By "stuff" I mean what devices, automations, dashboard tweaks, etc, do you use regularly. Basically a chance to call out the often less discussed side to HA alongside lighting and climate control.
For my contribution, I was lucky enough to get into the Logitech Harmony eco-system before Logitech decided to exit, so am grateful to @ogiewon for his work in this space. That also includes control of my more obscure Jazz speakers I purchased probably ~20 years ago now, controlled via the IR extender, like the TV and candle lights in my Study. It's only laziness that typically stops me from expanding this to controlling my shades and lights when I activate different activities via Harmony.
On that note, if I was to expand into that area, I enjoy my use of my Bond bridge to control my roller blinds and awnings, using @dman2306 's Bond integration.
I'd also add in the more common use of speakers. What speakers are people using? I have predominantly used Google Mini's, admittedly sparingly in my HA (I prefer to use my Marshall Bluetooth IIII headphones to listen to music).
In a shameless promotion of my own efforts....even though I don't use them much myself... I have dabbled with some semi-complete drivers, no comparison to Dan's Harmony drivers or Dominic's Bond drivers :
Album Art Driver - Include an album cover on a dashboard tile using MusicBrainz and CoverArt Archive (and maybe Tasker)
AV is one area that Hubitat has limited functionality. Yes, there are some components that Hubitat can control as you highlight. But there's a lot of basics missing like cable boxes and Apple TVs. In my own Hubitat system I don't do much more than an occasional power-off command.
IMO to do comprehensive AV control requires a physical remote. Harmony got about 80% of the way there before they gave up. But even then Harmony is doing the AV control, not Hubitat. Unfortunately the systems that do work well are usually not DIY friendly and integrate the remote with a control system. I have a low complexity Control4 system that came with my house. The AV stuff works very well. Non-AV works too, but I mostly use Hubitat for control/automation as it is easier and in some ways more powerful.
I think things are likely to change a lot in the next couple of years. Most of the big consumer electronics companies seem to be in the process of adding Matter to their products. I believe that Amazon is "encouraging" them to do so as well. Assuming that comes to be true, remotes and control systems can be more or less decoupled. Hopefully Hubitat will implement Matter too.
If you look at the market there are at least a few new entrants for AV control. Allonis is developing a new remote with its own control system. This is a traditional system like a Control4, but it's DIY friendly. YIO is bringing a remote to market that is more in line with a Harmony structure and are planning Matter compatibility.
You can find a Control4 EA-1 with remote on eBay for ~$300-400. You can find online programmers for less than $100/hr. To do a basic TV/AVR/Streamer setup should take less than 2 hours for a good programmer. Once the devices are added you can do most of the programming yourself.
My house has a multi-zone audio system by a company from Texas called HTD. There’s a bridge device that allows for integration and they even publish an API. I think there are at least a few other Hubitat users that have one of their systems.
That’s one of their multi-zone amps someone wrote a Hubitat integration for. I use their Lync system, but I’ve had to resort to using Home Assistant to automate it, since no one’s released a Hubitat integration yet that I know of.
Harmony as u for tvs and all have yamaha receivers. My own normal speakers hard wired in kitchen living room and music room and deck. Yamaha cx5100 multizone receiver to control those. Alexa voice for zone and volume control.
When I read that Logitech were discontinuing the Harmony line I scoured the state and found one of the last Companions in existence. I ended up getting it for free due to a clerical error.
The software is atrocious and frustrating but it is now set up the way I wanted it. I was sick of Google not recognising my speech and wanted a remote to avoid using voice commands.
I have mapped the home control buttons to control bedroom light, tablet display, aircon and bedroom fan functions. I found my PC/Kodi system was always awake when I was so I launch my bedtime and wake-up routines from that, it turns everything but climate control on/off and wakes/sleeps the PC with a single button.
Apart from that it's just a Nest Hub in the bedroom and a Lenovo Clock in the bathroom for music and radio, with Google starting play and Hubitat controlling volume and stop depending on rule conditions in RM5.1.
I originally wanted the Harmony as I loved the idea of the home control buttons to use with the cheap wifi globes I had just purchased. Bitten by the bug, 12 months later Hubitat is running everything, Hue globes, sensors and dimmer switches, aircon control via Broadlink with a tablet display for control and I just managed to give away all my old wifi smart gear.
I'd be interested to hear what other solutions people have come up with.
For audio I just went simple. We are a multi user family with iphones. So I implemented sonos into the house and we then have the ability to send whatever we want from our phones to whatever speakers (or combination of speakers) we want. It works well and the wife loves it. I didn't want to get into learning another app etc. I just wanted something simple that she already knew how to do. Over time I did try a few cheaper alternativates but found it to be annoying when audio went out of sync in the house when using Airplay 2 . Our Sonos setup stays in sync.
The other advantage is the speakers can by used for TTS announcements and also have Alexa/Google built in (depedning on the device) which eliminates the need for an extra device in a number of my rooms. Of course if you go with the in wall solution with the sonos setup in the rack you can't do this.
My remotes are all harmony. I do a lot with them an have yet to see something out there that I can purchase that I would even consider. Especially at this price point. With these I can use Alexa for some basic commands (on/off/play/pause/volume up and down/channel up and down).
The more advanced stuff on my TV's were a pain to get working. All of my TV's are running KODI as the front end. It presents the data fed to it via my Emby server. This allows me to do a number of more advanced things things such pop up video when somebody rings the doorbell or walks up the driveway, change channel using Alexa and the channel name. I got the basic code working but can even add more advanced such as searching for programs using voice.
I also setup airplay on my TV's so we can cast our phone screens to the TV if we want to show each other something or just watch something on our phone on the big screen.
I also have other things like bond for my fireplace contro, and racchio for my irrigation. My cameras are all integrated through Blue Iris and show up as devices with motion/audio detection and light control (via the camera's API).
One of the things I really like about hubitat is how powerful it is. If you really get your hands dirty and learn how to program there is SO much you can do and you can tweak it to work exactly with your devices or how you want whenever you want.
+1 on Sonos. It's Magic.
I went Sonos Beam for my TV as well. So nice to be able to stream the audio from a sport event or even New years count-down throughout the house when appropriate.
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