Teach me as if I were a child - starting from scratch

Yeah, I'm not sure it is worth it for you to try and get the IoT wifi devices even working in Hubitat, since you have so few of them. Hubitat is a local hub, forcing IoT devices into Hubitat goes against the whole idea of owning a local hub that does not need the internet and cloud servers to control devices.

Zigbee Outlets are cheap to replace for your outlets, but your several Wifi dimmers will be a cost to replace. I think you should save all the hassles and just replace them.

That said, besides getting access to the Tuya cloud directly with a developer account and the community integration for it, there are tricks.

I use a few wifi outlets out in my shed to control pool stuff since Zigbee will not reach out there, so I am using a roundabout way to add them by leveraging the SmartThings cloud "linked services", and using HubiThing Replica (pulls devices from SmartThings into Hubitat). I pull them into the SmartThings app (no hub needed) using the Smart Life linked service in SmartThings, where they become SmartThings devices. Then I use HubiThings Replica to pull those in as Hubitat devices for direct control. There is Globe linked service, but you can usually add those devices to several different apps, like Tuya Smart or Smart Life as well.

That will not work with dimmers, as the linked services on SmartThings will not pull in more complex devices like dimmers.

You can also use virtual devices in Hubitat that you share with Alexa or Google, and then use those as triggers to change the device states using routines on the Alexa/Google side. They usually need to be a virtual contact sensor, virtual lock, or virtual motion sensor. There are community drivers out there that will create a virtual switch that acts like another form of sensor, for this purpose. Like this one:

You make a routine in Alexa, for example, that triggers from the virtual switch contact changing to "open" to run a routine that controls the IoT device. You turn on the switch in Hubitat, it also changes the contact attribute in that switch to open, the Alexa routine uses the open contact sensor as a trigger, to change your wifi device to be On. You make another routine in Alexa for when the contact changes to closed, and you turn you wifi switch off in that routine.

Dimmers in general do not work with these methods, as you would need 100 virtual devices in Hubitat and 100 routines on the Alexa side, to account for all dim levels. You could create maybe four virtual devices, and use those for a high, medium, low, and off on a dimmer, by setting the dimmer in the routine to like 100%, 65%, 35%, and then have a switch for on/off with two more routines. So for a dimmer with three levels, it will take three virtual devices to set levels, and one device to turn it on or off. Probably not worth it.

Then there are also Tasmota drivers, where you have to flash the chips on the switches so you can gain local wifi control over them, and use the Tasmota drivers to control them. If you don't like the Tuya developer option, flashing device hardware probably isn't where you want to go either.

Hopefully some of this makes sense. Ultimately, the easiest way to fix this issue is to buy local mesh devices to replace the Wifi devices.

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