On the fence, please push me over

Why Hubitat Elevation
6

@Eric.C.Miller's advice is excellent! Figure out your requirements and then focus on using the "current" best practices to achieve those goals.

Some things to consider:

  1. Voice Assistants - Amazon Alexa or Google Home? Both have Pros and Cons, but it seems like Amazon has leapfrogged ahead of Google at this time. Or get some of both to compare features yourself. The Amazon Alexa Dot and Google Home Mini are both very inexpensive.
  2. Lighting Control
    • 100% Hubitat based - using Z-Wave Plus and/or Zigbee Smart Switches/Dimmers and/or Bulbs
    • combination of Hubitat + Lutron Caseta Smart Bridge Pro - using Caseta Switches/Dimmers and/or Pico Remotes
    • combination of Hubitat + Philips Hue Bridge - using zigbee bulbs attached to the Hue bridge
    • Hubitat + WiFi bulbs like LIFX - I would caution you away from this option as it requires a cloud integration currently.
    • or some combination of everything above! :wink:
  3. Focus on Zigbee or Z-Wave Plus ? - for devices like motion sensors, door/window contacts, and outlets. Some users try to stick to one or the other. Most of us use both.
    • Zigbee uses 2.4 GHz and therefore is more prone to noise/interference. I have never had an issue with this, even running multiple Zigbee networks at once in my home. Zigbee feels like a faster, more responsive protocol to me versus Z-Wave.
    • Z-Wave use various frequencies based on the country you live in, but in general is in the 900Mhz range. Lower frequency means better wall penetration and less conflicts with things like WiFi. However Z-Wave seems more complicated and easier to get screwed up by adding and removing devices from your hub.
    • Both Zigbee and Z-Wave Plus networks need multiple 'main-powered' devices throughout your home to act a mesh network repeaters. Choose your devices that act as repeaters wisely, as some are very buggy causing more issues that are hard to track down.
  4. Design for fully automated home, versus ability to remote control things in the home? These are two different things, but not necessarily mutually exclusive. Having users mess up your automations by manually flipping switches can add quite a bit of complication to a design.

I am sure there is a lot more to consider. Before you start buying things in large quantities, ask the community about their experiences with various brands and specific models of devices. Most of us have plenty of battle scars from devices that just don't work as advertised. I'd hat for you to 'get a great deal' on a bunch of the buggy, outdated devices.

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7

Wow, that is a lot of consideration

I really don't think I am going to go crazy with this effort. First thing, I need a hobby and I believe this fits the bill. I want to start small with a smart switch or light w/ motion sensor in the laundry room. Must include Alexa. easy win, low hanging fruit :wink: then I can tinker here and there.... but I guess a lot of people said that when they start down this road.

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8

As far as cameras go...what type of integration do you want? Do you want them to act as motion sensors? Control when they record or when they don't? Or do you want to view them in your dashboard? A clearer picture of that would give a better understanding of what you'll be able to do.

9

Tinker carefully.
If you stick to first party apps you'll be in great shape.
There's some issues with heavier ported apps that cause issues.

Obviously stay away from the forbidden fruit that is WebCoRE.

All in all it works really great unless you try to execute rules at 2AM when the hub is doing maintenance.
Go to sleep earlier Keith...

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10

Some things to consider:

How will you control lighting? Dimmers/Switches on the wall? Tablets? Voice (Alexa, Google, Siri)? Automagically (motion, presence, day/time)?

I started out thinking I should have wall switches that looked and worked the same as "regular" (non automated) switches and dimmers. I was surprised to find my wife telling Google to turn things on and off. Now we both tend to use that method if it's not being done automatically by a rule (based on motion or time-of-day).

Do you want to create complex scenes involving multiple devices? Example, button or command to turn on TV, lower shades based on time of day, adjust lights in watching room based on time of day, mute music (if playing), etc?

You mentioned cameras. How do you see cameras integrated? In a dashboard? Sending you a photo when triggered by an event (motion, door open, etc.)? Using camera-based motion detection to trigger other actions (turn on light, turn on siren, turn on barking dogs on the sonos, etc.).

I have a bunch of cameras and a PC running iSpyPRO but I have very little integration with the cameras. I do trigger certain cameras to take photos when specific motion sensors are triggered as I find the Home Automation motion sensors seem to be easier to tune than the motion detection in the cameras.

Smoke/fire/CO alarms? Send a notification? Turn on lights (perhaps illuminating exit paths)? Turn on a siren?

Some of these things can work stand-alone so a key question is what do you hope to accomplish by integrating? It could be as simple as a "one-pane-of-glass" dashboard or as complicated as some of the possibilities listed above.

I thought a web page was going to be essential but now that we have Google Assistant on our phones and three Google Home Hubs (those are the ones with the small screens) we can use those to turn on or off any lights. In reality we tend to use voice commands for that. So I am rethinking the need for a web page (dashboard).

Philosophically I notice that some folks gravitate towards automating things. When I walk into my workshop the lights go on. This is triggered by either a motion sensor or the exterior door opening. There is no local switch, tablet, not even a Google Home within earshot. The lights stay on until motion has stopped for about 8 minutes. This primitive capability is all I need for that space. It just works.

The other philosophical camp seems to have physical control devices. Keypads, tablets, switches, dimmers, etc. As mentioned, I have the Google Hub devices in three rooms but, honestly, rarely use the screen for controlling things around the house (I do talk to them).

There is no right or wrong answer here. Your solution will probably be a mix and will almost certainly evolve as you learn and as the products improve and expand their capabilities.

Hubitat is a good solid little hub. It seems to be efficiently coded (it's small and fast). It is (so far) supported brilliantly. I can't say enough for the support folks. Perhaps as important, it has (so far) a vibrant support community willing to share ideas.

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11

I forgot to mention, one other very important decision is what do you want to be able to do with lighting? Turn on/off? Probably. Dim? Probably. How about set colors? That changes the solution entirely. Now you are considering controllable bulbs rather than controllable switches/dimmers. A big difference.

See:

and

12

Have a look at this page, it will answer that question for you :wink:

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13

For the life of me I can't find the person who originally posted this, so, if the OP reads this, feel free to take credit....but i do feel completely like Muttley every time I get an email with another outage. And you know what, I don't feel bad about it all.

Muttley_laughing_by_sektor8bit-d7fv6sh

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14

Ok ... first, my system has been rock solid for months now. So, let's be real. You're sunk. You've jumped into the rabbit hole. It is deep and full of adventure. Start slowly. Come here for help. No question is a stupid question. We've all be there. At the beginning. There was some advice given to me when I started, (having not read all of the responses, so forgive me if I've repeated anything) .. start closest to your hub and work out. That will help to maintain a strong mesh. Don't incessantly reboot your hub. It will break things. If you reboot, allow, to be safe, like an hour for things to calm down. Depending on the size of your automations. Before you test again. If something is not working, don't wait to reach out. Get it over with and ask that question. Someone will hear you and help you. And your wife will be happy. (Then, take some time to play some practical jokes. cuz you're gonna crush this.)

Enjoy this ride. It's going to be as amazing as you make it. Please document your progress here along the way. It's always fun to see people take an idea and make it happen. But, also, don't try to reinvent the wheel. Happy Holidays @Effers!

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15

This isn't going to be a popular answer but if you aren't a fan of tinkering and understanding technical things...I would not say this is the hub for you. First it is new...and it is not bug free. So for the stable part...yes to a point it's stable...to another...not so much. It's changing a lot. Just read the release update notes and see the threads related to it. Currently the last release broke functionality for "Motion Lighting" which is really a simple way to control lights with motion. A feature there was broken. It will be fixed in the next release...but if that's not for you. Know that now.

Second...I would not say at all this is a system for a "first time" user. I think this is a GREAT system for someone who came from a Smartthings or similar system that learned how to add custom device handlers and apps and custom code. If not...you will have a pretty large learning curve here and could get frustrated.

I just don't think this is a mature enough system for someone that is "new" and wants "stable".

Most of the people here seem to have came from Vera, Smartthings and other "entry level" home platforms. The REASON they came here was because a lot of those systems ran as cloud based and eventually everyone realizes the benefits of "local" processing.

Now IF you don't mind having the learning curve and understanding YOU are going to break things (meaning things may not always work the way you think. Not because of the system, but because of YOUR understanding.) And the fact that it will NOT be 100% stable. Then please...proceed. You will find a lot of help here to do so. Hopefully at least if you choose to come this way...setting your expectations to something that's a bit more realistic.

DO read and read and read through as many posts on here as you can. You will learn a lot about this hub.

It's literally taken me months to get close to where I was before with Smartthings. And I had that system for 2 years. I'm getting there though and it's getting better every day.

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Yeah, that would be a bad thing

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17

I left ST almost 3 months ago now and have not looked back. Still get the emails about outages and have the same reaction as @Ryan780 mentioned above. ST's outage history is embarrassing.

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I was hoping to view the cameras on the Hubitat dashboard but I may be asking to much. I may just keep the cameras out until I learn more about the system.

19

Bringing the camera views onto a dashboard should be, relatively, a piece of cake.

20

I do not know of a way to view them in the Hubitat dashboard but you can link to them if they're viewable at a web address. This is supported on Sharptools if your camera has a compatible feed.

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21

I don't think SmartThings is totally off limits for someone wanting to get started. Obviously we know better, but we also know a hell of a lot more things than someone who's never seen a smart bulb. For instance, I have a family member who's never typed a custom ip address into an address bar, but wants to automate their home. I recommended Hue. But then they're asking about motion sensing and all the cool stuff I do in my home. Well, I have to ask myself whether I want to be the smarthome engineer for the extended family, or if there's a system they can get started with that's easy to use and easy to set up. I recommended SmartThings, and told them that there's a better solution called Hubitat, and to call me when they just can't take the frustration anymore. I figure by that time they'll know more about bulbs, switches, inclusion procedures, and whatnot - because they had ST with the pretty buttons and icons and they had a tech support number to call with any questions. Furthermore, I believe ST is doing a lot of stuff behind the scenes to get various things working together for novices - ie: firmware workarounds to help correct defects in devices, and various things to help with beginners who are constantly breaking their mesh (I could be wrong). Anyway, all this is just to say that Hubitat is not easily accessible for everyone, even though we know it's superior, and there may be better options for the true beginner. (IMO)

That being said, @Effers - if you're already capable of such things like accessing your system remotely via OpenVPN, then you'll have no problem at all with Hubitat.

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I can respect that perspective. I often consider renting out my Smartthings hub to those just beginning so that they can send it back when they're done. haha! I began there. here's the deal though. I didn't feel like there was a greater learning curve with Hubitat. And the people here are much friendlier than on the ST forums in some cases. And support. Smartthings only offers what seems like 8-5 Monday through Friday. No holidays, no weekends. Here, I caught a support person helping on Thanksgiving. No rest for them. Although, it was probably not a mandatory thing. But I think that we could respectively say that they have better support here than with Smartthings hands down. Just my opinion. I do agree that smartthings is a good starter hub. Even if you are tech savvy, there is still a learning curve with home automation. Definitely. Definitely a great point.

23

If you want to go past some simple control, you're going to need an HA hub. Once you make that decision you're going to be tinkering and having to learn the system. It's up to you how far you take it, most here have things working then get the ich to automate or control something else. Each thing you add is a new adventure and learning experience.

I believe having done it before and migrating to Hubitat from another system might be harder in some regards. You have to unlearn and retrain your brain and way of thinking. Starting out new to HA you can learn the Hubitat way because no matter what system you get you'll still have to learn a lot.

Just start slow, get some basic stuff working, enjoy that for a while before going further. Add a light switch or dimmer module and motion sensor and Alexa integration, get that working first.

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Yeah, y'all are right. :zipper_mouth_face: The learning curve is about the same. It's hard to tell as someone who started with ST.

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25

I think that is a fair point. Any fully featured HA hub at this point will generally require some ongoing tinkering. And without any prior experience, the initial learning curve may be steep.

Others have made great points about deciding what features you need then choosing accordingly.

If the need for complicated automations isn’t near the top of the list, an amazon echo plus is a reasonable option for a first foray into home automation. Alexa ecosystem, device control including zigbee devices, limited automation capabilities, pretty easy to use.

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