I have migrated only 1 Sylvania tunable bulb, 1 door switch, 1 v2 iris keypad, & 1 Yale deadbolt, just to try the system. I bought the C5. I have been a little disappointed in the slow response time, and very inaccurate state displayed in the dashboard. Side by side, IRIS is much faster and more reliable on lights and locks. Sometimes the action would be performed, sometimes not, sometimes the dashboard tile would display state properly. Tonight I came home to the bulb and deadbolt unresponsive. The switch and keypad seemed to still be communicating. Even the ARM/DISARM on HSM didn't react properly. The dashboard tiles would gray out when clicked, but stay that way. I performed the update that was available. The only way to restore function was to delete each item and pair it again. What a pain, especially the lock, because all codes will have to be reentered. The lock still doesn't work, but works ok if moved back to IRIS. Anyone else experience this? Could there be something wrong with my hub? I see nothing but rave reviews, but so far, the experience falls way short of the expectation. I have emailed support, and am still awaiting a reply.
Something is definitely odd, of all the things you stated, least of all speed should not be an issue.
To start you may want to check if your Zigbee channel is the default 25 and possibly change it to 18-20. 20 seems to be a sweet spot for most users as it avoids the typical channel 1 on 2.4ghz WiFi.
Also, just my opinion here, the whole “things worked better under Iris” thing is getting a bit old. Not that it hurts anything, but it’s been said a lot even when there wasn’t an issue with HE.
If you dig deep enough in the forums you will see that most of us experienced pain at some point! We can sympathize!!
I migrated from SmartThings last October and had a very tough time with migration. I had to reset my hub a couple of times and re-pair all my (120+) devices - good times. Now things are running great and the WAF is on the upswing...
One big issue for my was my Yale YRD256 z-wave lock. Had lots of difficulty pairing, keeping connected etc. Ended up replacing the module with a zigbee one and everything started working as expected. Locks seem to be tricky things with HE for some reason.
There are a lot of factors in play when setting things up (device type, distance from hub, interference factors etc) - check out the Iris threads, there is a lot of good advice from some very smart people.
Not to heist the thread (let's not do that), but the whole trend of everyone switching to Zigbee on the locks it surprising me. I'm a fan of Zigbee because of its simplicity, but when I need a different lock then my August Gen 2, I went with Z-Wave Plus because that's what everyone was saying was so reliable, and there were a lot of complaints about Zigbee locks. Now I have the YRD256 Z-Wave Plus and I love it. It joined easily. Have removed and added it many times (two different lock actually) for unrelated testing, and I've had zero issues. Wonderful lock and much as I'm not a fan of Z-Wave, I'm certainly a fan of the Z-Wave Plus module in that lock.
Anyway, just an observation. Back to @dmdauto's concern
Definitely not right. The C5 hub is the same hardware at the previous C4 hub that most of us have (some have several), but with integrated Zigbee and Z-Wave radios.
I'll reiterate what I wrote to another user frustrated with the support. I'm not making excuses, just trying to put into perspective the differences from a huge company like Lowe's or Samsung. @bobbyD is a really good guy. Super conscientious, and really does a great job. I know he's doing his best and then some. But very much buried in the volume due to the recent events with Iris and SmartThings.
The company Hubitat, is just a year old, has just one dedicated support person, with others in the still small team doing their best to pickup the extra support and still do their own jobs too. The massive intake of new owners due to the unexpectedly quick shutdown of Iris and the large number of people jumping off SmartThings due to their missteps. Everyone knew Lowe's was looking for a buyer for Iris, but no one expected they would end support so fast. Their is a huge support queue as a result. Bobby is working like mad.
Your calm approach is good and appreciated. Kindness is free, and it gets you respect and assistance from the community😃
Have you tried just removing the Sylvania bulb? Might be trying to repeat and bulbs don't do that well. They're pretty much always going to drop the ball as some point, so we tend to either get the bulbs off the Zigbee network with something like Hue Bridge or go with Sengled bulbs for pairing directly to the hub, since they don't repeat signals at all.
Is the Yale Zigbee? If it is, then that furthers the bulb as a suspect. If you remove the bulb and suddenly other Zigbee devices drop off, then you can be almost be certain that was the culprit. Hubitat is really fast, so you've got something wrong with either the Zigbee mesh most likely or a corrupt database on the hub. I'd lean toward the former until you do some testing to show otherwise.
A bulb by itself will be fine, unless it has a problem with its radio (which isn't unheard of), so you could test removing everything except the bulb, or remove everything except the lock and see if it improves. Do a reboot after you remove everything, and be sure to give the hub time after a reboot. It backs up the database when you reboot and that can make it slower for a few minutes.
Look in the log for errors and post the log here if you find any. Warnings are ok, but errors are not.
Yeah sorry will divert a little further.. but it does kinda relate since it involves a lock which was one of the listed issues..
I can only speak from experience here. I started with my original Z-Wave Yale lock (YRD246ZW619) and had all sorts of problems getting it to connect or having it respond after connection. Ordered the newer Z-Wave Plus YRD256ZW619 thinking the old zwave device was the issue - even though for me it worked fine on ST. Ended up having the same issue with the newer device, tried everything including relocating the hub to a central place in the basement, line of site to where the lock was and STILL could not get it to function reliably. Frustrated I went ahead and bought the zigbee radio module - After I installed it things just started working. Cannot explain why exactly.
I've done so many different things to try and resolve my issues with the lock and other things. My current working configuration involves 2 hubs - The one still in the basement which covers my basement and first floor/garage devices and a 2nd floor hub. Finally have stability for the most part.
Did have a zigbee device drop off the mesh after the last update but it came back after a discovery. Also having some quirkiness with my Aeotec Multisensor 6's responding slowly to motion the first thing in the morning. They are kinda slow to begin with though.. and suspect maybe it's "selective reporting" option.
I've spent the last week slowly getting HE up and going. Left Iris running for side by side comparisons since most of the system was V1 and couldn't migrate. Some pains getting the hub firmware going, and I was initially disappointed with the range. But...……….
- Devices pair instantly. Not the multiple resets and retrying that I had on Iris.
- Devices react much faster. I have satellite internet, so the local control is very noticeable due to the latency of the data transfer.
- Once I had devices in place (multiple plugs acting as repeaters), the system meshed and range is not an issue. Entire home is covered now. Even a crappy V2 Iris button will work anywhere in the house.
- Event setup is faster than Iris IMHO. I am now at the same level of performance (simple on/off, voice commands, etc....) that I had on Iris with little effort. The upside is that I am only scratching the surface of what this unit can do. The notifications that Iris had were replaced using IFTTT in just a few minutes.
Security setup will be this weekend. It might take a little more effort than Iris since there will be more manual setup, but the end result should be the same or better.
Overall, the system is exactly what I expected, and I look forward to learning more about it.
This is a tinkerer's toy. It is definitely not a plug and play system.
I wouldn't say "toy" exactly.. but the tinkerer part is spot on!
Another thought - have you contacted support yet? There may be system errors causing slowness. They can take a look and give you some advice.
Sorry for the troubles. We understand how important is for some customers to try Hubitat Elevation by only adding a few devices to see how it performs. While this is a good practice in general, as you probably know this already, with mesh networks, it could be very challenging.
The good news is, that based on your description and our preliminary research, there is nothing wrong with your hub. The problems you are experiencing are related to having a weak Zigbee mesh. If you could add a few mains powered devices, such as smart outlets or switches, your hub's performance will significantly improve and you will experience the very fast response times that you are used to with Iris. Hope this helps.
Thank you very much for all of the suggestions. I'll get into it as soon as I get home tonight. I fell in love with this little box based on what I read. I want it to work. The lock is z wave, IF switching it to zigbee becomes necessary, then that likely is a deal breaker for me. When I make the full transition, moving all of them may be cost prohibitive. Being zwave, is there a chance a zigbee mesh issue is casuing this lock issue? Suggestions on the quickest, cheapest, and easiest way to check that? All of the currently connected devices are within a few feet of each other, all at the same door. Could it be interference from being so close? As of quitting time last night, I moved the lock back and it still doesn't work. Shows status as locked, regardless of state. Clicking the dashboard button, then confirmation, the button greys, and nothing changes. Alexa reports the door locked, regardless of state. The bulb still works, but sometimes is very delayed or intermittently doesn't switch, even though the dashboard shows an immediate state change. All of my bulbs are sylvania lightify, but I do also have color changing bulbs. I may try switching, maybe there is something isolated to this bulb. Like the locks, if the bulbs turn out to be incompatible, the replacement cost becomes prohibitive, if there is another option. Thanks for all of your time. Will update this tonight.
Zigbee and Z-Wave don’t interfere with each other. The lock issue is separate.
Looking in your driver details for the lock, under the data field, does it show it paired securely? It may not have joined the hub radio correctly.
This doc may help when you have more than one Z-Wave device and a repeater
I think there's also a steady influx if ex-Wink users. Wink hasn't done squat in over a year and there's some pretty ugly buzz on on the Wink subreddit with dire predictions about their future. So yeah; kudos to @bobbyD
OK, ty everyone for the help. 1st, I was wrong, the lock was in fact a Zigbee, not Zwave, as I had originally thought. I changed the channel to 20, no joy. Deleted and reconnected several times. Replaced batteries with new, even though these showed >60. It seems it may have been the tile on the dashboard causing the lock's unresponsiveness. Whenever I reconnected the lock, the tile was still present, but blank, I kept going into it and picking the device and template. This last time, the lock still didn't work. Wondering if it could be confusing the hub, I deleted it and rebuilt the tile. I also turned off power to the bulb, before the lock was set up. I'm not sure which did it, or maybe it was just dumb luck, but the lock and bulb are both working. The bulb is working faster than it did even when it was the only thing running on the hub. The bulb appears to be working as fast as IRIS now, I am testing using 2 lamps, one on each hub.
For debugging issues like this, start first at the Device Info page. All the buttons are there... on/off open/close, etc. The dashboard can only 'push a button' that is there on the Device Info page*. If something IS working on the device info page but not working in Dashboard, then you've eliminated two of the three components as the trouble. It's not the device, it's not the join/pair to the hub. It's a lot easier to figure out what's wrong with Dashboard if you first get it working from the Device Info page.
(*) some drivers have Custom Commands that don't show as a button.. but that's an advanced feature you will want to explore later.
What csteele said lol.
If I were you I wouldn’t worry about the dashboard so much while you’re getting things going. I am sure a lot of Iris users want that, but it only complicates things. One thing at a time.
You have to give the meshes time to settle when you change the channel, that may have been why it all of a sudden started working normally. Or Iris and HE meshes could have been conflicting before the change with each other, who knows.
Glad you got it going, don’t hesitate to post if you get stuck again on something.
Expanding a bit on what @ACKmySYN said, whenever I add, change, or remove a Zigbee device, I give it a minimum of 36 hours for my mesh to fully heal before I start worrying about issues. Zigbee is my favorite protocol because of how resilient it is, but it's also REALLY slow when it comes to healing, especially when you have lots of devices.
The one thing I've learned over the years in dealing with home automation is that patience is key to success.
I am glad to hear that things have improved. As much as I don't want to rain on your parade I have to caution you that things may be just temporary. Your only Zigbee repeater is your bulb, which you may know, is a flaky repeater. If you have any Zigbee mains powered devices, please plug them in, your Zigbee mesh will be a lot happier
Yes, this is exactly what I was thinking when you said your lock is actually Zigbee. The puzzle pieces fit together now. Get an IKEA Trådfri Outlet or one of their dedicated repeaters. They're not the best you can get, but they work and they're really inexpensive. For some reason, the Outlet cost is less than the dedicated repeater in the US, but here in Canada it's the opposite. Anyway, they will strengthen your mesh.
That bulb is going to do wrong by you as a repeater. It's just a matter of time and then things will be unstable again like Bobby said.