Newbie looking for quick answers

I have a new greenhouse and chicken coop that I’d like to automate (for the greenhouse temp/humidity, window opening, watering, that sort of thing) and for the chicken coop, lights, remote camera etc.). Both are too far for Wi-Fi, but I don’t mind running a cat5 cable. My simple question is can I accomplish this with hubitat and not spending enormous amounts of time figuring it all out? Thanks and if would be so kind to reply to Gregory.mcallister@gmail.com that would be greatly appreciated.

I guess one way would be to run your ethernet cable, and put a second hub on that cable in the greenhouse, then you can use normal zigbee devices talking to that hub, which in turn can use Hubmesh to talk to the main hub in your house.

Alternatively use wifi devices that have a driver or integration to hubitat and put an access point onto the ethernet cable rather than a second hub

Or a combination of both if you put a switch on the ethernet cable, with a hub on one port and wifi AP on another.

If there is no electricity down there you'll need a PoE access point, and just go for wifi. Unfortunately I don't think the hub can be powered by PoE

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Kinda sorta can! I use these with all my hubs. But I think OP mentioned lights in the greenhouse so I think it's safe to assume there's AC out there.

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B0831M4ST9/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I concur you're gonna want network connectivity out there, especially for cameras and the like. I think the key for me is "not spending enormous amounts of time figuring it all out." It's definitely not going to be plug-and-play. For instance, automation that opens and closes greenhouse windows may not be exactly off-the-shelf.

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You can get wifi to a location petty far away from your house with a couple of these. My shop is a little over 200' behind my house and these work really well. This of coarse depends on the terrain and how far is too far for Wifi.

I do as suggested above, I have a hub in my shop and I connect it to my house via hub mesh. The advantage to having a Hub in your remote location is if you lose connection for whatever reason all the automations on the remote hub will still work.

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If it's beyond enhanced wifi range you can always do a pair of these... they look pretty cool. But if you can do cat5 (I would use something a bit beefier, maybe cat6 or cat6a) stick a PoE managed switch out there, add an AP so you have wifi coverage in your greenhouse, power the hub and the AP via PoE. That gives you the added advantage of being able to power down the hub remotely should you need to.

(kinda joking about the Ubiquiti solution but I am dying to try a pair of these just to see how they work)

To avoid unexpected problems and "gotcha's" down the line, I'd avoid going into this w/"quick answers."

Take your time to figure out what works for your requirements and pocketbook, etc. This is going to require you do some reasearch and investigations to get it done right for you. :slight_smile:

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I have just noticed the OP asked for email replies. I hope they get notification of our replies and not just waiting for emails...

I'm just biding my time to have a legitimate use-case for something like this.

https://larsklint.com/farm-wifi-off-the-grid-with-ubiquiti-solar/

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Just keeping it real man... once you "take the red pill" of diving into the DIY smart home world that Hubitat is designed around, you will end up spending time on it. It won't work the way you like when you first get it going. Your family will complain and you will devote time to make them happy. Then you'll read something here that makes you wonder how much better you could have done it. Hubitat is for tinkerers and smart home enthusiasts so if you want a low maintenance "just do it" solution look elsewhere and bring your checkbook.

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