Wifi support

Might’ve been. I really don’t remember. That’ll do the job though

This is not so simple as you make it sound. There are several reasons that this has not risen higher on our list of improvements to consider:

The first issue is that we know from experience that wifi introduces it's own set of reliability issues into the connectivity equation, as compared to wired LAN. In many environments, there are high levels of wifi interference. We cannot in good faith recommend this method of connecting a home automation hub.

The second issue relates to the first, and entails support issues. As you may have noticed, there are people having serious connectivity issues with wired LAN. This is due to router issues primarily, but also LAN design issues. These are virtually impossible for us to diagnose and remedy. What we hear is that the hub won't connect to the cloud, or that Alexa will not discover devices. Were we to add wifi to the mix, there would be a dramatic increase in support issues for which we cannot possibly be of help to the customer.

The third issue is that there are other solutions to this problem of hub placement. For years I have connected my hubs using power line ethernet adapters. These have proven to be reliable. My hub does not have a LAN connection anywhere near where it is located. I have also used wifi to connect my hub when I've had to physically take it to a different location, I bought a cheap TP-Link wifi router for this purpose, set up as wifi bridge. I can move my hub to wherever I want in my house, plug it's ethernet wire into the TP-Link, and presto, instant connectivity, Given these alternatives, it lessens the true need one might have for us to implement wifi in the hub itself.

For these reasons, adding wifi connectivity is not higher on our list.

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This sucks to read :persevere:

I heard about your product from a co-worker and love the ability to keep it internally and saw this as a great solution for our office smart automation. However Wifi-Direct though a separate device or power-line is not really a viable option in a corporate setting cause it's not a managed network solution. It looks like we will need to stick with my wink hub until you enable WiFi.

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Not that much, anyway the new hub doesn't includes the wifi module, so why they will activate the wifi in the firmware if the new box has no wifi internally?

Thanks for the clarification, searched around and couldn't find a definitive answer if the radio was part of the device or not. I guess we will just need to wait to see if the next version comes with one or not. Our work is just rather picky on what's plugged directly into our network for PCI reasons but WiFi is isolated so they are less worried about it.

The next version is available already, released yesterday, no wifi, not on the FCC tests. I suggest to use a vonets bridge.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01199OGK0/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_C74wCbTHMP71H

Why would you use a Home Automation production in a corporate setting? Are you using Z-Wave/Zigbee in a business district building? From a security perspective IoT is something that would never be approved to anywhere near a PCI zone.

There would be a lot of uses -- we are considering it for our community theater. I personally would spend more on the product if they included a WiFi option and to also serve WiFi devices. The point is being open and able to manage different protocols. All this talk of energy costs and almost purist ideology is not helping open the product to ALL potential markets and I d not see it keeping up with the demand, in my opinion. For instance, there are some devices I need but they may not be available in anything but WiFi -- why would we not want to serve that need?

The terminology throws me.. I don't understand the question as a result.

"WiFi" is generated from a wired device. Hubiat is a wired device. The combination of wired and wireless (WiFi) Is a LAN. Hubitat supports LAN protocols. TCP (telnet/Lutron/Homebridge) UDP (Lifx) on and on. Those protocols travel over wires or wireless. No distinction.

Thus, I'm confused. I see no WiFi limitation.

Hubitat serves WiFi devices because how the heck could it tell that the device was on the LAN wirelessly?

I'm sorry I'm not seeing your question from the right angle. :frowning:

This damage to the product viability due to a lack of WiFi is way overblown.

Lutron = No WiFi
Insteon = No WiFi
Philips Hue = No WiFi
SmartThings v1 & v2 = No WiFi

All of these companies have been very successful without built-in WiFi and have sold far more units than Wink has. If you really need a WiFi connection, an inexpensive WiFi to Ethernet bridge so easily does the job. You can build or you can buy. Either way it's inexpensive and simple to setup. Sorry, but the corporate managed network argument makes no sense to me. Corporate IT is never going to let you put a device like Hubitat on their network anyway.

I agree 100% with @bravenel regarding the powerline adapters. They are reliable and the low cost ones are fast enough for Hubitat. I've had great success with Trendnet powerline adapters, but you can probably get good results from any of them now. That technology is very mature.

One of the most unreliable parts of the Wink version 1 hub was the WiFi. There's a good reason they introduced a wired Ethernet port with Wink version 2.

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Your Hubitat hub can easily communicate with with any WiFi connected LAN devices you have. Whether or not there is a driver for those devices is another thing completely.

LAN devices can connect to your network in one of two ways - 1) as hardwaired Cat5, 2) as WiFi. Both of these connection types yield the same result, a connection to your home network, or LAN.

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More than Wifi, I would like PoE...

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(sarcasm On)
I really wish HE supported wireless power. I can’t seem to place my hub in the exact center of my home in an obscure location that I haven’t run power or connectivity to. @bravenel can you and the staff drop what you are doing and work on this ASAP?
(/sarcasm Off)

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I use a power line adapter and have never lost internal connectivity to my hubitat. I can’t say the same for my variety of WiFi devices. Wifi is inherently unreliable, and I won’t use it for the center of my automation.

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This whole conversation completely baffles me. If you want to have your hub on wifi, there are plenty of very cheap adapters out there to have wired LAN device on wifi. If you want wifi so badly, use one of those.
However, when the performance sucks, don't come running to staff for help. They'll be busy helping those of us that follow the recommendations of the experts and don't think that we know better than them.

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Thanks for that.. I see the point of it now and makes sense. It's about the drivers then as far as devices and not about the connection type --There were some wifi products that were introduced into the 1st eco mix we had with the first Iris hub and was curious when I came on board with HB if they could be used.

I haven't heard of any drivers for these devices. But maybe now with the iris platform shutting down and the source code getting released in the future, there will be more community developers creating drivers for the iris wifi or v1 zigbee devices.

How are the WiFi devices isolated in your office?

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Typically that is network isolation. All the devices on the network can talk to the internet but can't contact each other. So no risk of a device contaminating the rest of the network.

Just get a cheap pair of ethernet over power ac conversations at Best buy. Take the hub around with you. Connect to adapters while you include all devices.

Welcome to the Hubitat Community!

I have since learned from the experts here that include should always be done in-place, with locks being the one exception. If the device cannot join the Z-Wave network in place, then repeaters are needed or the final result will be an unstable and unreliable Z-Wave network. This goes for Zigbee pairing as well.

https://docs.hubitat.com/index.php?title=How_to_Build_a_Solid_Z-Wave_Mesh

https://docs.hubitat.com/index.php?title=How_to_Build_a_Solid_Zigbee_Mesh

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