After being on Hubitat for over two years I have finally cut all ties with SmartThings. I had long ago unplugged the hub but kept using webCoRE on their cloud platform, primarily because it offered free SMS and that it was a good solution for doing various network monitoring. Last last year I signed up with https://www.oracle.com/cloud/ which offers anyone a free server running in the cloud. Not knowing a lot about running a remote service I was able to get linux up and running and setup several https websites along with node-RED which has endless uses for both inbound and outbound processes. SMS is a critical service that I needed and using twilio.com, setup an account for that. Unlike other cloud services, Oracle remains free with no strings attached. It's been running solid for 8 months. The only tricky thing was getting the certificates installed and properly updating. Granted, you can't run high volume commercial websites but for what it is, its a great value for free. Just putting this out there incase there are others looking to get the SmartThings monkey off their back.
Good info! Thanks for sharing.
Just curious if you are already aware that Hubitat supports Twilio natively?
Yes, I have mine setup that way now. Before I was using a third party driver. SMS isn't that critical for me inside my local network. Reason being if my internet connection is up I can use Hubitat's built in notification or Pushover. SMS is important for me outside my network because even if my data connection is nonfunctional, SMS is almost guaranteed to work as long as I have cell service, even in fringe areas.
Same here. Only a single device remains on my ST...a Schlage BE469ZP lock that I cannot get to respond well on HE.
Anyone looking to get started with a free Oracle server and node-RED these are the directions I followed: https://blogs.oracle.com/developers/installing-node-red-in-an-always-free-vm-on-oracle-cloud
my schlage FE599 lock also does not like hubitat it seems. I got it to connect, but it didnt stay that way. I still canned smartthings though
this looks really cool, however I moved to hubitat for the locality of it. Why would you use node-red in the cloud when you have hubitat? Wouldn't it be better to use a local VM or an rpi for example?
One reason for Node-RED in the cloud is to monitor my network.
If the internet connection, that my hubs are on, goes down there is no way to get a message out telling me so.
I am also working on future proofing my setup. If for some reason Hubitat was to go under, sell out, or change it's policy in a way that is not agreeable, I have my own system in the cloud that allows me to run my own dashboard(s)
There are plenty of non home automation uses too. One thing I do is run my own weather station and upload my date to a website as to not expose my local home network by running a web server.
