Hi, I started to home automation recently and want to switch to a central controller for all my stuff. I discovered Thera are so many controllers. Cheap and expensive, different protocols handling, After a long search I found (beginners view): Hubitat, Home assistant, Homey as candidates that look promising (most used protocols) and fairly easy to use/setup. It looks like Hubitat is best prized but (I think) the others more expandable nd programmable. Now not sure which one to buy but perhaps Hubitat looks goed and priced best for normal household use. Can somebody help me out and perhaps have arguments why to buy Hubitat. I live in the Netherlands, can I easily buy Hubitat products here!?
Thanks
@user4178 Hubitat is incredibly versatile as well as powerful for both the beginner as well as the professional installer. It's also a self contained box that runs 100% locally. No cloud involved. Homey on the otherhand requires the cloud. No thanx. At that point you are reliant on someone else servers. Same goes for ST. HA is very powerful but also requires an always on box running linux or windows. I think in general that's a waste of resources and electricity. (my opinion anyway).
Next is you have to realize that Hubitat's core value is 100% local processing. This is accomplished through z-wave and zigbee devices. There are some wifi devices that will run locally and are native to Hubitat such as Shelly and Lifx but it's limited because typically most Wifi stuff is cloud dependent. (Again where is your data going and you are dependent on someone else servers). That is not to say that you can't run Wifi stuff. The Hubitat community has a myriad of devs that write cloud integrations if an API from the manufacturer is available. There are a lot of z-wave and zigbee community drivers as well as community created application plug ins for Hubitat. As someone new to home automation your best bet is to figure out what you want to do, what devices you will need, and start small. Also integration of Lutron Caseta and Hue are done with 100% local communication so you can expand things even more. (I have around 60 Lutron Caseta dimmer/switches/pico's and a bunch of phillips hue stuff connected to the hue bridge which is controlled directly from Hubitat)
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Thanks for the answer. Makes a lot of sense and indeed perhaps I should start with Hubitat and integrate all my Philips Hue lights. Second to do are my fire/smoke sensors. After that the difficilt stuff like Sonos and outdoor Security camera’s,
Hubitat has built in integration for Sonos. What security cameras do you have? What smoke detectors do you have? For the phillips hue, use their bridge and either use the built in integration or the for feature filled Community integration called Cocohue.
This is just a starter list. Lots of things that work fine with Hubitat are not on the list.
https://docs2.hubitat.com/en/devices/list-of-compatible-devices
I was SmartThings for a long while...
Did a brief stint with Vera (what a train wreck).
Then dabbled with HA...very steep learning curve.
Found Hubitat and have my "forever home".
SmartThings was good, but the cloud processing caused some automations to be delayed. Also there was the occasional server outage that would disable everything...
HA was very complicated to learn (and I'm an EE who has done a lot of programming)...very steep learning curve. And then, having to have a machine or VM running to host it. Don't go the Raspberry Pi path...they tend to puke after extended runs 24/7.
Hubitat is not as "expandable" as HA, but can do what I need it to do. My house is Z-Wave, ZigBee, Hue, and Sonos.
Love the Hubitat...great community support and engagement. Solid device...and everything runs 100% local.
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I have Netatmo detectors for smoke and planning to buy for CO.
Glad to hear about Sonos and the Hue! So this must be possible.
I don't have security camera's but planning to buy from Eufy. They are expensive so I must be sure if they can integrate in Hubitat or else find some other brand.
Also for security I have outdoor sensors from Hue which are used for switching on lights.
Liked your help and ordered the Hubitat Elevation C7 (this should be the last model!?)
Thanks for your help. Exited to start when the Hubitat arrives.
Best regards
Ed
Yes the C7 is the latest. The outdoor sensors can be paired directly to hubitat (that will also be the fastest)
No eufy stuff is integrated on hubitat due to lack of api.
No neatmo integration that I can find. But you can do what a lot of us do. I have Nest Protects (smoke/co). I use Ecolink Firefighters. They can tell the diff between smoke and co sounds (the sounds are federally standardized), They are very reliable. Works with pretty much any US smoke detector/co detector. Now some smoke detectors have dry contacts on them which you can use a zigbee sensor on. Not sure if yours do or not.
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For security cameras, I am running UniFi Protect. There is a community developed driver that works great for these cameras.
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You might want to find another brand regardless of whether they integrate with Hubitat:
What’re you looking for in terms of an IP camera integration?
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I want camera’s which are able to see the difference between people and animals. Storage of pictures/video locally and of course being able to see in the dark.
Control by rules in Hubitat so that I can trigger light, alarm if needed and see pictures or better video at dashboard in the house
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