New user with zero experience

Long time lurker, first time poster. So I've decided to dive right into Hubitat after months of researching different Smart Home hubs, etc with zero experience. Am I over my head? I have computer experience, none with coding and I can understand the basics of what is being discussed on the forums.

After reviewing posts on this forum I've decided to go with Lutron Pro Bridge and 3 Caseta dimmers to get my feet wet and start with simple rules and scenes. Hopefully move onto using motion detectors or contact sensors to help. I do like to tinker and am hoping this isn't too much for me. Thanks all.

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Welcome aboard. The ride may not always be smooth. However this platform is amazing.

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You need to develop patience.
Don’t attempt to learn it all at once.
Don’t try and port over all your devices from one system to the HE in one sitting. Take your time.

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sound advice right here ^

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Welcome @SmartHomeDumbUser! One thing to keep in mind, in a month or two, you will need to contact Support to change your username. By then you'll be well on your way to ...ExpertUser.

You'll do fine. You can go as far as you want and the Community here is great at responding to questions as you've already seen during your lurking days. I had used an ancient home automation system called X10. The only benefit of that was I had experience replacing the switches in my house.

Moving to HE has been an amazing experience. Although I do have a programming experience, none of that was necessary to be successful. I've added motion detectors to turn on the lights at night, a lock on the garage door, and have connected my Harmony Smart Control so I can tell Alexa to "Watch TV" and it turns on my TV and receiver and sets the lights to 50%. I've swapped my X10 dimmers for Z-Wave (mostly Zooz, although people like the Caseta switches too).

There are amazing resources online and I know you'll be fine. If you need help though, just ask.

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Welcome aboard!

IMO you have already made a good choice of Lutron Caseta. I have been very happy with mine.

@SmartHomeDumbUser

Welcome! I moved to Hubitat 3 months ago. Lutron Caseta is a great choice! The community here is very helpful. As is Hubitat support - shout out to @bobbyD.

Welcome to Hubitat!

:point_up: what he said! :slight_smile:

My Lutron Caseta Dimmers, Switches, Fan Controllers, and Pico Remotes are rock solid. Their integration with Hubitat is fast and reliable. As icing on the cake, they can also be directly integrated with Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Logitech Harmony Hub, SmartThings (except picos), Nest (for a little while still :wink: ), etc... I believe you've made a great decision to use Lutron!

Welecome! You will love it and the support here is amazing!

Thank you for your response. I'm just going to take my time a keep everything as simple as I can, for now. Why will I need to change my username? Will probably get my hub up in a few weeks once we get internet back up and running.

@SmartHomeDumbUser,

Welcome to the HE crew, mate. I started on here as clueless as they come. I went from a few Wemo products, Ecobee thermostats, and a Harmony hub with remote to many Zigbee and Z-Wave devices being controlled by HE. I replaced my old alarm system, siren, doorbell, a broken wired contact switch, etc, It's been a fun and sometimes frustrating journey. Here is a list of devices I am managing so you get an idea of the diversity possible.

HE is very powerful and to take advantage of it's breadth and depth takes time and more than occasional help from the the HE Community. If it wasn't for the usual suspects, I would have been stuck many times. Don't be afraid to ask for help.

Good luck,

YF

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Welcome!, you will see how amazing Hubitat is in the next days but as my colegues said.. take it slow.
Support and forum are the best so you just nee to ask.

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Thank you all for your responses. I'm going to try and keep it as simple as I can with products that work well. Back to lurking!

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