One year later: My love for Hubitat is melting

When I left the problem-ridden Fibaro Homecenter 3 a year ago and switched to Hubitat I felt I was entering heaven. Here was a box that did have a working dual-radio system, a lot of compatible devices plus user-written drivers for many other devices not on that list, a great community and helpful forum....

I was happy with a stable product without all the hiccups of Fibaro, a system that seemed in eternal beta-phase , if not alpha. On top of that I learned to use Zigbee-devices alongside my many Z-wave stuff.

But... now, a year later, initial enthusiasm has faded.
I have the strong impression Hubitat is neglecting it's European users.
Several European Z-wave devices that used to work perfectly with the C7 are not working anymore or only with great difficulty. Many of them are Fibaro-made (Fibaro is better at making z-wave devices then hubs).
One example is the Fibaro Wall plug wich accounts for about 65 % of all z-wave wall plugs used in Europe. It has several versions: Schuko/French/British but the built-in Hubitat driver only supports the British Version, which, of course, is the least frequently used.
There are problems with the ZW5 motion sensors too: they often can't be included and perform erratically when finally included.

These are all problems that didn't exist a year ago: my 14 fibaro wall plugs and 20 motion sensors worked flawlessly.

I contacted support several times: NO ANSWER at all.
I opened topics or reopened old ones that never got a solution about these problems: a few answers but no solutions.

Is it that the number of (ex-)Fibaro-users is too small or in general the European user-base is not important enough ? I Don't know.

What I do know is that today only 50 % of my devices are working without problems , while a year ago that was 85 %.

And that makes me a little sad...

What does your Settings > Z-Wave Details page look like? I suspect lots of the Fibaro sensors are included with S0 security if the European models are anything like the American equivalents. A network full of these is almost certainly a recipe for disaster. You may want to invest in a secondary controller to pair them without security since it sounds like you have a lot. I don't think this affects the wall plugs. But this is just a guess. If you can share a screenshot of that page, it might help someone spot possible trouble.

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This..The following Fibaro devices - Switch 2, Double Switch 2, Dimmer 2 and the motion sensor all include with S0 on the C7 unless you include them using a USB Z Wave Stick and PC Controller software. The only Fibaro devices I have, that I can click "skip" with during inclusion (support S2) are Roller Shutter 3, Double Smart module, the Smart Implant and Smart Outlet.

Also have you got a mix of older Z Wave non plus models? The motion sensor has the same part number for both the Z Wave and newer Z Wave plus models. Of 42 of my z wave devices, 35 are Fibaro:

6 x motion sensor
15 x Dimmer 2
1 x Roller Shutter 3
2 x Smart Implant
3 x Double Smart
3 x Double Switch 2
5 x Double Switch 2

They all work great.

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Can you please provide the models you are having issues with and a description of the problems?

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FYI - any secondary controller will work. Even an old handheld Aeon Labs Minimote. Mentioning this because I can't run PC Controller on my new M1 Mac (doesn't support Bootcamp), and so all I use is a Minimote.

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You can using Parallels VM, though I believe you need a specific version of Windows 11 that you register an account to download.

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I'm sure that's possible. But, IMO, walking around with a little handheld remote is still far easier.

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What about running a VM?

Possible, but not necessary if the only need is to run a secondary controller for inclusion/exclusion.

@wienog Please post a copy of your z-wave details page...

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Will only run Arm version of Windows I think - not sure if that is compatible..

https://www.parallels.com/eu/products/desktop/resources/#requirements

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Correct. But many (most?) x86 applications now run on Windows for ARM.

30 posts were split to a new topic: Discussion about hub performance

No answer at all (not even an acknowledgement email), or a response that said "our engineers are looking into this"? Maybe your emails went to the spam folder and nobody realized it? That has happened in the past.

This forum is probably majority North American. So people aren't familiar with certain devices, or don't feel comfortable answering questions about devices we don't have here. Not sure why you didn't get replies to your topics, but that could be part of it.

The Zwave hasn't really changed in a long while. It is due for an update, hopefully it passes Beta testing and will be rolled out to users soon. I don't think they changed any of these drivers either.

Yes this. Maybe we can spot something going on.

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I see that my original post has wandered into different ares but, as several of you have asked for, here is mu zwave-details page in 3 screenshots.
These are the devices that are working and are all found when doing a Z-wave-repair.
You will see one or two fibaro wall plugs: when I said that they don't work anymore since a few months, I meant that the only working function is on/off. No power and energy reporting. As I have several automations based on the power consumption of devices like TV/Audio/Dishwasher etc, they stopped working without any change from me, just because the power was not reported anymore.



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@wienog @bcopeland is the Hubitat z-wave guru if you do as he asks and explain your issues I'm sure he will get you sorted.

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Could possibly be a driver issue.. Which model is this and what driver is it using?

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Where did you source this information from ?

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I updated mine to router firmware from the develop branch. They seem to be working very well but it’s hard to quantify; one device (Iris contact sensor) used to occasionally miss a closed event and this hasn’t happened since, even with adding 6 more contact sensors when i added the 3 dongles.

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The model number is FGWPE/F - 101 which is the 'French' version of the standard European 'Schuko'-type plug. At the time France wanted to protect it's own electronucs industry by demanding a proprietary plug, same as the British with their ridiculously big plug. But the electronics of the French (and 90 % of the plug itself) is absolutely identical with the standard EU "Schuko"-model. That is NOT the case for the British versions which was marketed many years after the EU version and which has an incorporated USB-port. It's the driver for this British model (FGWP/B-120-121) that is built in in r=the Hubitat. Problem is that this works ONLY with the British model, not with the mainstream EU-models. Probably the Hubitat developers don't realize that. I sent them several messages to report the problem but the only thing I got was an acknowledgment of reception but never an answer.