Been spending tons of hours getting more adept with Hubitat - it's an investment. But I've read here and there that Hubitat gets pretty slow and laggy the more devices ad/or rules you add to it - to the point that some users have to reboot Hubitat every few days.
Is this true? and what's the limit before it starts getting slow?
I'm heavily depending on Hubitat for home security and alarm and I can't have this thing konking up on me.
A home automation controller is not a substitute for a home security system.
No.... I have around 150 devices and good amount of rules and rarely reboot except for updates. The reasons for slowdown typically is too much power reporting (overwhelms the mesh and logs), bad device (slows the mesh), something like HA or NR calling on maker.api to frequently (again overwhelming the db) Most of this isn't really exclusive to hubitat. If you have a stable mesh(s) You can have a thousand rules and it will work fine.
As @aaiyar you shouldn't be depending on hubitat or any other home automation system for security. Ideally you should have a dedicated home security system that can be integrated into hubitat but run as standalone. (this way you get messages and can trigger automations but if something happens your security still works). Hubitat is NOT built to be a security system.
unfortunately there's no other better wireless solution. I've been using basic 433mhz types and they are somewhat reliable.. i dont see why a well put HA controller like HE couldnt be as effective if not more since it has some way of knowing if sensors are still up and working/connected. Dumb 433 systems are terrible but a lot of firms rely on it. I've also serviced some companies with installations using z-wave based intrusion alarm system although i dont know what hub they were using. But i think a well designed z-wave system can be reasonably reliable. That's just IMO though
I'm going to add to the voice of caution about using HE for life/safety sorts of things. I have an entirely separate old school alarm panel with HE integration but if HE goes caput or the zwave radio locks up I have an independent system. But of course each person's needs are different.
In terms of hub capacity I have over 400 devices (including virtual) on my main HE and it clicks along just fine. I have some automations which are particularly intensive (by design) offloaded to a secondary hub but if they were designed better I wouldn't need to. (In this case I am the designer so nothing against the large assortment of community-supported apps.)
HE is designed to do many things. It is not dedicated to one thing. If it were dedicated to one thing then firmware could be burned on a chip. HE is more like a pc and constantly changing, where as an appliance config (such as ring) does just the one thing. Ring is very limited in what you can do with it to maintain that. I don't have a problem with wireless protocols being used for security, I'm just saying HE isn't designed to be the center and it shouldn't be. Too many other things rely on it. If you want dedicated and integrated, you should use Ring and get the unofficial ring integration to hubitat. That way if hubitat goes down, your ring will still work.
tnx for that ..
so your version is to have at least a separate Hub for security? Or totally different solution like 433mhz? Wired is not an option coz it tends to be less reliable in our experience. I live in the tropics w/c is worst as rats will chew through those little wires.
I havent checked out RING yet but isn't ring CLOUD DEPENDENT? Or wifi based? I would definitely not do an alarm system relying on cloud or wifi.
I actually do surveillance and security systems as my main business for almost 20 yrs. We've serviced homes , offices, banks etc. When we design systems we follow the "over-lapping" principle where any you have at least two sensors that will go off for every AOI (Area Of Interest) ... This way a single sensor failure wont compromise the defense. Of course the hub/server/panel is the one single point of failure that needs to be monitored closely.
anyway I've gone through wired, and wireless 433mhz systems and that's pretty much all we had until z-wave/zigbee came along. Now we're actually experimenting on LorA type devices but it just isn't as polished as z-wave / HA based solutions at the moment - unless im missing something
I think he for automation and something dedicated that's is purposely built to be security but abs integrate with he for additional automation
Ring is zigbee abs z-wave and the cloud is used for professional monitoring should you so choose to use it
Ah so the system works completely offline.. but it still uses zigbee or zwave.
How about setting up 2 HEs?
ONe for Home automation and one for just the security sensors? Because I want to avoid yet another platform coming into the mix, and i just checked our RING it seems quite limited in terms of sensors.. Vibration, glass-break, fence-beam, etc arent available
Ring is indeed limited, but a good product for home monitoring, and at a really great price! I’ve been using it for several years not and have been very happy with it.
The cloud is used to when you want your phone to connect to the base station. It also comes with a cellular backup if you subscribe to the service. The alarm can be armed and disarmed via the Z-Wave keypad, and all devices are connected via Z-Wave.
I have used Vivint for 10 years. It uses Z-Wave sensors. Some have needed battery replacement, which I did myself. When it was set up, it needed a repeater to get some of the remote sensors to work, along with the front door lock.
A couple of years ago, I installed HE for automations.
Question:
Do the two Zwave meshes interfere or augment each other? Neither system sees any device paired with the other system - at least I don't see any indication of it.
Neither. I suppose if you had really large zwave networks you might run into bandwidth contention but I don't think you'd see that under normal conditions. Repeaters will only repeat for devices that are part of the same network.
Obviously if you have some sort of hub-to-hub integration you could see devices from one network appear on another hub (ring to HE for instance) but the devices themselves would not be directly visible.
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