New user looking for reliable brands. What do you trust?

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1

Black Friday deals are almost upon us. I'm new to the Hubitat system and I'm looking for a reliable brand or two for:

Plugs
Blinds
Light and fan switches

Basically anything else. What do you suggest? I'm sure there's something i never would've considered.

Thank you!

Edit: or maybe there's something that works make my dumb device smart?

Right now I prefer z-wave.

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2

Lights and fan switches:
My go-to are Inovelli. They have the Zigbee Blue Series and Z-Wave Red Series. Both of these work very well. They have tons of features and are extremely versatile.
I also have some Lutron that require the Lutron Pro 2 Hub. They are simple but just work - always.
Finally, Zooz have some very good switches as well that are very reliable.

Motion Sensors:
My go-to are the Smart Things and Hue motion sensors.
If I need to also have Humidity integrated, I like the Zooz ZSE40 4-in-1 (the newer ones) and the larger ZSE11. I like this last one because it can be connected directly to power - no battery required.

Contact Sensors:
I really like the Ring v2 contact sensors. They just work well and consistently.

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3

Zooz is darn hard to beat for z-wave gear in terms of balancing a wide catalog, reasonable prices, device features, and support.

Zooz support itself is responsive, and they do a good job with maintaining firmware & documentation. And their stuff is well-supported by community developers here in Hubitat.

The Smartest House is actually Zooz's own storefront, although they sell other brands there too. I expect they'll have some Black Friday deals going up soon.

4

Since lighting is so critical, my recommendation is Lutron Caseta switches, dimmers, pico remotes connected to the Lutron Pro bridge. The regular Lutron bridge does not work with Hubutat. The Caseta system works with the Clear Connect protocol which is a different frequency from Z-wave, Zigbee, and WiFi. I have found it to be rock solid. However, such reliability comes at a price.

For Z-wave, I have had success with Zooz and Ecolink. Aeotec is also an option. Most of my devices are series 700, but some 800 series devices are being introduced.

For Zigbee, I recommend Third Reality and Tuya based devices sold by Moes. Aeotec is producing some of the former Smartthings Zigbee devices. You have to be careful when purchasing Aeotec that you get the protocol you desire. I suggest trying to get Zigbee 3.0 devices if possible.

5

Lutron for switches and dimmers.
Nyce for contact sensors (Zigbee).

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