Migrating to HE. Any major loss of functionality?

#1

So I climbed out from under my rock today and learned that WC may not be long for the ST platform. This was the impetus to finally pull the trigger and I have a new HE hub on the way. I’ve done some cursory homework but I have a question for others who have made the switch. Are there key WC capabilities or important functionality that is missing or that you wish worked differently on the HE hub?

I have 50 pistons managing pretty much every aspect of my home and I’d like to identify and try to mitigate potential gotchas (if there are any) sooner than later. Thanks for any insight anyone can provide.

Missing Webcore Instance in App
#2

I moved from ST to HE in March 2021 and I have been very happy. I have about 150 active pistons (HE and ST) and I moved most of them from ST to HE. I do not recall any specific problems. Sometimes the layout or language is different in the HE version of webcore. But I do not remember specifics. I have written 50-60 pistons in HE webcore. I’m not a webcore minion nor do I write pistons as sophisticated as they would, but I don’t recall any specific difficulties converting to HE. The ONE thing that I do miss from ST is SMS. You cannot SMS in HE.

#3

When moving to HE, first thing to check is that your devices work on HE.

For most things, they do, but this is step 1.

Step 2 is your automations. Webcore runs very well on HE (pistons run local, and simple ones in < 10ms

  • buttons are different on HE, so pistons that get events from buttons, you will be editing the trigger line for the button. This is typically very simple edit.

In HE you do need to backup your hub regularly. This is pretty easy to do and download the backup to a pc or local file.

There is more data on webcore differences in the webcore thread on HE

I would start with the first two posts in this thread. You don’t have to read all 1000 posts generally.

#4

Just a few months ahead … Christmas of 2020 is when I started migration.

I chose to ignore this wisdom, but am still delighted to have made the move. An Inovelli bulb that is explicitly not supported is still working just fine for me. Seriously, though, you will appreciate it if you can find >75% of your devices on this list.

In HE, WC works the way that I would expect. In ST, I struggled with odd delays in cloud processing. Any benefit from automation was easily lost in chasing weird events in logs (ST and WC). I tried Rule Machine in HE, but my brain was already conditioned to think in WC terms.

I can appreciate that. I use SharpTools for my dashboards. Their rules have a pretty good SMS functionality, which I can exploit as needed.

#5

Not to knock HE (C7) but it seems like if you have a lot of zwave devices, you might have to invest in a zstick for when you end up with annoying ghost zwave nodes that are tough to get rid of.

#6

So far I have been able to delete ghost devices with the recommended process https://community.hubitat.com/t/2-2-7-125-z-wave-ghost-nodes/72501/18

#7

Similarly, I have not have ghost issues. My two dozen or so Z-wave devices are a pittance compared to some folks.

I did end up getting a stick, thought that was to change settings on my aforementioned unsupported device. Ironically, the stick costs less than a decent RGBW bulb.

#8

Thanks for everyone’s feedback. Lots of good information.The hub arrived yesterday. I’m going to order a zstick and start migrating off of ST when it arrives.

#9

I use the Twilio API to send SMS from HE… bonus is that I can reply to SMS with basic commands such as “Yes”, “Abort” etc.

For example I have a piston that sends me a reminder to take the bins out… If I don’t reply “Yes” or “Y”, or “ok” or “done”, my bedside light refuses to turn off lol.

Another piston warns me if my alarm is about to sound, I can reply “Abort+[pin]” if I know it is about to be a false alarm… I can also text “Panic” or “P” or “Help” to sound the alarm and notify family.

I also have RFID tags dotted about, which act the same as SMS replies when I tap my iPhone on them.

The following was prepared for ST, but works exactly the same in HE.

#10

In response to the original post… I shifted to HE ages ago and will never look back!!!

Nothing negative to say, if anything functions have increased i.e. the ability to control alarm status directly without needing virtual switches.

#11

I migrated about a year ago and never looked back. It only took a couple days to move 95% of my devices and pistons and get everything set up. A few of my pistons were written around the hiccups in cloud processing (I had loops to ensure stuff got turned off), but that was all pleasantly unnecessary after the move to Hubitat, so that stuff was removed after a while.

I missed the lack of native SMS at first, but now I don’t miss it at all. The notifications I got were mainly to keep tabs on whether stuff was working as it should. WebCoRE on Hubitat has push notifications, and that has been fine for my needs.

I currently have 38 active pistons, but most are loaded up with multiple IF blocks for every trigger and condition relevant to that event or device.

#12

I’m thinking of migrating as well… can’t do without webCoRE…

Google dosen’t seem to know what a zstick is. I’m pretty sure its not “a small piece of wood”… so,… what is it?

#13

Better save this thread now lol :slight_smile: - there’s supposed to be some improvements to how zwave is handled so maybe it won’t be as painful for you.

#14

Thank you… looks like about 35.00 for a UZB-Stick. Not a big deal, but I’m assuming that I won’t be able to handle ghosts in HE like I do in ST IDE by changing the device ID?

I’m still only thinking about the switch to HE and it is already painful…

#15

I was able to handle several ghost devices without the stick. I think that results vary.

#16

Still thinking … and researching it. So far the lack of SMS in HE is problematic. I could probably work around most anything else.

Wait… Can webCoRE still send SMS in HE?

#17

No, not without a middleman service. However, webcore on HE can send notifications to your phone. That’s what I do.

#18

Are you talking push notifications that go to all users, or some type of individual notification to your phone?

#19

Webcore can send notifications to the HE app for each phone that is a device within HE and webcore.
https://community.hubitat.com/t/webcore-notification/70775

#20

I use Pushover for notifications on HE, I don’t have the HE app installed.