Still Haven't Made The Jump

IMHO the best place to start is YouTube. Hubitat has a series of very brief how to videos that are very helpful. After that do a YouTube search on "Hubitat" and you'll find plenty of good videos.

If you are transitioning from another system take the time to learn the correct way to unpair/disassociate your devices from it before shutting it down, and factory reset all the devices. With that done try adding a few devices. If I were starting over I would start with my ZigBee devices since they were the easiest. Then move on to Z-Wave devices.

As you work through those initial steps and have questions or run into issues hop on the forums here and post your questions. There are plenty of people willing to help.

3 Likes

I came from ST too. The first thing I did was check to see if all of my devices would migrate to HE and what kind of issues I might encounter while moving them. Then, like @tom, I watched all of the YouTube videos and also read the online documentation to familiarize myself with the tools available within HE. I found that most of the stuff I had to "jump through hoops" to make work on ST (overly complicated rules with too many virtual switches), HE had an app already built in to do it.

1 Like

Just be warned that despite how wonderful low latency is, it’s not perfect. Updates will break things, especially if you don’t happen to use the same devices the developers use. Features you may depend on in one version may inexplicably disappear in another. Even the simple automations I utilize haven’t worked consistently since the last round of updates and appear to require my debugging each, again.

Once it’s working, treat it like it’s a Linux server circa 2005 and only update after the forums settle down for any given version.

This forum is the only reason I am able to make mine work acceptably with the devices I use.

Don’t let this scare you, it’s a great box but will require more of your time than any other appliance you own.

1 Like

I, like you and also many people it would seem came from SmartThings. I also did some recon before jumping over. I personally found (and this is not a dig) that although the ST community is extremely active it only seems to be on a few topics, HE is also active but across a more varied amount of topics and the developers and staff are on here almost on a daily basis. Sure there a pros and cons for both but I don’t regret the move, I’m just a smart home hobbyist looking to build my home and try not to annoy the wife...

1 Like

Yeah I think HA is cool and the interface looks great. Inevitably you end up mucking around in the configuration file(s) which does take some technical understanding beyond basic cut and paste. XAML ftw!

While I like to tinker these days a more packaged solution like HE is preferable (as is this helpful community) - nice to have as an alternate possibility though.

Should be mentioned that HE is built on opensource technologies too.

1 Like

ditto, from ST myself. Wife hated it.

Now? Hubitat. She actually asked me if there was anything cool I could do with the xmas lights. She was begging me to install standard switches under st.

4 Likes

In my mind, I have renamed SmartThings to something more appropriate. I thought about giving the hub away but that just seems mean.

The hardest part of switching to Hubitat was just deciding to do it.

Just do it... it's not hard.

3 Likes

I've said this elsewhere. The plan was always to upgrade to hubitat somewhere down the line and give my ST hub to my parents.

It really wasnt worth the potential hassle. I binned it.

1 Like

When I was making the move from ST to HE I used HubConnect to ease my transition. It essentially allows you to access ST devices from your HE. I created groups for all the lights, switches, and outlets I planned to use, and most of my rules were built using groups rather than individual lights or switches or outlets. When I migrated a light/switch/outlet from ST to HE, all I needed to do was update the group and any rules using the group automatically got the update. Sensors were a bit different - I moved those over first.

2 Likes

When I jumped from ST to HE, I only had about 20 smart devices. So for me, it was worth it to just do it all at once. I made myself a spreadsheet to work through:

  • All devices to unpair/re-pair
  • Descriptions of all automations at a high level (to re-create using RM and HE apps)
  • Which devices were shared out with Alexa and HomeKit

Basically, re-creating the requirements for my system, so that I could go down the list and set things up in HE and know I wasn't missing anything that I had working in ST.

1 Like

I had a lot of stuff in webcore. I used the transition as an excuse to tidy up (or rewrite) my pistons before transferring them. I guess that as time progresses, you gain a firmer grasp of anything and although I wouldn't consider myself an expert by any means, some of my original pistons were just horrible.

I had a fair amount of stuff running through smartthings motion lighting app, purely because it ran locally and I found it was best for reliability to use virtual switches and a bit of logic to control various bits without needing to rely too heavily on cloud. I first started converting all of that rubbish to webcore too, with the expectation of jumping ship soon.

I did find that it was helpful to ensure my pistons used variables to define devices at the header of each piston, so at least when I transferred over, I only needed to change a few variables to point to new devices rather than trawl through a million references to Switch1 or whatever it was that no longer existed. This was probably the thing which provided me with the most help.

2 Likes

A big advantage HE has over ST is how much less latency you'll experience with switches/buttons with the local processing. I was very happy with SmartThings for years until a friend gave me a Hubitat hub to play around with. When walking into an area and hitting a button to turn on lights, sound, etc., having to stand there for 2-4 seconds sometimes seems like 100 years when waiting to make sure the trigger was successful. Now with HE the lights come on milliseconds after my hand leaves the button, sometimes even before I release it.

2 Likes

I'd also argue that while HE does have a steep learning curve (much higher than Wink/ST, but much lower than HA), you can also help yourself by sticking to the built-in apps and wisely picking some of the most common community apps to extend your experience.

From there you'll start to become more familiar and then deep dive into even more.

Just signed up and my hub is a day or so from getting here. Looking forward to moving from ST. I've used ST for the last couple of years with good results...but the last couple of months have been absolute crap. I've eyeballed HE for a while now and am impressed by the community and how more involved Hubitat employees seem to be. HE seems to be more geared towards what I'm wanting, I just want to make sure I start off correctly. I've already watched several of the Hubitat videos, and have appreciated all the great advice found here.

Now to start the exclusions lol...

5 Likes

I'm in this same boat. I've been looking at Hubitat for nearly a year now.

My concerns were/are: It's a pretty new company, where are they going to be in 10 years, or will it become a pay as you go service. (I guess ST would be in the same boat).

I also have a bunch of stuff that I'm not sure will migrate over. Granted I have not done a TON of research lately..
*Influxdb logging - I have a pretty extensive HA dashboard setup in Influx/Grafana
*Webcore - I rely fairly heavily on Webcore for lighting automatons.
*3rd Part smart apps - Such as BlueIris fusion. Using motion triggers from cameras to automate lighting.
*How does the android app work? Last I recall seeing it was quite cumbersome. (Wife friendly, etc)

You see that's the whole point of "local" - it doesn't matter where the company is/what they are doing in ten years. A "stable" configuration should last for the lifetime of your hardware - I think of it like an "appliance" similar to a refrigerator or stove. This is one of the compelling things about HE that got me to switch from Smart Things many moons ago. It's also been a great selling point to my residential clients.

I guess it depends on what you want to accomplish though..

2 Likes

I’ll let others weigh in on some of the other items, but if you know webCore you should be able to backup/restore over to HE and have your pistons back up and running with only minor modification - good news here is that unlike ST, webCore runs local on HE.

2 Likes

Hate to be "that guy" but search the forums - there are a ton of things available just takes some digging.

Yeah it's not the most friendly BUT what are you planning on using it for? Dashboard Access - HE allows for this so you don't need the app just a bookmarked link. Also there are some cool 3rd party solutions for example:

Also you might want to think about implementing a VPN if that's your thing. WireGuard is awesome and can be installed locally.

2 Likes

All of your topics are covered at length in the forum. Search is your friend :wink:

3 Likes