Since getting my C-7 setup and running with all my webcore pistons, I don't log into it very frequently. When I did today, I saw there's a new firmware notification. Looking back, there's been 24 since the beginning of the year.
Is the current ecommendation to not upgrade if nothing is broken? Many devices in our lives will have a recommended release people should be running even if they're not experiencing noticeable issues e.g. CPU usage maybe high but it's not affecting my routines.
I'd like to suggest if there could be something like a recommend known stable version for people to run that incorporates multiple releases and the Hubitat app pushes a notification when available. Currently, logging in after a couple months and reading through over a dozen release notes isn't very user friendly.
They would not release a version known to be worse than the last, so if you were to ask for a recommendation, I'm guesing that would the "the latest version." But there have been quite a few lately, or at least hotfixes. This is mostly due to C-8 issues, largely Zigbee, that they have been working out, but there were a few app and driver fixes (which would affect all models) in there, too.
You may have seen the Relase Notes category in the forum, where the release notes link in the update screen has pointed to for some time now: Release Notes - Hubitat. If you were looking somewhere else, that's a good spot. I'm not sure of any way to avoid needing through release notes to see what has changed, regardless of how many versions there are. If you want to skip some reading, normally the biggest changes are when the "z" in the x.y.z version changes, not the "build number" after that (e.g., 2.3.3.xxx to 2.3.4.xxx was a "major" update; 2.3.4.150 to 2.3.4.153 would be a hotfix to address specific noted problems). So reading the first notes for the "major" release is more important than any hotfixes after that.
There is no built-in method to get push notifications for hub updates, but a common community solution is to use the Hub Information Driver (a community offering) plus a Rule Machine rule or other method to send a notification or do whatever you want when the appropriate event happens.
Going back to stability, some users choose to stay on the previous "major" release until the pace of hotfixes for the new release slows down. Normally, this is within a couple weeks. The C-8 has made the last version a bit of an exception, but hopefully that will slow down too and ease some of your other concerns. If you aren't having problems addressed by a release, whether major or a hotfix, you don't need to upgrade; but if you are, upgrading will almost always be the first step someone recommends before trying to troubleshoot something older.
If you want to consider the most current version the bleeding edge version the closest thing to a "stable" release would be the last version from the prior major version. If you do want to update to the newest version from the prior major release you can do that with a special endpoint. This could be a good strategy if you do not plan to update very often since that release should be pretty solid.
All the above suggestions are excellent. I would say if the only reason you're coming here is because you're curious about which update might be the most stable, and you haven't come here trying to solve a problem or get a new feature, then I'd just leave your hub alone at this point.
It does seem a bit much but they're addressing a lot of issues with migration and zig. All releases are stable so I simply check network, BACK UP what works and then update the firmware. Zero problems so far. Good luck!
If you are stable and on a C7 I would probably stay there. Recent updates are hot fixes for C8 architecture and some ZigBee improvements. You are not really going to fond any new features although some rules bugs do get fixed. If you see something fixed in release notes that is troubling your usage then by all means upgrade. Take a backup you can always revert if needs be.
The beta program is a bit bypassed at the moment with most things going straight to release due to hotfix necessity
But there have been quite a few lately, or at least hotfixes. This is mostly due to C-8 issues, largely Zigbee, that they have been working out, but there were a few app and driver fixes (which would affect all models) in there, too.
