Complete newbie here, ready to make the move from SmartThings to Hubitat. I already have 2 ST Wi-Fi hubs which I will continue to use as a mesh wi-fi network for the home. Will be purchasing a HE to be the heart of my new system. HE will be on the same LAN as the wi-fi hubs.
My concern is the HE will be at one end of my house and worried about connecting to Zigbee/Z-wave devices at the other end of the house. Thinking since I have the ST hubs already maybe they will act as repeaters? Alternatively I could pair my devices to the ST hub(s) and use HubConnect? Been reading the threads and still not sure if HubConnect is in some way dependent on ST having a cloud connection? I wanna be 100% local from now on!
No need to worry about existing devices connected to the hubs, everything is reset and I'm building from scratch. Hoping you can point me in the right direction now to avoid heartache later.
Thanks in advance, I'm excited to be learning anew platform!
Greetings! A SmartThings hub will not repeat for Hubitat (both Hubitat and SmartThings want to be coordinators/controllers or hubs, not repeaters...there might be hope for Z-Wave if you manage to join one as a secondary Z-Wave controller, but even then I'm not sure it will repeat and isn't something either hub really "likes" to do despite that fact that Z-Wave Certified models do support the feature per spec requirements).
Additionally, as you suspect, HubConnect to/from SmartThings requires the cloud, so that would be a bad option if you value local control (and if you're moving away from ST for that reason, I suspect you will ).
The best option is to locate Hubitat as centrally as possible and build out a strong network. As you may know from ST, most powered devices (switches/dimmers, plugs/outlets, etc., plus dedicated "repeater" devices although you don't need any) act as repeaters for their respective protocol, Zigbee or Z-Wave, and extend the range of your network. Z-Wave is limited to 4 hops and Zigbee is more or less indefinite, but Z-Wave also tends to have longer practical range. However, even with Hubitat on one side of your house, you may still get sufficient range, especially if whatever protocols you use here have a strong enough network. These two Hubitat docs may give you more information:
It's nice you have everything reset! If any Z-Wave devices won't pair, sometimes an exclusion, documented above, may still be necessary. Otherwise, sounds like you're free to build your network at whatever pace you want, which is good! Good luck!
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