Struggling to get started with Hubitat

Are you outside the return window? Because in 9/10 cases I would recommend a switch over a bulb and in most cases a switch is cheaper anyway.

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We have 4 AppleTvs, And 4 of the HomePod Minis (we use them as speakers for the Macs).. And I'm sure I have a extra RasPi laying around that might work, could just repurpose the Pi3 that Hass.io was running on.. I have handful of PiZeros in a box, wonder if those would be strong enough to run the HomeBridge program on...

Lutron does have on/off switches in its Caseta/Caseta Pro range.

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Not sure about those, but someone on here will know. Probably fine if you donā€™t have video. I canā€™t believe you havenā€™t already set this up. I have Alexa as well and itā€™s not nearly as responsive as Siri. Plus Iā€™m not comfortable letting Alexa unlock my doors or open the garage, thatā€™s Siri only. The Apple TVs and Homepods can all be Home Hubs and assigned to rooms.

Here are a couple both dimmer and switch varieties...
You can get plain looking. zigbee, z-wave, wifi...

Screen Shot 2021-03-17 at 3.12.12 PM

Maybe? I mean that is not really the purpose of those Zero's, they are more for single purpose embedded applications like a printer server or a smart mirror or something like that in conjunction with a hardware product, not a general purpose micro server like the big RPi's are good at.

@robertsonslodge, I think he was referring to the Lutron switches / dimmers.

...my apologies.

I haven't made it that far in the setup process yet, still trying to get the basics online, and think around with a few of the things.. Next Step is Alexa support.. While we do have a handful of the HomePod Minis, there are current 11 Echo devices floating around the home.. We kinda fell into the Alexa ecosystem before the HomePod Minis were released, and had no interest in the enormous HomePod (plus the price tag was iffy with no screen, when the Echo Show was at the same price point with a screen)

I'm intrigued by this HomeBridge mentioned in the thread, but I still plan to use Alexa, if not both HomeBridge and Alexa once all is done.. So I'll certainly be trying to use the Ring stuff though the connection of Alexa + Hubitat.. as the Ring stuff was just to expensive to just set aside and not use.

I am completely unfamiliar with Homebridge. I see it mentioned and discussed a great deal. I started with Alexa, thinking I could just get the 4Th gen, use it's built it zigbee hub and that would be all I need. Little did I know then just how addicting this would be. I quickly had to adapt.

Hmm, this might work then.. Although several of the rooms, and hallway have 3 way setup, most importantly the living room, so I guess I would just need to use the same setup on the opposite side of the room.. Can two switches be set to active/control the same rule/scene?

For whatever reason, the folks that built this home many years ago, didn't wanna have to get up out of bed to turn off the bedroom light, so there is actually a random wall switch in the center of one of the walls, assuming just over where they had their bed positioned, that turns off the lights as well. Its currently hidden behind our beds headboard...

There is also a Ring plugin for Homebridge. This is probably easier to setup than setting up virtual triggers from Alexa to Hubitat.

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Not to mention, that not all functions work on all devices when they are paired directly to a Alexa Hub... had some colored bulbs, daughter wanted to make her lights pink, that paired to the Alexa Hub, could turn the bulbs on/off and dim them.. but you couldn't change the color, needed the bulbs hub + skill for that.

Is there an article, or post here, that you might suggest that goes into depth of setting that sort of thing up.. If not one on Ring Plugin + Homebrige, but perhaps one just on Alexa + Hubitat..

Really only interested in using the Rings as sensors/triggers, don't care really about the video side of it..

Yes, using Button Controller you can select multiple devices as long as they have the same functionality.

Agreed on the limitations of the built in Alexa Hub. There are so many other devices, hubs and integrations that you're limited only by your imagination. The folks here both share this passion to constantly improve. It's exciting. I'm sure there are better ways to achieve your automation goals than what I throw together. I just want you to know it can be done. I am super pleased with my Habitat experience as well as the encouragement and advice found here. Succeed SmplTeddyBear!

I donā€™t personally use Ring (thought about it for a while), but the plugin appears to sync all Ring alerts to Home. You can setup actions in Home as well once you have all of your devices connected. I do this with my garage door that runs on Homebridge.
Hereā€™s one of the Apple threads Hubitat + HomeKit + HomeBridge + HomePod Mini = WOW

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The big Homepod was actually discontinued recently so I would be weary of jumping into that ecosystem as a whole, especially if the Mini sales do not pan out as Apple expected.

It depends on your specific setup, iirc, you can use 2 smart switches, a smart switch and an add on switch, or a smart switch and a dumb switch. See this post from Inovelli about this topic:

At the very least, if all of your switches have the relays disabled, everything can effectively be a wireless 3 way since the commands are coming from the hub anyway since the switches are effectively just buttons mounted on the wall.

In computing terms the CPU is on par with the original first gen Pi (although it has been clocked 30% faster) so it's quite a capable general purpose machine in its own right.

I run all sorts of stuff on these like cameras and media servers (LMS), although I don't run multiple demanding applications on them.If the thing can run pi hole well I would imagine that homebridge should be ok.

Yeah that is more what I was getting at, they are single purpose devices, but I bet most people here that have a RPi setup have 3 or more servers that are running on a single pi, i.e. PiHole with PiVPN or other VPN server with Node-RED, etc, and at that point I think the Zero would be stretching it. I am using my zero as a OctoPrint server for my 3D printer and it even struggles with that alone.