[RELEASE] HubConnect - Share Devices across Multiple Hubs (no longer SmartThings!)

I don't think I understand, because

  • You can create your own driver using the Omni as your base. It's a one-off solution, but it's FAST :slight_smile:
  • You can create a Custom Driver.

But there's a lot of 'sensors' that are not included in the Omni.. because the Omni is most closely aligned to the Aeon Multisensor 6. Beyond 'pressure', what about 'acceleration', 'contact', 'presence', 'shock', 'sleep', 'smoke', 'sound', 'step', 'touch' and 'water'? I don't think the word 'omni' was meant to imply 'every'. :slight_smile:

Can I better understand your need, please?

I have a few Aqara Temperature Humidity sensor. It reports temp/humidity/pressure/battery.

I edited the app and the omni driver to support the pressure and it does work so It's just adding that to that omni sensor.

Can a GV Connector be used in HubConnect without creating a custom device? The UI suggests it can. It even says, "GV Connector" on the Select Devices screen (see screen shot below). But then when I click into the Sensors screen, there is no drop box than contains any of my GV Connectors. What am I doing wrong?

Screen Shot 2020-05-08 at 10.35.26 AM

Are you using v2.0RC1?? There's a Quick Select at the top of the Selection menu and "RM Global Variable Connector" is found within the dropdown. That's the new name, in v2.0, and the driver's been updated and moved, since it's Hubitat only, it's no longer found in the Universal Driver bucket. :slight_smile:

Guess that's my answer, duh. I'm still on v1.7, or whatever the prior version was. Do I have to adopt the new NodeJS Server stuff in order to jump to v2.0? Not sure I'm ready to digest that change.

No, no, no.. the NodeJS proxy Server is an Option. It's for people that have both multiple hubs and devices that are concentrated on a subset of the Hubs. It reduces the load, but if there's not much load to begin with, there's not much to be reduced either.

The EventSocket interface that is (what I assume to be) the most used interconnect between hubs has ALL the device data on it. A Connected Hub has to listen to ALL and filter down to what's selected. IF you're getting 10 devices worth of traffic and you've selected 8+ of them to be mirrored, there's not much left to filter and therefore the NodeJS proxy Server won't gain you much.

In my situation, I have a HubConnect Server Hub that listens to 3 other Hubs that have Devices. Dashboard is running on my Server hub and so I want to "see" just about every device. Thus the Server Hub is hearing about every event all across my 3 connected hubs. That's OK because there's almost nothing to filter. I want the server hub to hear about everything... and use it.. either to the Dashboard or sending it to Alexia, and Homebridge.

But the other direction is kinda scary.. the Remote Client hubs, have a portion of the devices split across them, but listening to the Server hub, they get 100% of everything too. They may only need 5% They are 'drinking from a firehose' and those are, in my case, the exact hubs I want to be really close to idle, so they react instantly to any motion or contact sensor. For me, running that through the NodeJS proxy Server saves 95% of the traffic to the connected hub.

Your architecture, your quantity of devices and your need for filtering may be substantially different from me and the NodeJS proxy Server is something you can ignore. :smiley:

3 Likes

Thanks for that thorough explanation Makes total sense. I upgraded to v2, which went smoothly (gratitude!!). Then, when I plugged in the RM variable connector, I realized it may not work for me because I’m using it as a pure number variable (like rule machine global variables), whereas it looks like the driver is set up to expect some fixed attributes like illuminance, CO2, acceleration, motion, humidity, etc.

Don’t suppose there’s any way to bridge this gap?

I'm wanting to us Echo Speaks via HubConnect and do my cloud integrations on SmartThings. Echo speaks has lots of Echo features, but the speech synthesis universal driver on Hubconnect is speech only. Is there a better way to get the Echo Speaks features on HE? I can get it to speak, but other features are not there.
How are others doing Echo features from HE? Am I on the right track?

Thanks

I did a very quick test.. it's not a comprehensive test, just what I try first to see what "size" the problem might be...

I have a couple of GV Connectors on one Remote Client Hub:

Screen Shot 2020-05-08 at 9.28.14 PM

Which is mirrored to my Server:

Screen Shot 2020-05-08 at 9.29.04 PM

I set the variable on the Remote Client to 56 (it was 100 before I started this test) and sure enough it showed up on the Server end:

As mentioned, this just the test I could squeeze in tonight and isn't conclusive... the fact it does anything is promising. :slight_smile:

You'll need a custom driver, there's one posted by someone on the Echo Speaks post if you search on that post to someone's github link for the driver that works great. I had my own for the longest time but I'm using that one now since it's far better than the one I had.

2 Likes

Thanks for that! I found the driver and it is working. Much appreciated.

Quick question. Do I require a second hub to make hubconnect work? Meaning, I have one device under Samsung/smart things for my tv I’d like to control. However, I do not have a smart things hub.

Can I still gain control of the device ?

You have to have a ST hub (and account) for the initial setup. You can the unplug the ST HUB, but would need to have the account still.

Got'cha.

I just setup IFTTT. I have no hub.

HubConnect doesn't alter how SmartThings does SmartThings.

There are devices that are ST cloud integrations that might work well, perhaps better, via ST. If true, then your ST account has some value left. (Remember, HubConnect gets installed in ST's cloud, not ON their Hub. If you have no physical devices left attached to the ST Hub, it can be powered off and let everything run through the Cloud.)

Therefore, the answer is more about what you have in your list of ToDo's than anything else :smiley:

If your list is focused on rapid response, then local matters and multiple Hubitat hubs do that. ST would, unless you were very lucky or skilled, be all cloud.

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I worked through my earlier issues, which is why i deleted it above. Now I have most devices loaded, but I am getting an error on the thermostat.

any thoughts on how to fix it?

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:pensive: thank you, my bad.

I updated the old (v1.6.4) Thermostat driver.

I hadn't done this before because I can't update the version number for "latest" -- the corrected Thermostat driver has a version of 1.7.1 and the "latest" DB will be 'stuck' at v1.7.0 til @srwhite gets back from "Camping Adventure 2020"

This is a fix for HubConnect v1.6.4 users only. V2.0RC1 users have had this correction since the beginning.

I've added 90% of my stuff now and it is all working great! Thanks again for the help.

I do not see a way to add the Ring ranger extender. Is there a driver, or place for it? I plan to use it to trigger rules when power fails, so the "powerSource" state is very important.

image

If not till camping season is over, no worries enjoy @srwhite!