Need help adding a second user to the hub

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1

Totally support that. This is another one of those things for which HE staff thinks outside of users' perspective. For now, it's impossible for my wife to use the geo location from her app without overwriting my own app's geo location. If I press "send geo location event" from her phone's app, it literally renames the object previously created under my name from my app. The result is that only one of us can trigger events when coming home and it's just a big mess. Apparently there's still a mysterious way to have two users logging in the app's interface... Tried to create such a new user, but it asks me to link the hub. It says, exactly, this:

"please visit portal.hubitat.com to discover your hub. Once you have found your hub on your local network, please link your hub to the account you have create to login to this app. (notice the syntax doesn't make any sense here...) You can link your account in the portal."

Then there's a button to go to the portal and once there no further info on what to do next...

Not only this is obscure as hell, but on top of everything it might not even be what I'm supposed to do to have my wife logged into the app with her own credentials since It seems that the hub can be linked to only one user's credentials anyway. yay! But, hey! engineers views are so much more important than client's, right?

In other words, this is a mess and another thing HE won't tolerate critics about while they are slowly but surely taking the same dark road taken some time ago by ST: not working on user's experience, thinking in rational terms while human psychology is never rational and while their customers are humans... not all engineers or tech savvy people. Fortunately and unlike ST, they do react to critics and answer questions (which is huge in comparison to the absolute absurdity that ST's CS is)

Nevertheless, for these reasons the app is useless to us, not counting the fact that my wife finds the dashboard totally not user friendly (you have to scroll dozens of devices before you can see the one you're looking for, it's impossible to set a temperature if the related thermostat is not currently operating, and so on with so many design flaws such as the impossibility to update the dashboard with new devices other than pressing "+", then identifying the device type (seriously? You think customers will even be aware of what a device type is???) then naming it and then... that's the worst part... not being able to place it where you'd like other than playing an unending game of Sokoban... HE is great at many levels, but totally not user friendly: a non-geek and any non tech savvy person will never, ever want to use the web interface either and, instead of the dashboard, they'll simply prefer walk to the thermostat, the switch they want to toggle, etc., especially my wife! :):laughing:

2

There are two different sets of credentials you are taking about. There are accounts that are linked to a hub that are used to log in to the mobile app or when you are looking 3rd party apps to the hub. Details are here about adding additional accounts (as many as you want) How to change accounts linked to your hub - Hubitat Documentation

The other type of account is the one that secures the admin UI of the hub. That is what was being discussed in this thread and the system only allows one account. Think of it like the admin account on your router. It is not used for the mobile app.

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3

I'm really confused about this statement. Why not create a simple dashboard with just the devices needed? Do you just have one dashboard with all your devices on it? Or maybe you are mistakenly referring to the device admin UI? That is not designed for day to day use.

4

I do have several dashboards and it is indeed the solution to the matter. However, for what regards thermostats it's basically useless for I do HAVE TO go into the web UI in order to set a desired temp if it's not running since it doesn't show controls when it's not running... Now, I can turn it on, of course, but if I have an automation that states that it'll turn it off unless the set point is not reached, then I simply cannot modify the set point because the automation will kick in and turn it back off.

More than just that, it's the whole impossibility to add a new device to the dashboard through the app UI directly and the Sokoban game you have to play to set your tiles. I still haven't found, either, a way to change the general arrangements of the tiles: it seems you can decide of how many columns and rows ONLY at initial setup... Maybe I'm missing some things but in general having to delete a board to have it displayed according to a new layout seems totally absurd to me.

5

Thanks. I'll look into it. I figured, in a way, that I was missing something but when I tried to find this other account type you are mentioning, I just could not find it. Thanks again.

6

Ok, so if I follow this doc below:

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

it shows a section that no longer exists: "user administration"

Now, if follow this documention's guidelines:

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

I get this : "user must sign in first"... After clicking on "Add User".... ? I guess this is a matter of being able to have only one admin...
How do I access the "user administration" section shown in the documentation, then? When I click on my hub, as the doc shows, I simply don't get directed to where the doc says I should get to.

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I eventually figured it out, but only after clicking a link somewhere else than the one shown in the documentation and after messing around for a while. I am showing here only a small portion of the inconsistencies I had to go through. Of course, in the end, beside the doc not being accurate, I figured that most came from user errors. But this also could be name "lack of foolproof" features. Depends from which standpoint we look at it, I suppose.

I just wanted to leave this post for the record so someone could update the documentation and maybe make things a little easier for what regards creating new portal's users. I had to find the link to access this section anywhere but from the place shown in the documentation and this, in itself, should suffice to deserve some attention.

7

Don't use that document, all the information you need is on the second page you linked to. The first page is only for local admin account.

At the top of the page you linked to https://docs.hubitat.com/index.php?title=How_to_change_accounts_linked_to_your_hub There is the section " Creating new login accounts" click on the link provided there and create a new account.

Then go to the next section, "Promoting a Guest account to Admin" That will walk you through adding that new account that you created to your existing hub and then promoting it to an admin.

8

If you have suggested edits. feel free to propose them on the docs. It is a wiki for this specific purpose.

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Thank you @chuck.schwer

I noticed that it was a wiki but I remain pretty confident in the fact that this is a business and that I'm a customer... HE doesn't strike me as an open source platform. You can't have your cake and eat it too. :wink:

11

Dear Sir or Madam,

I understand. We provide a number of different methods for fellow home automation enthusiasts to interact with us whether it is by this forum or the wiki or the Hubitat Live show. While we enjoy interacting directly with those enthusiasts on our forum and in our other channels, for those people who would rather maintain a business/customer relationship with us, like yourself, we provide a support email where you can enter tickets in a structured way. I will make sure that future interactions between us are kept strictly business professional. I appreciate your purchase of our product.

Sincerely,
Charles Schwer
Hubitat, Inc

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12

Dear Sir, :slight_smile:

These facts alone speak for themselves:

I found out that the doc was incomplete and that it was a pain to just add a new user without proper documentation. I sent feedback about the matter.

You told me to go complete the documentation myself... You might as well have told me to go do something else to myself, just in a less polite way, it would have been the same type of answer: rude.

Sincerely,

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13

I was actually trying to be helpful, but in the future I will refrain from replying to you since my helpfulness comes across as rude, my apologies. I did update the wording on that page before I replied to you with the suggestion that in the future you could propose changes to the wiki yourself instead of posting a message here that we may or may not see. As I mentioned in my post you are welcome to put tickets in as well. We had a number of users ask about editing the docs when they saw an issue and that is why we put it in as a wiki. I know not everybody wishes to help out and that is fine, I will avoid the topic with you in the future.

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15

Hi @chuck.schwer, I have been struggling for a good hour to help my wife and sons setup their apps on their phones. After searching for a bit (I wish I was better at searching for info...), I found the doc link within this post and it allowed me to set things up properly. They have now all been setup to be able to use their iPhone apps and can now use the dashboards and the awesome geofencing capability.

Thinking of my experience, I wonder if there is a way that the users could be notified that “The app admin will need to add your account to the hub within portal.hubitat.com” after their account has been setup?
Alternatively, is there a way that a notification within the app or via email could be sent to the admin with the new user’s id and instructions on how to add users? To go one step further, maybe a link could be provided that would do most of the work for the admin (fill in the e-mail on the web page)...? It would certainly help Hubitat newbies.

Thanks for all your work! There must be so many things that your team needs to look into!
There is a bit of a learning curb, but as I find solutions I find that I like my new Hubitat Hub more and more!

SĂ©bastien

16

So I found this because I'm currently stuck trying to figure out how to add my wife to my hub. I have installed the app on her phone, created a portal account for her, and then I get lost. I'm not sure what is the next step to link the hub to her portal account. All the online guidance says is link from portal.... but where?

17

So, I had my wife sign up for a Hubitat account, and I am attempting to add her as a user. Whenever I enter the email address she used to sign up for an account to the add user page I get the following error:

Error: Request failed with status code 400

Anybody have any experience with this?

18

Did you follow this doc?

You need to enter the email address you'd like to use, a password for the account (not the email account's actual password) and then enter the verification code that is sent.

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

19

I'm having the same problem. When I enter my wife's email address, I get the same error message.

20

I did! I actually entered her email and password for her, and then she gave me the confirmation code that I entered.

Thankfully whatever the issue was seems to have cleared up. Without changing anything or registering a different email I went to the page to add users and tried her account again, and now it's working. I guess whatever service that adds users was broke for a bit.

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21

Oh boy, thought I was pretty Hubitat savvy as a new user, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to get my wife on our account as a second user, correctly! No matter where I go, what I do I never get to the screen that shows guest users etc.

Following other instructions I had my wife create a separate account on the Hubitat app on her iPhone and complete the email verification. She was then able to click on find your hub on the network and connect, so thought was all good and then she had access to our dashboards etc so all was good.

A couple hours later she wanted to dim the living room lights so she opened the Hubitat app and it brought her to the page where she had to scan for the hub again, like starting over as a new user again!?!?!

So following more community instructions that said to go to the portal.hubitat.com, click on our hub image and it should take me to a screen for adding guest users but clicking on it just takes me into the normal hubitat home page (ie dashboards, devices, apps etc).

I also tried the Hub "Settings" Hub Login Security and then "Add User" but that provided a menu for registering new users but my wife is already registered?

PLEASE HELP:):):)!!!!

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23

well thanks for the reply.

I almost wonder if someone did something on the back end after my post because I had several hubitat tabs on my browser opened and the one where I clicked on the your hub icon in the "Hub List" which previously left me at the "Welcome to your elevated home" menu switched on its own to the Guest User dialog that it was supposed to go to originally...it actually went there on its own at some point after I gave up on it.

So I was then able to add my wife as a guest user. Now her iPhone app is hanging while trying to churn through the process but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.