I was kind of forced of the Smartthings platform with some of their recent changes. I totally get what you are saying about the lack of wifi devices. One specifically that effecte me which has decent integration with Smartthings and effectively no native integration with Hubiat. It is Arlo Cameras.
My solution for them was to lean on Smartthings to handle that wifi cloud integration in a hubless configuration and then use Samsung Automation Studio pallet with Node-Red to bring those devices into Hubitat. I wrote a simple virtual driver for the cameras that the Node-Red Hubitat pallet updates based on changes in Smartthings. The size and complexity of the setup can be varied based on what you want to accomplish but is very doable. The nice thing about it is that once you get this setup you can actually access anything in Smartthings and then with Node-Red and the Hubitat pallet control corresponding devices in Hubitat. The Samsung automation studio is also fairly early in it's life cycle so it uses the new smartthings API and isn't at risk currently of any phase out concerns with Smartthings
There is also a dashboard pallet in Node-Red, but I honestly haven't used it much. It seems pretty powerful, but i am still using Action tiles from a Dashboard perspective. Action tiles is pretty much the same thing as it was with Smartthings and very powerful. I think it is in it's beta phase though for hubitat so it may have some slight quirks.
With that said I am also of the opinion that dashboards should be a last resort for control.
- Manual control should always be present if possible. ie (replace switches before bulbs)
- Try to automate things that are truely invisible to the users and just work.
- Dashboard as a last resort for when you need a holistic view of the area or home
I would suggest you look at picking up a Raspberry Pi 4, Flirc Case, and probably a 32GB flash card for it. Maybe a small USB SSD for better long term reliability. Then follow the steps here to get it installed and configured with Node Red and all of the neded compoents. It is a long walk through but I was just trying to be very thorough. It really isn't that hard. It does take some time, but the majority of it is just letting the commands run.
I get your concern about the IDE. That is largely why i started to step away from Hubconnect as well. After I had to make a mass move of remaining functionality to Hubitat i didn't see the point of just waiting for the next hammer to fall. That is why i put effort into getting Samsung Automation Studio working well for me.
I would also suggest you make sure there isn't a community driven wifi driver for your devices. There are some good out there that may not be obvious at first glance. It could also help to post what devices you are referring to so we can maybe come up with some options for you.
