Which hub would you recommend to a normal person?

The Lutron sounds strong but fully-priced.

What about just going with a choice from the flood of cheap WiFi dimmers and no hub other than the Echo devices?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07HGSCXB6/

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PJTLB7Z/

It depends on motivation and your need to add/avoid tech support.

I think @ogiewon has nailed it. I think ikea does a half decent intro hub and devices too, may be worth a look.

For reference I always wanted to eventually upgrade from smartthings to hubitat and pass on my ST hub to parents. But things were broken so often I abandoned that idea and physically binned it. Couldn't be dealing with the phonecalls.

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I'm looking at these Treatlife WiFi dimmers and switches on Amazon. They are one-fourth to one-fifth the cost of Lutron. No hub other than the router required and thousands of four and five star reviews. Sounds hard to beat. What am I missing? Is there a "catch"?

Look for Homey. Pretty strait forward for regular end user without tech skills, wide device compatibility, little bit pricy compared to HE, but it has got everything needed for home automation.

New design constraints:

NO new hub other than the Zigbee built into the newer Echo devices.

Wall plate switches and dimmers must cost less than $30 each and be available with Amazon Prime shipping.

Change my mind!

Seriously, the Alexa routines are much more versatile lately so you can do all of the usual stuff. I trust Kasa devices.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B083JKTMYQ/

Why struggle?

Is there some other problem with WiFi dimmers and switches?

Oh, and .... compatible with Hubitat for eventual upgrade.

Ref: wifi

I'm pretty ashamed to admit this given the amount of effort and interest I've had in general home 'tech' for a good few years, but it's only been thr past year that I finally decided to take a look at my router.

Although I ditched the standard isp edition for a Netgear immediately, I've always assumed that WiFi in general was a bit crappy. For example, I messed about with a range extender to give garden wifi access with limited degrees of success. After my jump to hubitat I began to add a stupid number of cheap WiFi-based esp8266's to replace my problematic fibaros (zwave). The reason for this was to add a variety of dumb temperature, contact, motion sensors and actuators to complete a few projects without spending a million pounds I don't have.

This highlighted that my WiFi position and quality was cack and needed sorting. So I purchased a nighthawk router and a long ethernet cable and did s bit of moving/testing.

End result is that now I'm having flawless WiFi, everywhere, without a repeater.

My point I'd that WiFi devices, to me, were crap. Until I ensured I had a more robust network. Cheap WiFi devices plus a bad network is a recipe failure.

/opinion

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That is a good point, not all situations are the same, and it is hard to give general advice, everyone's situation and experience is different. It is not always the fault of the product you buy, the idea of a smart home is that you have interdependent devices acting together, that relies on both the devices themselves and the ability for them to work together, two very different things.

Another suggestion / philosophy I would recommend is starting small whenever venturing into a new part of the a smart home or new product type. So if you are starting in lighting, for example, start with a few bulbs, but don't deck your place out straight away, work out whatever it is you are venturing into is going to work, both for you and within the rest of your setup.

@djh_wolf 's experience is testament to how it is not always the individual device that is the problem, it can be the infrastructure around it, which is not easy for those non-technical users to grapple with. I don't have an easy answer to this, beyond taking it slowly. Making small changes at a manageable pace can help understand where problems may arise, introducing too much too quickly makes it hard to diagnose issues if they arise.

There's probably a point where people stop reading posts like this.... I know I do :slight_smile: Start small and simple, that's the crux of my post.

Simon

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Surely people will read a shorter second post....

The other point I would make is just because your daughter:

Make sure the things you try to add are things that will improve their day-to-day experience at home. Find things that need improving (fixing problems or enhancing their lives) and focus on those. Adding devices or services because they are "cool" won't last or encourage the investment in time and energy to make them a success. Things that make a difference to them will.

Simon

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Thank you for the thoughtful replies!

The WiFi network is important. I put a Ubiquiti UDMP Pro and two Ubiquiti access points in a few months ago. I love it and it's great for fixing IP addresses and adding firewall rules, a separate IoT LAN etc.

They will not want to deal with any of that.

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Usually hue stuff as much as possible. Again, I’m focusing on the “it just works” products.

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The Lutron Caseta Pro hub is a consumer, retail product.

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Geez. Did your parents beat you when you were a child?

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You can buy them both online. However, both regular and Pro Caseta dimmers and switches can be used with the Pro bridge.

I would recommend your daughter purchase the Pro bridge over the regular bridge for the capacity to integrate it in the future into a more power Home Automation solution.

Edit - wanted to add. Lutron's products are world-class. Once installed, they simply work. No fiddling about to make them work. That, alone, is why they're worth the premium over any fly-by-night WiFi switch.

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Haha. It wasn't always shite. It's what got me into this HA thing in the first place, and I guess I'll always look back on the initial experience fondly. I recall reading about hubitat back then and thinking "that sounds cool... One day!".

Then over the past 18 months samsung has utterly shagged it. Shame.

/derailment.

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Are you planning on installing and maintaining a full Ubiquiti network stack at your daughter's house as well? If so, then I could see the attraction of WiFi based devices. However, if your daughter is going to opt for the ISP provided all-in-one WiFi-Router-Modem solution, I would be much more concerned. As @djh_wolf has stated, a solid WiFi network is essential for the use of any WiFi home automation devices. And, a solid WiFi network can be pretty pricey, as I am certain you know from buying your our UniFi network hardware. :wink:

The reason I suggest both Lutron Caseta and Philips Hue is because they both "just work" without any major headaches or hassles. Once set up, there is essentially no maintenance required. This seemed to be what your original post was aiming for, although I can totally understand that the cost for both of these solutions is not trivial. Also, both can easily be added to Hubitat later on (as long as you use the Lutron Caseta SmartBridge Pro2.)

Lutron Pico remotes are an amazing button controller, that can really improve the usability of the overall system. These can be placed on small tabletop stands, attached to walls, etc... Makes it very convenient to control in-wall switches, dimmers, and fan controllers from a bedside nightstand, for example (especially when voice control might wake a sleeping spouse.)

One thing to make sure is well understood, before going down the WiFi smart switch route, is how are 3-way/4-way switch configurations handled? I have never used any WiFi switches, and thus I do not know if they offer companion/auxiliary switches/dimmers as accessories or not. Or, do they utilize the existing 3-way switches? If so, if remote physical dimming adjustments are desired, you'll need to find a solution that will handle this scenario.

That might be the sticky point with many WiFi in-wall switch/dimmer solutions... :wink:

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Yes, in fairness, yes ST wasn't always crap. I started out with a ST link attached to my Nividia Shield. It turned out to be an abandoned product, but it did work quite well for several years, before the ST people killed it.

My ST v3 hub continues to chug along quite nicely as a secondary zwave controller. For all ST's flaws, its zwave component has always worked flawlessly for me so my hopes of retiring the hub have vaporized.

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Thanks again for the thoughtful reply!

To be clear - I am not going to maintain this smart home! I barely have enough patience for my own.

I just ordered two of the Kasa HS220 dimmers. As helpfully mentioned above, let's go slowly and see how things work a little bit at a time.

I decided to go with Kasa instead of Treatlife just because I have some experience with Kasa and TP-Link even though they were slightly more expensive.

My daughter has the Spectrum standard-issue modem/router so I may offer them the TP-Link router and mesh access points I replaced with the UDMP Pro.

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions!

I will update as we go.

Doesn't wifi stuff usually require a remote server that could dry up and blow away at any time? Or, is there local wifi, that doesn't require the cloud?

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My WiFi konnected-flashed nodemcu's are completely local.

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There is a local Kasa integration for Hubitat and Home Assistant - the choice that @Hal3 made . I don't know if initial setup requires the TP-Link Kasa cloud.

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