Moving from Smartthings

All the virtual devices have buttons to simulate an action or to set a value, so you can easily debug your automations in Hubitat without the actual devices.

"Swap Apps Device" is in the Settings menu on the left.

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Sorry folks I know I’m being a pest here but rather than me starting a new thread I figured I’d post here because I’m trying to weigh up the pros and cons from moving to ST to Hubitat.

As I want to make everything run local as much as I can, one thing I can’t figure out is, is there a way to change the status of a mode automatically if there is no internet. So with ST I use me and my wife’s mobile phone through life 360 as a presence sensor to switch from away to home when we arrive, but if the internet happens to be down at this time then this won’t change, which can be a disaster as thing will run when we get home because ST still thinks we’re in away mode and there’s no way to change this during internet down.

What’s the best way to tackle this with Hubitat, is it possible to still use mobile presence this way even if internet is down?

Thank you.

No, because presence from the mobile app is internet dependent.

That being said, you can aggregate presence from multiple inputs, such as connecting to your WiFi network, using a particular lock code, disarming the alarm with a specific code etc etc

All of the options make establishment of presence independent of a geofence event.

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Ah yes makes sense. :slight_smile:
So how could you have the mode change by connecting to your wifi if said internet was down? This seems a really good way to fully automate rather than having to input codes etc but fail to see how that work work.

Thanks.

EDIT.
Or rather , let me ask. What way are you all changing modes from when your out to when your home? I assume most folk here are wanting to make this local too.

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Welcome aboard. Great questions, keep them coming, is better to prepare ahead, instead of trying to sort out the problems you may face for the lack of planning.

I remember the days when modes were stuck one way in the cloud, and one way locally. Those weren't fun days, to say the least. With Hubitat, that will never happen, because we don't have to keep the local hub syncronized with a virtual hub running in the cloud, which most cloud based platforms must do.

As @aaiyar mentioned above, even if the cloud presence fails to change the mode because the hub has no internet, Hubitat offers countless ways to recover. You can use a button, a contact sensor, a switch, a virtual presence that can be triggered from the hub's local interface or a rule to change the mode in absence of a cloud dependent presence sensor.

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I use the wifi presence method @aaiyar describes. It requires a bit of tweaking because iPhones have a habit of dropping wifi to conserve power but I’ve never had a false positive - in other words if wifi presence says you’re there, you really are. It does not require internet but it does require a network connection.

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So you’ll still connect to wifi on your network even if your internet was down, and that triggers your presence?

Yes

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Nice.

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My mode changes from away to home using three different inputs:

  1. My car coming within 30 feet of my house (this method uses zigbee, and is internet independent).
  2. My iPhone triggering a virtual switch when I enter Home (this method uses Homebridge and is local LAN dependent, but not internet dependent when I'm within WiFi range of my house).
  3. OwnTracks on my phone triggering an event (this method is LAN dependent. but not internet dependent when I'm within WiFi range of my house).
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What happens if your phone switches off whilst in the house? Doesn’t that mean Hubitat would think you were out and trigger an away mode event?

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Good question, but this is not an issue, because switching to Away depends on two of three things happening.

I do most of my automation using Node-RED, and that automation is shown below. Four different parameters are considered for my presence to be "Home". Any one of those found triggering is sufficient to indicate I am home (green box - "count=1")

For my presence to be "Away", three different parameters are evaluated. Any two of those triggering is required to indicate I am away (red box - "count=-2").

Based on this automation, it becomes apparent that establishing Home mode does not require internet access, but establishing "Away" mode requires internet access, because only one of those three will trigger just based on zigbee availability (Car Arrival Sensor). This is by design.

Damn, you’ve thought of everything. Some of that a little over my head but impressive.

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By trial and error - over a long time.

For example, there is a 9 minute delay between my individual presence sensors signaling "Away" and the mode being changed to Away. That's because very often I just make a quick trip to the neighborhood grocery store to pick up milk or eggs, and I don't want to trigger Away for such a short trip. If I return within 9 minutes, that timer is canceled and the house remains in Home mode.

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I just finished this -- I did it all by excluding and repairing. It was a pain but overall I think it was worth it. I have 100 devices online and doing this forced me to rethink my SmartHome. It was originally designed and implemented over seven years, this time it was built more efficiently rather than layered over time. I also realized how many workarounds I had put in place as ST removed functionality. With HE, I made it better.

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Wipe and reload. Always best.

Welcome all. It's ace over here.

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Wi-Fi and internet are two separate things. You can have an entire Wi-Fi network running in your home with no internet access. All my PC's and Network attached storage devices still communicate with each other. So if your internet is down, but your power and wi-fi are still on, then when you get home your phone will connect to wi-fi albeit with no Internet access

As a network engineer you have no idea how much it bugs me when people interchange those

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