it during your transition to Hubitat!

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I am done with Wink as well and my Hubitat is arriving today so I will start my migration tonight. Looking forward to it because I have always wanted to be able to do sophisticate rules excepsially for my automated lights only to have them come on when the room is dark. I have been doing lots of research on my devices to get ready for the migration. Two Questions:

1 - Is there a community group for Wink migrations would be great if there is not
2- If my wink up is not back by today what is the best way to do an exclusion on my zwave devices if I cant put the wink hub in exclusion mode.

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Z-wave devices can be excluded by any controller. So you can use Hubitat to exclude your z-wave devices paired to Wink.

Zigbee devices must be factory-reset to pair with a new zigbee coordinator. So you need reset instructions for your zigbee devices.

Hubitat Documentation has reset & join instructions for lots of devices. But you can also check with the community.

https://docs.hubitat.com/index.php?title=Join_and_Reset_Instructions

There isn't one for Wink specifically. But you can post migration questions to "Support/Migrating to Hubtiat".

Finally - welcome to Hubitat!

+1 on everything @aaiyar said. I came over from wink over Christmas 2019 and haven't looked back. I did not have any Wink Relays like you do, but do have Lutron Casettas and with HE has for real started true automation. With Wink I felt my house was "smarter" and I could so cool stuff from my phone, but now with HE I feel my house is actually automated. The apps and the rules take you so much further than what Wink Robots can.

If there was one thing I missed still from Wink, it would be the UX of the mobile app. HE's UX is bad, as they clearly do not employ a designer yet :), and the dashboards are fugly. Having said that you can easily fix that with things like Smartly and the fantastic integrations with Alexa, Google and even Homekit (if you run Homebridge like I do).

Exciting times!

I'm excited for you on this adventure.

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Lutron also has a Caseta repeater. Only one can be added.

Thanks for all the replies! I will order my equipment today. The only z-wave stuff I have are kwikset and Schlage locks. I am hoping that the Hubitat hub will see them and connect without extenders. Most of my automation is done via Google Home when we are home since it is very convenient.

Although I like the idea of being able to create fancy automation routines, I don’t have that many needs right now.

I hope to change all my wink relays over to an android display with wink running in the background.

I plan on using a raspberry pi to control all 3 of my garage doors utilizing security contacts for up and down sensing and automation hat relays to raise and lower the doors. Once I get that going, I will search for ways to include that with Hubitat.

You will almost certainly need Z-Wave beaming repeaters for the Schlage locks for reliable operation. I use Ring Alarm Range Extender Gen 2, which are nice because they have internal battery backup and can report power fail events to your hub. Aeotec Range Extender 7 devices are good beaming repeaters, too.

You will find this easier to do using Hubitat and a Zooz ZEN16.

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I made the same transition... the only difference is I went from Wink to ST to HE. A couple things I learned along the way...

You already noted the Lutron pro hub need... another thing to consider is if you have a lot of zigbee bulbs it's generally accepted as best practice to run those from a separate hub to keep the zigbee bulbs on an isolated zigbee mesh. I use a Phillips hub to do it... there is excellent HE <> Hue integration.

My house is a 4,000 sq ft lathe and plaster faraday cage. I have a couple of Zigbee repeaters (Ikea) but other than that I don't have any extra hubs just to route...

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So, what are you using for door level sensors. I don’t want to spend $30 to $40/door for a product that might last 6 months (about the life expectancy of the MyQ sensors that I was using).

I use a door open/closed sensor. For this I repurposed an old GoControl contact sensor (door/window sensor - WADWAZ-1) into a tilt sensor by attaching a tilt switch to the external contacts.

This has worked fine now since ~March/April of 2019. I've had this since mid-2015 when I first got Wink. I've changed batteries 2-3 times over the last 5 and a half years.