I have been using Hubitat at my condo in LA for about four months. I only have a few sensors connected (motion, door, water, Iris Keypad) so my setup is fairly simple - Nest Protect/Cam, HSM, RPI Audio Alerts, and Homebridge. Unlike at home where I have a fairly complicated setup (200+ devices) that I built since 2015 when I started using ST.
While I did have some initial bugs with HSM, it seems to work significantly better now after updates (though I haven't been able to test functionality to the fullest extent yet).
My biggest issue with Hubitat is that the Hub went down twice (and became unpingable) so I had to physically unplug and plug it back in. If this happens again, I will be unable to consider Hubitat to be a viable option. (Never experience this in ST since 2015).
I would also like to see the mobile app soon.
I recently purchased a new condo in NoCal (still under construction) that is located 400 miles away (the current LA condo is 50 miles away). I plan to be at the NoCal condo a few months a year. Hence, the Hubitat Hub has to remain function/accessible for this extended period of time during the remainder of the year (when I am away).
The place will not be built till May so I still have sometime to plan. But do you think Hubitat would work in this setup?
Could I use one of these PoE splitters to power my Hubitat? In the event something does go wrong -> I can power cycle the Hub easily?
I use a Digital Loggers Web Power Switch 7 and highly recommend it. It's got 8 controllable outlets and an "Auto Ping" feature that will ping one or more IP addresses at user definable intervals. After a number of failures (also user definable) it will power cycle the outlet configured for Auto Ping.
I don't have the HE hub setup for Auto Ping. Instead, I have my router and cable modem setup such that a no response after 60 minutes from google's DNS servers power cycles the router and modem outlets. It'll do this for up to 6 times (6 hours) before giving up and leaving the outlet on.
I have a vacation house 600 miles away and can VPN in to control the Web Power Switch via its (local) web interface. My HE hub has never locked up but if it does, I can power cycle the outlet that it's plugged in to. For me, the bigger and more likely issue is that I'll lose internet access because of a router hang or some other cable co issue that requires a model power cycle.
Setup is easy and they're often on ebay for under $100.
I have been using this PoE kit to power my hub since day one and it has worked great. I suspect it's the same splitter, but includes an injector too. I considered using my existing PoE injector (currently used only for PoE cameras) to power the hub, but decided to use a dedicated injector instead so I could independently manage power to the hub if needed. I don't have a PoE switch, but I suspect individual port power control could be done through the switch's management interface. If so, you should be able to get by with just the splitter. I don't have any input on a way to remotely handle a hub power cycle (my process mentioned below obviously wouldn't work for the hub itself), but wanted to let you know that I've had success using PoE to power my hub.
@SteveV This looks pretty cool. I currently have my modem and router connected to Peanut plugs so I can power cycle them from my dashboard (virtual buttons turn the plugs off, and a triggered rule turns them back on after a short delay). I did this out of pure laziness so I don't have to go to the basement to power cycle them, but I really like the idea of having something like the web power switch handle this automatically. Thanks for the tip.
Just be careful when picking a WiFi outlet. I have a Wemo Mini WiFi outlet which always reverts to OFF after a power blip. This is not a good solution for a device that you want always on, like a HE hub. Of course, if you plug the Wemo Mini into a UPS, you can mitigate this risk. However, I would prefer an outlet that either maintains its last state, or is initially ON when it is powered up.
Your ST hub hasn’t gone down once since 2015? You must have some secret sauce that the rest of us don’t...
Edit: also, if you really mean literally 100% uptime, I’m not sure that there’s any wallet-friendly solution intended for the average consumer that would meet that requirement. Have you looked into higher-end solutions like Control4?
You can set up rules in the WeMo app to turn the switch on.
You can also use IFTTT.
Using either or both of the above 2 solutions you can program up rules/tasks to run every few hours regardless of the state of the switch.
I keep saying this. It's preference.
I find the TP Link WiFi Switches to be much more reliable within their own app than Wemo.
Wemo 30% of the time says it can't find my switch.
The UPS is a good idea. I would just plug the WiFi Switch into the output of the UPS then the hub into that.
My ST has gone down during cloud outages but it has always recovered by itself. I never had to power cycle the Hub. I never disconnected power on my V2 Hub since I got it
In the 3.5 years I used my v1 ST hub (never felt compelled to upgrade to v2, especially without a migration utility), I'm sure I had to power cycle it a handful of times for one reason or another.
But yes I understand, ST downtime was usually due to cloud issues, not an individual hub.
In the case of HE, the local execution is a huge net improvement for me, and my hub really doesn't lock up at random, the only times it has was when I was tinkering with something maybe I shouldn't have been. @kamransiddiqi1998 my guess is that you can probably troubleshoot why your hub is becoming unresponsive, you'll have to just isolate things one at a time, like some of the custom apps you have running (that seems to be support's go-to as a first step, and it's a pretty reasonable one).
Not to mention that UPS batteries do fail. Not ideal when you're hundreds of miles away and your UPS won't power back on because of a battery issue after the power is restored.
I've been live on HE since October and have never had to power cycle the hub. In fact, I'm pretty sure I haven't so much as laid a finger on the hub since I installed it. Have had to do a couple of reboots through the UI here and there but it's never become unresponsive.
Yeah, but in the event of a power outage that lasts longer than the life of your UPS, your hub is down until one of these rules fire bringing it back up. And that's only if you have internet (in the case of IFTTT). Seems a little too risky IMHO. I have it set up with a WiFi device with a default on setting. That way I don't have to worry about forcing it to be on.
I have OpenVPN running on a Raspberry Pi. Works really well and wasn't all that tough to set up. This is the tutorial I used. It's a little too detailed but you can't say that he leaves anything out. Was still all applicable when I did mine a few months ago.
