Hi all
I'm a long time ST user starting to look in the direction of HE.
It's my first post, so i hope this is posted in the right corner of the community.
Before taking the plunge, i have been searching this community for a couple of days, and checking compatibility for my current devices.. Most devices seems to be supported apart from some Chinese dry contact Zigbee relays i use in a coffee machine hack and some other nerdy places. I can live without it, so i'm not running away yet.
But my investigations have left me with at couple of questions, which i hope you folks can help me with?
I'm thinking of running on a single hub setup as i do in ST.
My current migration plan is to disconnect my ST, open a cold beer, start resetting all my devices, and then start from scratch with HE, to attack the learning curve this way.
(pro/con advises here would be appreciated)
Ikea bulbs:
I have a lot of them in all shapes and sizes.
In ST they have been my (rock solid) back bone of my Zigbee mesh.
Are all types of Ikea bulbs supported (as in ST) with a built in DH (i guess ZLL dimmer bulb), or is only some specific models/types considered HE-friendly?
I've seen a couple of post that states, that bulbs should be kept on a separate hub.
I'm no Zigbee engineer, but if they seem to be excellent repeaters (at least in ST) why wouldn't you want them on the same mesh as the rest of your endpoints?
In ST they have been very Xiaomi/Aqara friendly - is that the case with HE too?
Ikea buttons (remotes)
I have been using the cheap on/off buttons that comes with the smart outlets with great succes in ST. They are natively supported by ST now (for the last 3-4 months maybe more) with a stock DH. I haven't been able to find a single post in this community, that says they will work with HE. Some even states they never will.
Why are they not working in HE when they do in ST?
I've somehow got the idea that ST and HE where very much alike Zigbee wise, apart from the local/cloud execution. Am i wrong here?
HE app / Remote control
I have seen some people describing that they are able to control there homes remotely (locks, lights and so on).
But i have also read that you can only control HE from the local network.
Can remote control be done by the official HE app, or do you have to use some other tricks to get remote control? (answered below)
Does the HE app have widgets (Android) ?
(Use case: I'd like to manually trigger my Arrive and Leave routines/automations)
Oops! This post got longer than i expected - feel free to comment on my Q's individually - ALL inputs are welcome..!!
Remote control: You can choose, there are ways to set it so you can only use from local, and ways to set it so you can access your controls from elsewhere. The point of Hubitat is it doesn't require internet, like some smart home systems.
Let us not confuse "control" with "administration".
Remotely you can 'control devices' via dashboards (open locks, turn on/off lights) for device already in your system. You cannot add new devices, add rules, or other 'administrative' function For those things you need to be on the LAN (or VPN/TeamViewer/some other solution in place).
HE app has the ability to be a 'presence sensor' and trigger those rules. With that being said it is not prefect, and many people, myself included use multiple devices (ST arrival sensor, Life260, etc.) to help with consistency.
I don't use any IKEA stuff so I'll leave that for someone else to touch on.
@AnubizDK, there is no requirement that your Zigbee bulbs be on a separate Zigbee radio, and remember there are a lot of opinions in this, and every forum, that are stated as gospel,
There times multiple hubs, of various flavors, are used in one installation for specific purposes (e.g., segmenting large properties for convenience, isolating battery powered devices so chatty mains powered devices keep them from sleeping, Hue just works best on its native hub). In the case of Zigbee devices, there are two different protocols used in devices Home Automation (switches, plugs) and Light Link (light bulbs and strips, and all things Hue). I suppose if you have a lot of both types there could be some issues, but I have not experienced any yet, although I don’t have many of either. My setup is far more Z-wave centric. Nothing better or worse between Zigbee and Z-wave, just different.
I’ve had great success using Ikea bulbs on HE and they do repeat quite well too, one of the few bulbs which a lot of my ZHA devices will repeat through.
You know you don't HAVE to shut down your smartthings right away. AFAIK you can still connect the hubs and migrate slowly and keep eveything up and running. I can see the why shutting it down would be enticing, but when I came over to HE 3+ years ago, I used hubconnect and went room by room and got each working as I went. Kept everything interacting and when I was done, I set it aside and went back when I had time. Less stressful and pressing to do it that way. I also figured out some things on my way through. Totally up to you how you want to do it. Welcome to the community. I think you'll love it here.
As far as migrating from ST to HE I did as you are planning (without the beer). I went cold turkey and shutdown my ST hub after removing all devices from it. Then I started adding all devices to HE starting with repeaters, closest ones to the hub and worked my way outward. After the repeaters were added I added everything else. All went well. I use Sengled bulbs which don't repeat and Sylvania outlets for repeaters. I also use some Sylvania bulbs that do act as repeaters. I have had zero problems with any components of my system When I got the mesh lined out I started adding rules. Good Luck and welcome.
Welcome.
I'm a recent convert from ST (about a month now). I followed the best practices for creating a solid ZW mesh. I did NOT disconnect ST during the conversion. I left both up at the same time and worked from outside in (farthest to closest) during the exclusion from ST then inside out (closest to farthest) while including them to HE. I did ~20 devices in the morning of which were about 90% of my hardwired devices (which work as repeaters). Let that settle out for a few hours then added another ~20 and let that sit for a few hours then a ZW repair. I let that all sit overnight then started adding automations slowly over the last few weeks. All my Zigbee stuff was added along with the orignal 20 ZW devices.
Knock on wood it's been running quite well (C7 on 2.2.3.119). Since it's running well I've stayed away from .135; it seems to be hit or miss with ZW stability.
What device driver are you using for the color temperature bulbs? And what tiles would you put on a dashboard to control the color temp? The only options I am seeing are for straight dimmer and RGB. (Still playing around looking for things before I start migration).
That's all there is, so I'd probably pick the "Bulb" template (which should really be RGB + CT) and ignore the RGB side. Yes, it might be nice to have something more specific some day...
The "Generic Zigbee CT Bulb (dev)" driver should work for the Tradfri CT bulbs, or at least it did for the one I used to have on Hubitat. To address others' questions above, I'm not aware of any color/RGBW bulbs by Ikea that work on Hubitat fully, though on/off and level would still work. Color is the wonky part because they implement only xy color, which is one of the three models (xy, hs, and ct) that Hubitat doesn't. They also present as "color lights" and not "extended color lights" on the Zigbee side, so the CT portion is not directly controllable via CT (on Hue--which these also work with--or Hubitat), though the same values are theoretically achievable via xy. There's a custom driver floating around somewhere that lets you send at least specific xy colors to these, so it's not a total loss, but I wouldn't otherwise suggest these (and not just for that; they seem pretty slow to respond to me, even when used on Ikea's system directly).
For my colour bulbs on the dashboard I use two tiles side by side for each light, one with just Bulb, to turn on and off quickly, and the other for the full colour bulb if you want to go in and mess around more deeply.
OT: Sorry to "steal" your thread. @Royski do I understand your post correctly that IKEA buld actually can be in the same mesh as Zigbee sensors and outlets? Ive always heard that bulb should be on a separate hub because they do not play nicely with other type of Zigbee devices.
I dont think my IKEA bulbs work that great on my Hue hub so if I could connect those bulb directly it would be nice.
There is a post in the Hubitat documentation on how to make a strong / robust Z-Wave mesh. I recall the post advised against moving Z-Wave devises en-masse. I believe the recommendation was no more that 10 at a time, then waiting 24 hours (for the hub to repair/sort out) the mesh.
