I have four C7s (three at one location in a mesh, another at a location a couple of miles away). Lighting control is now done via Lutron Caseta and works well. Future light switch adds will be with Caseta devices, not Zigbee or Z-wave. In fact, I doubt that I'll be adding any more Zigbee or Z-wave components to either location aside from perhaps a Zooz device for the garage doors (to get away from MyQ) so having drivers for new devices using those signaling methods isn't important to me.
My question in the title arises because my system had been stable for a year or more, until the recent round of updates, when a Rule just stopped working (related to temp changes relative to two different devices that turn on/off a virtual switch). Rather than go through hours trying to figure out what the updates "broke" in that Rule and going back and forth here, wasting a lot of everyone's time, it's likely easier to just re-create it using a method that now works. However, this whole thing brings up a question about updating: Specifically, do we really need to udate if our system is already doing everything we want it to do?
I've always been diligent about staying on the latest firmware, but this recent situation (I'm now on 2.3.6.144) has caused me to question that, as we essentially become beta testers and in my case, something that had been working just fine on 2.3.5 broke after the update to 2.3.6. So, have there been any security-related updates to HE in recent years? And, If a security-related update is issued, could that be highlighted more prominently somehow, vs. a "regular" update? I just don't want to have things break again just because someone changed something in their code, if everything is working fine and I don't need the update.
There is nothing wrong with not updating. If you're not running into a bug or don't want a new feature/driver, then by all means stay where you're at. Nothing wrong with it. The other thing to remember though is you can always roll back.,..
There have been a few cases where something in the back end changed that eventually people on very old versions had a hard time getting updated when they finally did want to.
Also, if you do encounter any bugs that you want to report and have fixed the first request will be the update and then see if it still happens.
Other than that I don't think there is a NEED to update unless you want the new features that often come with the most recent version.
Maybe try updating once a year and see how it goes, if something breaks you can always roll back. It would also be the safest to wait until the NEXT major version starts beta testing before updating, then you pretty much know the current version has gone through its hot fixes and is probably final for that major version.
There is even a way to get the newest version from the LAST major version using a special endpoint. http://YOUR.HUB.IP/hub/advanced/downloadPlatform/235 where "235" is the major version you want to the last version from. Then you have to use the diagnostic tool to install it.
Wouldn't it be easiest just to keep your rule/app as-is and (at least) temporarily downgrade using the Diagnostic Tool, as suggested above also?
There have been some reports of Rule trigger issues that have been addressed in the last couple hotfixes, but I know at least one remains. Yours might be part of that. These issues are normally addressed in future releases, but if the possibility of new bugs is a concern for you, you may want to wait a couple weeks or so after a new release for the typical surge of hotfixes to calm down a bit.
To directly answer your question, no, you don't have to always stay on the latest release; that is part of the reason Hubitat gives you the choice. But:
Yes, the log4j vulnerability comes to mind, though I think there was at least one more at some point as well as some improvements to Dashboard security.
This is normally featured prominently in the release notes (linked to from the Check for Updates page, among other ways to get there -- using the "Watching" feature in the forum category for these is my favorite).
But most people probably do stay reasonably up to date. New versions are usually tested from upgrading from a view "major" releases back, though there is usually no hard limit, but that's another reason you might want to. It seems like this is the first notable problem you've had, I'd expect it to be fixed in the near future (if not and you don't want to figure it out yourself, others may be able to if you at least share the app/rule and what's happening), and there is an easy downgrade path available, so I wouldn't see this as a reason to totally stop updating forever.
It should also be noted that sometimes people blame problems on an upgrade when the cause is really just coincidental. I'm not saying this is the case for you (no one can say without more information), but it happens from time to time -- a device battery dies around the same time, an event was missed because the hub was off, or whatnot. Among other reasons you might downgrade, seeing if that really fixes things is another.
Other than that pesky red dot daunting me every time I log in. Seriously though, I think that has been one of Hubitat's selling points is that the user can choose to update or not to update as they see fit. It's not something that's forced on users like with some other platforms.
I think one of the beauties of Hubitat is the system can be "frozen" in time (so to speak).
While I sincerely hope Hubitat flourishes in the future, my past with earlier automation platforms wants me to be prepared for going off line and keeping my functioning system running. Hubitat will allow doing this. With the exception of the internal clock I can pull the internet plug and continue on my merry way.
As for the clock, I've not verified this but I believe I can "read" time from one of my battery backed up thermostats. I have a few Honeywell T6 Pro thermostats. In my past experience with Honeywell their RTC's are very accurate.
I started looking at this after posting. It was my idea for a while but haven't looked into it.
Now using csteel's "get attributes app" I found no obvious way to read the time, so still looking into what to do.
Thanks, Everyone. I may wait to see if a hotfix in the next week or two fixes the Rule problem, before I either re-create it or roll backI do think it would be nice for Hubitat to publish a running list of updates that addressed security features, so people would know that they needed to be on at least that version, but perhaps no higher. Forcing users to read the release notes is not a good system at all.
BTW, the Rule that broke compared the temp of my generator cabinet to the outside temp. When the delta was 25 degrees or more, it turned on a virtual switch. Then when it fell back to less than 25 degrees delta, it turned that virtual switch off via an "else" statement. The "else" part isn't working properly now, so the switch just stays on.
Ha! No, my friend, not yet, anyway. But I suspect it would be good.
I haven't had problems with Hubitat at all until 2.3.6. Some things are just off there, but none of it is really critical for me. I may end up rolling back to 2.3.5, but that remains to be seen.
I had an old c4 on 2.3.5 and when updated to 2.3.6 it ran significantly faster. Not sure why but it was just about as fast as a C7 I had running with it. The speed up saved it from the scrap heap.
I have an issue with this update too. Almost all of my rule machine had a ton of stuff that says unused and nothing and I mean none of my stuff works anymore. I had to back out of the update. VERY disappointed in this update. I hope this gets fixed because not having updates to support new devices really sucks! Please let me know if this is being considered to be fixed or if this is what it is.
Among other reasons you might downgrade, seeing if that really fixes things is another.
