Oops. I take it back - I was conflating two different things in my head. My ESPresence sensors aren't ESPHome integrated.
My mmWave sensor is, but not my ESPresence. Sorry for the confusion.
Supposedly you can do something similar with ESPHome too - but I didn't go that route. I went ESPresence as it seemed more turnkey.
Think of MQTT as an external database that holds the ‘state(s)’ of all your devices across every integration/controller you use. It can also have ‘commands’ sent to it to control those devices. It operates realtime and you can subscribe to MQTT to be informed of all status changes, even if you aren’t connected at the time those state changes happen it can update you when you reconnect should you wish. Many different controllers and devices can connect to MQTT simultaneously.
My whole system I would describe as MQTT with over a dozen different controllers and devices attached like Hubitat, HomeAssistant and more. One frustrating aspect in a complex MQTT setup is that you can’t tell which client asked a device to change state
Actually my MQTT app could support this as long as the payloads are not nested json. It takes some familiarity with MQTT though so maybe hold off just now.
On its way..
Yes, but I'm assuming there's a lot more to it than just installing the mosquitto add-on into Home Assistant and waiting for the magic to just happen... oh well, I'm gonna see where this rabbit hole goes I guess..
All good. Calling ESPresence turnkey is a bit of a stretch, tho! Well at least for Apple devices. 
If you want another tester, I'd be happy to help if you implement ESPresence support.
It's fairly straight forward, you just install the MQTT Broker add-on and modify your YAML config. The last part is the hardest because the instructions havent kept up with changes made to ESPresence.
Then you flash the ESP32 board with the firmware, configure them to point at your MQTT Broker, and "enroll" your devices. It's harder for iOS devices because you need the IRK number. AIUI, Android devices dont hide their BLE MAC address's to prevent unwanted tracking and are therefore easier to setup.
I use the VScode add-on as it makes editing YAML much simpler.
It's also worth installing the MQTT Explorer add-on as then you can see the message traffic and confirm things are working correctly.
IT pros should be able to navigate UI differences without too much trouble. 
It is certainly not the same as Hubitat, but then Hubitat isn't the same as anything else either. I was grouchy about the UI until I became more familar with it (same with Hubitat actually). Now, I no longer find it a challenge until I want to do something that requires YAML 
I don’t mind YAML, I use it at work for configuring SLO’s and find it pretty logical.
The main thing I hate about HA are the stupid devices and entities model. It’s just a nightmare to navigate.
The breaking changes are the worst part tho and a big part of why I ditched it last time.
MQTT is a heck of a lot easier than I originally thought. I run mosquitto broker on a Mac. It wasn't hard to install. The step by step instructions were lenghty, but accruate. Installing the MQTT client on HA was super simple. I also run Zigbee2MQTT on HA, and again, the step by step instructions were fairly long, but that's a one time deal. Using it is pretty simple and the level of Zigbee device support is massive.
Btw, I forgot how good the energy dashboard in HA is. We have a 5.4kW solar system and Tesla Powerwall 2, so I find this quite useful.
I'm never sure what to make of this. People say "navigate" entities. Why? I navigate devices and then if I need to know what the entity is, I just click on the capability and then click on the gear. I don't see why I would ever navigate that list. Only time I use it directly is if I know or have an idea of the entity I'm looking for, and then I just use the search.
Sounds like my history. DOS 2.11 and CLI, before Windows really got started.
Yeah, a week of managing HA and this will probably be a non-issue.
Poorly chosen word on my part, I meant to work with. Admittedly it was a year ago since I last ran HA, but I found automation was painful due to the structure, compared to say rule machine on Hubitat,
I agree completely. I only use HA automations when I need to get around a device limitation (primarily when the device capaiblity doesn't have an entity). Otherwise HA is merely a device bridge for me. Home Assistant Device Bridge syncs their state with Hubitat, and that is where I automate with Rule Machine and Basic Rules.
LOL, agree 100%. 
The Home Assistant UI is not for me either, I find it unituitive. Plus everytime there is an HA update I end up with errors and issues that don't resolve following the steps that Home Assitant help says to follow to resolve them. I get that others may find it fits their brain, but definitely not mine. 
100%
back in my Vera hub days, I was so fed up with the platform that it had became basically a radio host for HA.
I had HA running perfectly and had spent many hours making great dashboards and generally making it awesome. But one day there was a breaking change that was so catastrophic, that it took me a week to recover from. After that I started looking around and found Hubitat.
It took me a while to migrate the bulk of my system across, but it was worth it. Hubitat aren’t immune to breaking changes, but they are usually incredibly minor issues that Hubitat receive quickly.
When the HA devs break your system, you are SOL and on your own!
I guess I'm lucky. 
I've been running HA for nearly 2 years and have never been affected by any of the breaking changes. I always look first, but I've never seen one that was going to break anything I personally use. I was an infrequent updater during my first year of use, but in the last year I've been updating after every release.
I've also only experienced an issue after an update once, over a year ago, but it was quickly resolved with another update the next day. I've never used the HA recovery, but I've been told it works well. My HA backs up locally and to the cloud automatically, so I should be covered if I ever run into trouble.
On occasion where the update was significant and others reported some issues, I have pulled the microSD and cloned it, just in case.
Download the Hubitat app
