That is a good datapoint for Homekit users.
But since this is a hubitat specific forum, I would still recommend a zwave or zigbee thermostat to remain completely platform and Wi-Fi/Matter agnostic.
You are apparently unaware that Hubitat directly supports HomeKit devices, without the need for any Apple hardware. Or the need for anyone’s cloud.
And you’re also unaware that existing zwave and zigbee offerings offer mediocre performance with multi-stage HVAC equipment.
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Am I?
My statement is factual.
I am aware HomeKit devices can be paired to Hubitat (or Home Assistant) directly. Some people don’t want their devices to rely on Wi-Fi, for various, valid reasons, which the HomeKit support you mention requires.
Not all Hubitat users use or want to use the Homekit driver.
As far as zibgee/z-wave supported multi stage units, I didnt go there to leave it up to people who have that need.
No need to act like a smarty pants to prove some other point.
And some people do! - & Welcome user6097!
Not too get to far into this debate, and trying to be respectful - But personally, I'm running EcoBee's, and I prefer that they run on WiFi (wish they would finally add Matter support, but hey, HE adding HomeKit works for me), versus various Z-protocols - And I very much appreciate Hubitat's full support for LAN devices (I use LIFX bulbs, versus Hue..)
For things that matter (pun intended) around safety or criticality, I prefer LAN protocols (WiFi included) versus various meshes and ZIP/ZwaveJS routing/repeater idiosynchronies (My IOT WiFi devices are on a seperate VLAN, SSID & WiFi Channel). Like most HE advocates, I'm not a huge fan of "cloud backends", due to all the reasons called out in this thread, as well as avilability and latency concerns (I'm looking at you ST). I use ZWave & Zigbee for lighting automation, battery powered sensors, and presence detection and I'm also a fan of LoRA for long range use-cases. And if it really important, I'll run a hard-wire Cat5 cable, and will not even trust WiFI.
IMHO, having HE and local controls and support for TCP/IP, MQTT, Matter, ZWave, Zigbee is really the ideal situation, given the ability to integrate across all of these at once, via "device driver" abstractions - But local LAN/TCP/IP access definitely has it's pros/cons for various use-cases (not ideal for battery powered sensors, but integration platforms like MQTT are very helpful) - And I personally trust wires, LAN and WiFi protocols MUCH more so, than various Z-Protocols. And I actually even prefer Matter/WiFi, that allows multi-controller support (to have one automation platform "watch over" another)
Obviously, YMMV, and flexibility is good!
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