New User New Hubitat - Trouble with UK post code upon setup

[habitat]

Hi

Just received my new Hubitat.

Just setting it up and run into a roadblock.

It will not accept ANY UK Postcode.

The error messages says 'Invalid Postal Code'

I can't get Hubitat to accept ANY valid Postal Code.

So blocked from using device.

I have reported to Hubitat Support.

But I can't see any room here for confusion.

It will NOT accept any UK Postcode at all - with or without a Space between the Main and Minor elements.

This is deeply troubling for me that out the box Hubitat is flakey.

Unless Postcode means something else in Hubitat and a 'special' something need to be added?

I could only add this as Special feature request - Can this product be designed to enable Setup special enough?

[thebearmay]

Looking at some old threads... you may be able to use an underscore instead of a space, alternatively you may be able to leave it blank and then enter the Long/Lat manually.

UK Postal Code Problem

Trying to register my UK Postal Code in the location area and it keeps telling me it's an invalid postal code and that you only support US/UK/Canada Codes, my post code is a UK post code (I tried a few others non worked), is this a known issue, something new or something that has never worked? I appreciate you can leave it blank and enter your Lat/Long which I have done, just my OCD kicking in

[habitat]

Thanks for responding.

Nope Hubitat will not accept any valid UK Postcode with space, no space or even an underscore.

What I was able to do was enter and invalid postcode of the first 4 characters.

When I did it seemed to think it was is Nebraska

Then looking up the Lat/long in Google was able to setup location so that Sunrise and Sunset were more accurate.

I have to say the worst experience yet so far, does not fill me with a great confidence that the Hubitat will be competent if the first step at setup is anything to go by.

It's not as if it is hard to test and makes me very very worried about Quality Assurance or lack of it.

Will see how it does with some basic integrations.

[marktheknife]

Just a guess after looking through the thread @thebearmay linked to, but this could be an unresolved issue specific to UK postal codes.

It doesn’t sound like a QA issue, which would imply something’s up with your hub specifically, I believe.

I think you’ll find there’s not too much to be worried about. There are many satisfied UK users here and as you’ve noted it’s still possible to correctly set your location with Lat/Long coordinates.

[BorrisTheCat]

@marktheknife

There are many satisfied UK users here and as you’ve noted it’s still possible to correctly set your location with Lat/Long coordinates.

Yeah give up on post code just search and place you hub on your house.

@habitat

I have to say the worst experience yet so far, does not fill me with a great confidence that the Hubitat will be competent if the first step at setup is anything to go by.

Don't worry it's the only thing that's really annoying on the 1st step. My post code is 4 digits then 3 and as long as you just put in your 1st 4 it will work and get you close.

[Shaneb]

Users experience 101 though.

[habitat]

Thanks for the replies everyone, very much appreciated.

@marktheknife If this is occurring for all users in the UK, then one of the three countries support for Postcode (US/CA/UK) then I would have expected someone in Quality Assurance/Testing to have identified in Alpha, or reported during Beta.

I have been informed by Support that it is a known issue and not a bug - it is a Java 'feature' and there is nothing that the Hubitat Team can do about it. - My response would be then edit the text to state support for Postcode in two countries US/CA - simples

Now new users in the UK not running into a roadblock during install and not raising support tickets or asking for help to circumvent a really stupid issue.

This reminds me of a store I went into recently when they came running at me saying you can't come in that way, it is the Exit.

So I looked around and nothing to indicate it was an exit, but went around and entered through another door, when the shop assistant who shouted at me, said we get so many people coming in through the wrong door I have to stand here and tell them all day.

I suggested maybe put a notice on the door saying EXIT may relieve them of the duty, to which they were stunned by the simplicity of the solution!

'We get a lot of issues of users stuck during install, but only in the UK'

An opportunity to improve, maybe?

I have been working my way through several Hubs, while I look for a more 'Appliance' HA device to take over sub sections of HA from my PC based HA system, this is the first one I have run into a wall on when performing a basic setup.

Hopefully, the rest of the eval will be less bumpy

Thank you all for responding.

[johnwill1]

I've just received my hub and wasted half an hour. I had to find this post in order to set my hub up due to it not accepting a UK postcode. If Hubitat cannot resolve something so simple it's very concerning. Add to that when you do enter a BS postcode to get a step further, the map integration to find your location doesn't work either. Awful start to my Hubitat experience.

[habitat]

@johnwill1

First of all WELCOME!!!!

I share your feelings on this - but I can tell it gets better, a lot better the more you use it.

I have now added a 2nd HE to managing all the radiators, heating and hot water.

I am three weeks in and have built loads and loads of rules, graphs, dashboards and it has not let me down yet.

I tried about 5 other Hubs before I settled on this one, almost finished the full migration cross to HE.

100s of devices and a load of logic to rebuild - but going well and the community here is great and very very supportive.

[johnwill1]

and 3 attempts to add a post as it can't be edited - sweet Jesus I think this will be going back to SmartThings

[habitat]

@johnwill1 just enter first couple of chars of the post code

Then once in go to Settings, Location and modes

I deleted the Postal Code entry and just entered the latitude and Longitude I got from Google maps.

[habitat]

@johnwill1

Some suggestions:-

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Posting on the forums for any issues you run into is usually a good start and someone is around to help.

[johnwill1]

Thanks. It's been a bad day tech wise for me. I've just discovered after more than an hour to Amazon tech that it's not possible to receive notifications on a Fire HD tablet with its built in Alexa. This means that if you have a Fire HD in the same room as an echo, and the Fire HD hears the request first "Hmm I don't know that one" Why two devices designed with Alexa in mind won't work together is beyond me. Back to the drawing board for my wall mounted panels...

[markvk42]

Hi, I too am a new user, i just put the first 4 digits in something like SW10 for example and then i dragged the picture of the hub to my exact location on the google map next to the detail page.

I had bigger problems trying to find the hub at all! because my house is generally hard wired connecting the hub to one of my core switches wasnt good enough, it wouldnt find the hub until i connected the hub directly to my router.

Once connected i moved the hub to where i want it situated.... but had to move it back to the main rack and connect it and the Hue bridge to get the hub to find the hue.... once done it put aall of the hubs back to where i wanted them and they now work.... so far....

[gurpal2000]

Still a problem. Just got a new one now and ran into the same issue. What the postal code for anyway? From a UI point of view the word "(optional)" would do just fine or for mandatory fields a star. UX 101.

[kevin]

It is used to calculate sunrise and sunset times. It works usually using just the first 3 or 4 characters of a postcode and you can revise it using the Google maps page that pops up.

[ian999]

How do you actually change it? It originally came up with a location 52°11'38.5"N 0°25'32.3"W so I corrected that to 52.194020, -0.425630 (about 40 miles distant). The new values were saved, but the map did not update and neither did the sunrise/sunset times.

This should be a priority for the dev team - it leaves a really bad taste when the very first things you try to set up fail so miserably.