I have a large area currently being handled by 3 Vera controllers on a large LAN with one of the three being a master controller (the master has many devices as its in my house and it has access to the other 2 which are specific locations with way less devices). I have been on Vera 10+ years and looking to update to newer faster. Sounds like Maybe the master should be the C8 Pro and the other 2 could just be C8?
Welcome to Hubitat!
Personally, I would use C8-Pro hubs for everything these days. Certain new features, like the ability to run ZwaveJS instead of the old Zwave SDK, are limited to the C8-Pro. The C8-Pro has a faster CPU and twice the RAM as compared to the C7/C8 hubs.
The incremental cost is worth it to me, in order to future-proof things down the road.
To add, the C-8 Pro also has a newer version of the zigbee chip in the C-8, and recently received a zigbee radio firmware update from Silabs, which the C-8 did not.
@ogiewon recommends all C8 Pro & I concur. The added features on the hardware will better "future proof" your experience for (in my opinion) a minor upcharge cost.
"many devices" is subjective and may perhaps alter the advice you receive.
50, 100, 200, or more?
Former Vera 3 user (UI5) 1.5.622
I would recommend going with the C8 Pro model too.
Btw, how many zwave devices do you have? I used to run a pair of Vera hubs too and that was only because Vera couldn’t reliably manage more than 30 devices without being highly unreliable.
I have over 90 devices on my C8 Pro and only need a second Hubitat hub to manage some intentionally very high usage LAN/Cloud integrations (solar & battery system).
I basic count looks like about 70 devices total. I ordered a 8Pro to get testing with.
I’ve got another 25 Zigbee devices on top of that too. The C8 Pro handles both radios and a ton of automation with no issues.
My experience coming from Vera was not like others have explained. I now have 3 hubs, two c8 pro and one c8 with the c8 in the ceiling first floor with about 40 aeotec zwave sensors and nano switch, c8 pro ground floor with about 40 zwave, 25 zigbee, makerapi, home assistant integrations and the remaining c8pro now dedicated to rules/actions and google cloud. I had to do this setup as the original c8 pro (devices and rules/action) and c8 (device in hub mesh mode) were missing lighting events where I would walk into a room and immediately check Hubitat app to why the light didn’t trigger, I could never find a reason as the light would immediately turn on/off instantly and many times if manually selected, hence leading me to assume that something was wrong with scheduler or zwave. Adding in the third c8pro just to control actions and rules with the other two device hubs in hub mesh mode has achieved the desired outcome of a more reliable and consistent system (all be it somewhat over kill).
Thank you for the feedback.
Vera worked well over the years but that makes its replacement tricky as it needs to be amazing/next level. I'm in the country and have a nice amount of property that includes the house I live in, a ranch home that has the main Vera, a detached 3 car garage that is a good 200+ feet from the main vera so I ended up with a second Vera in the garage and I also have a barn across a public road that is at least 300 feet from the main vera so it has the 3rd Vera. All 3 locations are part of my LAN which is mainly for IP security cameras and all 3 have multiple on/off devices along with some security items like tilt sensors on garage doors. About the fanciest control point I do is handling my outdoor wood burner. I have a sensor monitoring water temperature and if it gets too low it goes into alarm alerting "wood burner cold" (meaning its out of wood) and turns on a a bypass valve along with the oil furnace to prevent everything going cold. The opposite happens when the water temperature goes above the set point. From what I am hearing Hubitat should be able to do all that and more along with text messages that vera eliminated.
Again, thank you for the feedback.
Just to make sure it is clear, Hubitat does not offer free SMS Text Messaging. It does offer free Push Notifications when using the Hubitat Mobile App on your smartphone.
There are quite a few other options for notifications when using Hubitat, like Pushover and Twilio.
I've run into that same issue (as you know) - as I found out recently (via a back channel), z-wave isnt prioritised as high as Zigbee and HA hammers Hubitat Hubs so hard it can cause z-wave events to be missed. I need to do some more testing for the Hubitat team but am recovering from eye surgery and need to limit my screen time atm.
When i had the missed lighting events and only two hubs, i never observed the cpu getting above 40% but i believe that watchtower may only poll cpu every 5 mins and may miss certain cpu spikes
Yeah I think this is the key, and we don't have granular metrics to be able to link short duration CPU spikes to missed events.
As soon as I removed HA / Maker API from my C8Pro and to my C7, the missed events went away. My C7 doesn't run any radios at all, it only runs LAN/Cloud integrations.
Look into your cell carrier as they may have an sms gateway as part of the service so you don't need to pay for another service. usually sent in the format <10 digit phone number>@sms.yourcarier.com
Yep, that would be a nice option IF Hubitat had some sort of built-in email support.
I believe there may be some Community created email solutions for Hubitat, that might suffice for this. However, I have never used them.
ATT is ending this service in June
https://www.att.com/support/article/wireless/KM1061254/
I would expect other carriers to follow suit because of increased spam being sent via this method.
It would be great if the Hubitat team could add a proper email app/device with support for modern authentication standards. @gopher.ny @bobbyD
Unfortunately the community integration is becoming less and less useful, not even running my Synolgy mail relay between it and Gmail et al is a viable solution anymore.
My community GCal Search app supports Gmail notifications. It leverages the Gmail APIs to send emails.
I was a long time Vera user and moved over 14 months ago. The dead ended code on Vera and the immaturity of the EzLo products forced my move.
I have about 60 or so devices on a single C8Pro and it isn't over burdened. Devices are mostly ZWave but I have branched out to a couple zigbee and matter devices to get my feet wet. You'll need to decide if you segment your world into three C8s but I would not make that a starting assumption. Get started and move over some of your gear and gradually reture Vera, she's ready for retirement. Then if you max out the C8 you can add another.
Hubitat is different but it's much better (more powerful) once you get over those differences. The platform is under active development so there are system updates every few days (if you go Beta) fewer if you only take major releases. There are all kinds of add in device drivers and useful apps. This forum is excellent as many very knowledgeable folks freely give of their time to help others, it's truly remarkable. Below is post I made earlier to a Vera person moving over.
Good luck with your conversion.
Cheers, I’ll take a look at that.
I heard from another developer that implementing a TLS based SMTP mail client was essentially impossible for a community app developer, and would need Hubitat to implement.
I can’t recall the exact reasons why tho.