Migrating to HE. Any major loss of functionality?

#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.

#21
#22

It just seems strange to me that webCoRE on SmartThings can send me an SMS text but webCoRE on habitat cannot.

#23

It’s not that it cannot, it costs $$. I may have read that you can set up your own SMS but at your own expense.