Techive Hubitat review

Not sure I agree with most if it but here it is. They basically say the new version is out already lol.

Perhaps they spilled the beans.
Allegedly it was out at CES.
Whispers in the dark.

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Welp, I feel rather 1337 now.

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I actually agreed with a lot of it. Not all, but a lot.

I do think they miss the point on the benefits of local processing, though. They can't seem to get their mind around the fact that for many reliability is paramount in home automation. Sure you still need some cloud services now and again. But the core home operation being reliable is the main benefit to me.

They seem to be thinking of this more as a convenience system (Google assistant, Alexa, et al) rather than home automation, and can't fathom that you may still have needs if the cloud is down.

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We're "the most tech-savvy consumers", yay.

Edit: which isn't saying much lol.
I see my friends Home Assistant setup and blink... A lot...

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New versions come with out the usb stick ?

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Looking like it. I'm not convinced that is a good thing though... But we'll see I guess.

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Ditto what JasonJoel said. I particularly agree with this

the lack of basic usability features will render it a nonstarter for many. After all, there’s a reason so many smart home solutions rely on the cloud.

Many of you came to HE with SH experience, particularly ST. I can code in a couple of now-dead languages and hack in a few that are still viable but I had never messed with a hub. It took 2 weeks of reading the forum for it to start to come together. I've recommended HE to family members. They're sharp, but not programmers, and I suspect their eyes will glaze over at the first rule.

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So we should assume the antennas are stronger with out a usb stick? Why else would they leave the stick behind ?

I don’t agree with allot of it. I doubted local as well (even though winked offered this). I can say HE is almost instant. It completes most commands on google home before she is even done talking. It’s literally like being at the switch. In addition reliability has been rock solid. Granted it’s only been two weeks for my but that was longer than I got from Wink.

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I assume nothing. The USB dongle could be removed simply to be cheaper to manufacture, for instance.

No use speculating, though. We'll find out when/if it is released.

I'm looking forward to a zwave 700 version early next year. :wink: Hey, if we are going to rumormonger, it might as well be a rumor I like. lol

Im very happy with the HE solution.. I came from HS, SH, ST, UDI. HE is the best one yet..

I definitely like this more than HomeSeer... I wanted to like it, but... Didn't. That was an expensive mistake.

I liked ST a lot, except occasional performance issues and cloud outages... It has a TON of developer support, which is nice.

So far I am very optimistic about Hubitat. Hope it continues to grow and improve, though, asthere are definitely elements of it that are rough (dashboards, user interface, no mobile app).

The thing that they fail to realize in that article is that there is NO hub anywhere right now that does complex automation with any semblance of user-friendliness. What they are trying to compare Hubitat to doesn't exist.

You can get super user friendly hubs today that do the simplest of things like turn a couple lights on at sunset or when you get home. If you want anything else, you have to step up to a hub like Hubitat or ST or HomeSeer or HASS or whatever. At that point, all of these hubs suffer from the same problem....how to make complex stuff simple enough for the average potential customer. Nobody does that today, it's a market that doesn't exist because the aren't any products in it.

What Hubitat does do, it does better than any of it's competitors IMO. That's the comparison they should be focused on.

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A bit concerned about the lack of a stick, only because I can't fathom how we'd migrate from one hub to the next. But I'm sure that's been thoroughly discussed.

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"Mid-2018" is a funny way to say "January."

It's probably true that the UI could use a bit more handholding for beginners (and some professional design love), but it compares favorably to other systems I've used (Vera, Home Assistant, and, of course, SmartThings). The author seems overly focused on the "local" aspect and further associates that with just "privacy." That is, of course, not the only reason people want local--it's also faster, and since everything that can run locally does, it's quite different from, say, custom SmartApps on ST. But even opening up cloud access isn't as scary as he makes it sound. With Alexa, for example, there is no cloud cache of device states, unlike ST (not sure about Vera but I think Home Assistant's new-ish support is similar to Hubitat). I also don't know what he means with the statement that "the touted local control goes away as soon as you add devices like smart speakers" (Sonos communication, for example, still happens over the LAN; Alexa is as described above; and in no case do you lose local control of device X just because you added device Y that needs Internet access).

I'm also curious if that new stickless version is out yet, because if so, I'll buy one today before the holiday weekend sale ends. :slight_smile: (I'll miss the flexibility on the rare instance I used it but will like the way it looks much better--it's in my living room.)

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That makes two.

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Terrible article, but he did concern me with the comments about barriers to entry for newcomers (me). Hoping there may be a v3 software soon with a simplified setup .

Any formal word on a release date now that the cat is out of the bag? Guess HE are being cleared out at $85 to make way for new version.

Annoyingly I have to wait a couple of months until I can travel down to Montana and pickup HE with some switches (total cost is vastly cheaper than shipping to Canada).

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It's what I would call an uneducated article.. in that the Author clearly got some facts but then walked away and later, during the writing of the article, made conclusions or extrapolations with no attempt to vet them.

"The hub itself can operate independent of the internet, but the touted local control goes away as soon as you add devices like smart speakers."

Any one of us could have corrected the Author by pointing out that NONE of the local control goes away. The smart speaker is what fails, not Hubitat. Which I think takes that 'con' and makes a 'pro.'

"Does Hubitat’s localized technology offer any other real benefits aside from better up time?"

If 'uptime' means the number of hours your hub will run and perform automations without an internet connection then I'd ask is there a bigger benefit to be had?

It's a disappointing article because it was given the most minimal of lucid thought.

There are valid points, especially how hard it is to get functionally literate as to how the hub works on days 1-12.

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I tend to agree with much of what is written here. The interface is so much cleaner and easier to get my head around than Vera's ever was (not least as it's all instant with no delay) but there are still annoyances.

Is there a single place to list "Gui annoyances" in one place? Would be nice to be able to see and track GUI issues/improvements.

G

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