Happy Saturday everyone! What do you all think to Linus Tech Tips getting hacked!? Same buggers that got me! Anyway!.... BUY THE NEW HUBITAT C8 HERE: hubitat.com/products
Linus Tech tips got hit by the same hack as you Paul, gotta make you feel better that even his channels fell for the same attack vector, kinda shows RUclips needs to fix their security!
Tell me about it. Sadly Linus didn't mention the biggest vulnerability because he probably doesn't know about it. Linus has Google's advanced protection program which stopped the hackers kicking him out. I got booted out of my own account and couldn't get back in because standard 2FA let's hackers swap it out for their own!
@paulhibbert it's insane that once logged in, that you can swap out 2FA without the need to use the 2FA... Hell, I remember losing my physical 2fa dongle for Final Fantasy 11, and I had to call up and speak to a person, provide proof of purchases, proof of residence matching my account etc before they would remove it and put a new one on! Insane that a game has better security than Google which pretty much runs so many aspects of our lives!
@@paulhibbert I'm guessing the only reason it didn't happen to him is because over 20 people have access to his account. It wasn't his specific account that got "hacked".
So pleased they are keeping up and not becoming irrelevant, they have always struck me as the best inroad to a reasonable techy house, without going completely mental.
The usability and suitability for a beginner in HA is so much better than Hubitat. Huge changes have been made over the past year. Hubitat can't keep up. I had one running for 3 weeks and had to return it - abysmal user experience.
Quick fix to try with your HA box is to use USB extension cables for your Zigbee or other dongles. There are interference issues when connect directly to a USB port. This is true for PCs and PIs. Try it, I guarantee it might work! (That's confidence there, huh?) My son's PC couldn't see all of my wireless networks until we put on an extension, now he sees our neighbor's as well. You may also be able to change the antenna on your Zigbee dongle, depending on the dongle. Mine, Sonoff Zigbee Dongle Plus, has a screw on antenna but some don't. I know how much you like screwing on antennas! My biggest issues are that it's a closed box and it lacks many integrations that exist on HA, like Nest. I also understand that the interface is not great and hasn't had as much developement as HA.
I converted from a Smart Things hub to a Hubitat C7 years ago. I just use it for hardware access and use Home Assistant for the control panel. I have all my automations in NodeRed. I was contemplating moving hardware access to Home Assistant. You just convinced me to stay with Hubitat and maybe upgrading to the C8.
No issue controlling my zigbee stuff from far away and no issue pairing IKEA bulbs without having the hub close by. I use ConBee II like you. And reliability cannot be compared in such a short amount of time. Everytime someone tries Homey, Hubitat, Hue and different dongles they are always like: Been using something else for years and it worked great until it didn’t. Now I tried this new thing for a week and it is much more reliable 🤔
I use a hacked LIDL gateway (TuYa ZigBee module (TYZS4) under the hood) of all things and it has given me zero problems for well over a year so far. Now I just need to reign in my toddler so she doesn't turn the lights on/off six times in a row, causing bulbs to leave the network ...
Hi Paul, thanks for sharing your thoughts and experience. Question: have you considered the idea that the root cause of your reliability issues could be in the wireless communication itself? In other words, that the reliability might not the result of choosing home assistant but the result of your choice of wireless transmitters?
Can I be excused for jumping in on this one? I have at last count over a dozen different Zigbee interfaces - Conbee, a Pi HAT, several Sonoff USBs, the Sonoff standard and Plus standalone Zigbee to WiFI gateways and a few others and I’ve run HomeAssistant on Pi through to i7-7700T Mini PC hardware and the simple fact is that none of them have been absolutely reliable. I end up running a ‘live’ and a ‘test’ HA instance so that I can make sure that when I do something I do it first on the ‘test’ setup to make sure it doesn’t break something on the ‘live’ setup… Now I’m not bashing HomeAssistant itself - God I love what those guys have done, it’s a massive achievement and it’s because of that that I keep plugging away at it and it is getting better but it isn’t ready for non-techie users who don’t want to have to tend to their home automation setups like a modern day Tamagotchi or Furby. I’ve been doing this stuff for over 20 years now - I started out with HomeVision and HomeSeer (go look them up) and then I did Clipsal C-Bus and HomeGate (which is the stuff that runs the ‘new’ Wembley Stadium lighting - 4,500 points of control - and places like McLaren Technology centre, I have worked on both of those) and those systems have to be absolutely reliable. Latterly I’ve done Crestron and again the stability and flexibility of that stuff is hugely impressive so I don’t think I can have the label ‘inexperienced newbie’ levelled against me on this one … Home Assistant is definitely getting better … it really is … but it isn’t solid or stable *YET* and that’s the point. Home Assistant isn’t yet at a stage where you could set it up in someone else’s house and walk away knowing that you won’t have to go back and tickle its testicles in a weeks time to convince it to do what it was doing previously.
You're both probably right in equal measure! I LOVE home assistant still, but a purpose built system is tidier for now. If I ever get the time I might put the aeotec dingle on an extension away from the Pi (conbee stick already is) and then spend some time turning off the various electrical devices in my house to see if there is improvement. It's all very time consuming though.
If your Pi has USB3 you have to run the Z-Wave and Zigbee dongles on at least 2ft extensions otherwise the USB3 causes no end of issues with noise. I had a Fibaro HC2 before HA and it worked great on the hardware side in terms of reception for Z-Wave, but on HA without extensions the same devices were pretty unusable. Now with both Z-Wave and Zigbee dongles on extensions away from the Pi, its great, far quicker and more reliable than the HC2 and I have at least twice as many devices compared to what I had on HC2.
@@paulhibbert Oh come on Paul, you of all people should know that if you want the missus to accept Home Assistant, you have to elongate the dongle as much as possible. Why, my missus LOVES my Home Assistant after I elongated both dongles. For best results, I'd plug the dongles into USB2 ports. If you run out of USB2 ports, I'd use a USB2 cable on a USB3 port for anything that doesn't actually need USB3 speeds. You get massive (but fairly localized) interference if you're using a USB3 device on a USB3 port.
@paulhibbert could some of your HA issues be extending from the fact your using a Pi which is very under powered combined with using a lower powered usb dongle for zigbee no wonder your having a bad time. Even the most basic NUC/Dummy PC with the latest Sonoff USB stick has amazing range. That's what my friend recommended earlier this year and I'm not having any of the issues you mentioned. It just sounds like you need something with a little more grunt for HA. Just my 2 cents.
Hi Paul! I want to say first off, I find your videos informative and entertaining. Loving what I've seen so far. Something I'm having difficulty with here is that you're saying "Home Assistant vs Hubitat" when these aren't really the two things you're comparing. Home assistant is software that can be installed on any hardware. When referring to things like range, you're leaving out whether you've installed antennas on your Raspberry Pi (or whatever hardware you are using.) Those "rabbit ears" aren't special, and you can install something similar on a Pi (or again whichever hardware you've chosen.) As you've pointed out, it's possible to use Home Assistant, Home Bridge, Hubitat, and other tools, in harmony. It seems to me the hardware is responsible for a large portion of the benefit you're seeing in this video. I think it's important to point out that you're comparing (software with unknown hardware) with (software and hardware made to work together and packaged up for you by a manufacturer)
@@nowfocus577 That's called "Moving the goalposts" because price comparison wasn't really part of the review, yeah? When you run SW on underpowered HW this is exactly the kind of behavior you will get. Hubitat is great for something, and has narrow gates (defined by the manufacturer alone) when it comes to expandability and future-proofing. The real lesson here is about buying the right kind of solution for your actual problems.
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Really glad that you like Hubitat! I also recently moved from the earlier version(s) to the C-8 and have been extremely happy with the move! I noticed in the video a mention that the Broadlink RM Pro isn’t supported by Hubitat… Wanted to chime in to say I have been using the RM Pro with Hubitat for many years now. There is a great community integration that makes it very easy to use.
I love my hubitat! I have the C5 and going to be upgrading to the C8. It does work with Tuya WiFi with custom drivers (I wrote one for the strip). I have it working with a Tuya light strip locally. They also have a community package manager for easily installing community apps and drivers and keeping them updated.
That’s my challenge. My entire place is with Tuya (29 lights)… But I go nuts when Internet drops or power loss (OK, I live on an island and when power comes back on everything goes full bright.. argh). Any direction would be awesome. Never can seem to get good direction.
As others have said in other areas. I would love to see a HA video where you migrate away from a Pi to something like a HA Yellow or a NUC with a proper zigbee stick installed on a usb extension cable so it is further away from other devices. Ohhhh the Zigbee!!! 🤣😂
i've been using Hubitat and HA together for around 18 months. I have a C4 and a C7 and am debating buying a C8, but need to prepare myself to update all my HA dashboards and automations as the Hubitat integration will add a whole new set of devices and entities. Hubitat is a reasonably good controller, but can be frustrating in that sometimes (and with no explanation) devices will just not work, maybe the C8 is the solution. The other thing Hubitat needs to fix is the drivers, especially for us in Europe and the UK (Fibaro drivers for example), the functionality is very limited (Fibaro switches have the capability to monitor energy, but Hubitat doesn't use this) and Hubitat needs to improve them and the overall user experience which can be poor. The community is good, but they can't solve everything. Keep up the videos Paul, thanks.
I updated from the C7 hub to the C8 hub. I have a 2,750 sq foot home and I am down to zero hops as well. The migration was painless. Both hubs have been very reliable / low maintenance. I use the hub primarily for home security so reliability is high on my priority list.
@@scdealey4867 I am using Habitats hardware hub. Not using HA. I set my system up primarily as a security system. Habitat for the most part for me has been set it and forget it. Not as feature rich as HA but I think it is pretty easy to set up and it is reliable.
Home Assistant can really chug on underpowered hardware. The latest RPi hardware helps, or running it on a more powerful NUC or even a x86 thin client works far better and faster.
Agreed. I moved from a VM to a dedicated Dell Optiplex 3040m (TinyPC) and performance has been great. Although in Paul's specific case and as others have pointed out, his HA issues are more likely specific to his zigbee and zwave network rather than specifically HA related. The C8 does look like a nice piece of hardware so a hybrid model seems like a good idea.
@@leemarsh5258 I did the same - optiplex 3070 Micro with an SSD running HomeAssistant OS directly and not enough a VM. Even heavier automations like press&hold on my Inovelli switches routed through NodeRed are instant.
I see that this has been replied to by Lee and Gek and I put this reply to another comment above but on the same lines as Lee and Gek (and apologies for popping up a duplicate reply) but may I suggest a quick eBay search for HP T630 thin clients? There are many other thin clients available but the T630's are meaty enough that they will run full fat Linux distros and Windows 10 without being immediately so laggy that you want to put a hammer through them yet cheap enough that they can just be loaded up with a single task without feeling guilty. I have eight of them here, they're passively cooled AMD x86 based, use between 8 and 12w typically when under load, take up to two m.2 SATA drives (they usually come with a 32 or 64GB 2242 fitted in the short slot and have space for an ADDITIONAL 2280 if you want to add one), they also take standard DDR3 SODIMMs (usually have 4GB or 8GB fitted but can take up to 32Gb if you are a total power crazed loon) and even have an internal USB port if you want to boot from USB or put a USB device internally... I think I've paid between £35 and £50 for them previously - and that's with a 32GB m.2 SATA "drive" and 4GB of DDR3 fitted - which is cheaper than you can get a Pi with comparable RAM and storage for (even when they are available without being scalped). Alternatively if a T630 isn't meaty enough for your needs (and they do run Home Assistant very well, hell, I've got one of them running docker and multiple containers and it isn't even breaking a sweat but it does have 16GB of RAM and a 500GB m.2 SATA SSD) then have a look for HP Desktop Mini 600 or 800s (again on eBay). They can usually be picked up "barebones" (i.e. picked clean of CPUs, RAM and storage) for about £30 or so but they take standard socketed 4th to 7th Gen CPUs, DDR3 or DDR4 SODIMMs and m.2 or 2.5" drives (depending on which "version" you get - G1 being the earliest - just be aware that if you want to put an m.2 drive in a G1 Desktop Mini then it has to be an AHCI m.2 drive which are scarce and therefore expensive to buy secondhand but they do also take 2.5" SATA SSDs of course), the G2 onwards take a standard NVMe and / or a 2.5" SATA. They can usually be had with CPU, RAM and storage for about £80. I have an 800 Mini G3 here that I bought as a barebones and stuffed in my old i7-7700T (35w) with 64GB of DDR4 and a 2TB SSD and that gives me my main everyday "work" PC that's able to run dual 4K monitors and is the size of a small stack of CDs...
@@JohnMayfield-NS Hi John, my issue with using a Pi for Home Assistant isn’t really the power of the Pi itself - if you look at the actual work the hardware is doing it’s pretty minimal and the hardware that I’m using (16GB DDR3, i7-4700T & 256GB SSD) is stupidly over spec, it just happens that those machines are physically a convenient size and they were sat around doing nothing at the time and they just stack nicely with the similar machines that run my Roon Core and MyMovies / CMC and Docker / Portainer servers. Spinning up HA, Node Red, an MQTT server and Zigbee2MQTT as Docker containers shows that the CPU and RAM usage is pretty much negligible and it seems that it’s far more the storage device that it’s running from that is the limiting factor - if I’m using SD cards on the Pi then I seem to get about a year and a half of life out of them before they fail but I don’t really find that I’m ever getting CPU bound. I really wish that they’d put an m.2 slot on the Pi’s as m.2 drives are now cheap as chips. The physical format of Pi’s and Pi cases (I use the Argon One cases with the m.2 ‘slice’ on most of my Pi’s) just makes using Pi’s clunky as they don’t really fit into anywhere very nicely whereas the 6-high stack of HP Desktop Minis works quite nicely. Paul’s using one of the NES Pi cases which are great (I have one set up with RetroArch) and work well as something that you have ‘stood out’ or ‘portable’ but they don’t tuck away nicely for those situations where you just want a machine that sits in the background chunking away. :-)
Ok but Homeassistant is software, tho the video talks about hardware dependent problems 🤔? I'm a bit confused. Could you clarify? Are you running HA on C8's HW?
So if you setup a three way are you not using a Co-ordinator on HA? Sounds like the popular choice is to use Hubitat as your Zigbee device handler and HA for automation, for example. I would have thought if you have both running Zigbee devices (pairing different devices), they would conflict on the Zigbee network
I see they've still not invested any time in the interface. I lasted about 4 days with my C7 before I relegated it to the great storage box in the sky (well, my garage tech dumping ground). I still struggle with the cluster£$%^ of the Home Assistant interface but it's leagues ahead of the Hubitat, still.
I'm not sold. I just purchased Hubitat and sent it back. Not user friendly at all. I have a vera, which is great except that they aren't in business anymore; no more updates. But at least it was user friendly. Hubitat makes me feel like I have to program my devices. And going through my house an reconnecting every z-wave switch, including the aeon types that are inside of boxes, is a pain (that would be the issue with any new hub, to be fair). I've looked at some videos on setting up Hubitat and NONE of them show it to be easy and almost all of them acknowledge that it is non userfriendly. In 2023, why is this not easier by now? Why didn't a company take over Vera? Thoughts?
Paul, I love your videos, don't misunderstand me. However, with Hubitat (at that time C7) I had a bad experience. Actually, I decided to order C7 based on one of your previous videos and without checking in depth details and if it fits my expectation. Finally, C7 landed in my drawer (waste of money) and is still there. Indeed, Hubitat was able to connect all my zigbee devices, but was unable to be used with any wi-fi device or build scenes with mixed devices, the device which I really wanted. Therefore, since then I'm planning using HA one day (not with Pi due to unavailability, but maybe with old laptop motherboard and 3D designed case). I think the only one system which can control zigbee and wi-fi different brand smart devices on one platform is still HA. Of note, I have no real issue with distance and zigbee devices as I introduced bridging devices in some places (e.g. Sonoff mini zigbee, of' course with purpose such as controlling a light with regular switch and with app), which can forward signal and interact as extender.
Aye, see the end of the video for that. Both tuya and Broadlink integrations are sadly missing. I've been banging onto Hubitat about that for literally years. For automation it's their only real failing. HA is still the answer for very complex things like sending adb commands to android TVs for example.
Monsieur! May I suggest a quick eBay search for HP T630 thin clients? There are many other thin clients available but the T630's are meaty enough that they will run full fat Linux distros and Windows 10 without being immediately so laggy that you want to put a hammer through them yet cheap enough that they can just be loaded up with a single task without feeling guilty. I have eight of them here, they're passively cooled AMD x86 based, use between 8 and 12w typically when under load, take up to two m.2 SATA drives (they usually come with a 32 or 64GB 2242 fitted in the short slot and have space for an ADDITIONAL 2280 if you want to add one), they also take standard DDR3 SODIMMs (usually have 4GB or 8GB fitted but can take up to 32Gb if you are a total power crazed loon) and even have an internal USB port if you want to boot from USB or put a USB device internally... I think I've paid between £35 and £50 for them previously - and that's with a 32GB m.2 SATA "drive" and 4GB of DDR3 fitted - which is cheaper than you can get a Pi with comparable RAM and storage for (even when they are available without being scalped). Alternatively if a T630 isn't meaty enough for your needs (and they do run Home Assistant very well, hell, I've got one of them running docker and multiple containers and it isn't even breaking a sweat but it does have 16GB of RAM and a 500GB m.2 SATA SSD) then have a look for HP Desktop Mini 600 or 800s (again on eBay). They can usually be picked up "barebones" (i.e. picked clean of CPUs, RAM and storage) for about £30 or so but they take standard socketed 4th to 7th Gen CPUs, DDR3 or DDR4 SODIMMs and m.2 or 2.5" drives (depending on which "version" you get - G1 being the earliest - just be aware that if you want to put an m.2 drive in a G1 Desktop Mini then it has to be an AHCI m.2 drive which are scarce and therefore expensive to buy secondhand but they do also take 2.5" SATA SSDs of course), the G2 onwards take a standard NVMe and / or a 2.5" SATA. They can usually be had with CPU, RAM and storage for about £80. I have an 800 Mini G3 here that I bought as a barebones and stuffed in my old i7-7700T (35w) with 64GB of DDR4 and a 2TB SSD and that gives me my main everyday "work" PC that's able to run dual 4K monitors and is the size of a small stack of CDs...
@@philharris9631 Thanks for this tip Phil. Having some old laptops home, I was wondering to use one of them for HA/little NAS (actually none of them has dedicated GPU), but still have not figured out the power consumption (should not be too high) and would it be powerful enough for home media server. In summary, instead of putting laptops to landfill, I wanted to use them for something useful.
I suspect the root cause of your HA issues was an under-powered HA hub (under-powered in transmit power and CPU power). Trying a new HA device may have solved the problems too. I say under-powered CPU because you mention the delay between input and action, which means the software is running slowly, and this could be the non-working problem too.
have you considered the idea that the root cause of your reliability issues could be in the set up and quality of your zwave/zigbee coordinators used on your HAS instance?
Yes. The theme of this video really is that a purpose built box is less susceptible to these issues. I imagine home assistant yellow is a good solution too!
As a long term home assistant user and having used several coordinators over the years I can tell you this. There is always a few problematic devices for some reason no matter what you use. It's can be maddening.
Hi Paul, you should consider upgrading to a sonoff ZigBee stick for homeassistant Vs the conbee. I am running both at the moment as running ZHA (conbee) and slowly transferring to ZigBee2mqtt (sonoff) and the sonoff has loads more range! You can use the sonoff on both protocols though. Nice to see this video though, I have the same relation with HA 😅
Could be worth checking if anything is causing some unwanted radio noise too, if having ZigBee problems. I had a shitty 12V power supply on one of my led strips, that was so noisy it made my ZigBee devices drop out occasionally. It was occasional enough that it took me quite a long time to figure it out, I was cussing out my Conbee stick and Zigbee2mqtt, but the turns out the issues was elsewhere entirely. It's been rock solid ever since I tossed that shitty psu.
@@Iisakki3000 I had something similar with a temperature sensor that apparently had zigbee rabies or something. The second I pulled the battery out of it, everything started working again.
Use sonoff zigbee dongle. I had same issues with other small dongles and they had no range or connectivity issues. It's not HA problem its the hardware you use with it.
I have home assistant running in virtual box in the company office. Been crashing the last few weeks because of a memory leak in an integration. Increased the memory and now it’s stable again. I like the concept of the mqtt server as the spider in the web. It sure pays of to spend some time on learning to know that, especially if you work with sensors and remote nodes
I feel you man, i am the biggest HA fan and i love it but there are some issues that are truely annoying. Like some lights don't come on, crashes, endless updates, reverting to old backup when restarting, z2mqtt losing half it's devices etc. Nonetheless it's still the most versitile and usefull home automation platform
I have been using Hubitat (C5), HA, Alexa, and Google all together in my 3800 sq ft home. I tried the Conbee stick you recommended and the Sonoff stick - both shit. I only use Hubitat to pair my devices, then I import it all to HA for automations (better UI). I got rid of any ZigBee and wifi bulbs - z-wave lights are FAR more stable. I've been so happy with my GoControl z-wave bulbs, Zooz z-wave multi sensors, third reality zigbee motion sensors, and Sonoff ZigBee plugs. A year worth of headaches to get to this point. Still can't find reliable contact sensors tho.
Using Home Assistant as a dashboard front end and heavy lifting apps and using Hubitat as the back end and connecting all of the devices and basic automation is exactly how I do it. The Hubitat dashboard simply sucks. I started using Sharptools and the dashboard is great, but it relies on the internet. I went back and installed HA on a 1-liter box as I was interested in some of the camera AI integrations and discovered the custom dashboards. HA dashboards can be made to appear so much more sophisticated. Plus, due to HA talking directly to HE the speed in most cases is near instant. I think the one thing that is holding Hubitat back is the lack of options for dashboards. They could create a custom dashboard tool much like HA and that would be a killer app for sure.
This does seem a "sensible" solution ... let (in this case) Hubitat provide the underlying stable platform and use Home Assistant to add bells and whistles. I think I'll pick up a C8 after next payday and see how it goes - the only thing I don't like after doing a bit of digging is that the Ethernet and USB C connectors are "on the side" rather than on the same face as the antenna connections which would have been cleaner.
What benefit do you feel you get from the hubitat? I ask as someone who ran a similar setup, but recently migrated everything to HA and retired the hubitat because it seemed redundant.
Same as some other commenters, but not to put down your point: I've had several Zigbee radios and I'm on the Sonoff Dongle-E and it has awesome range. I can pretty much pair an ikea bulb from the other side of my house. BUT if many devices are called on at once, it might skip a few. i think that's a zigbee thing and not so much a HOOOOME ASSISTAAAANT thing, but still, it's a real issue. I kind of doubt that new device really fixes it or just has a proper antenna and isn't very taxed with those few devices yet, but I hope that it is better. At the very least it would inspire the Home Assistant devs to find out why and implement some improvements.
I have used the hubitat and home assistant at the same time with the HA integration. It worked very well. I had it for a few months while migrating from Hubitat to HA. I kept my zwave on hubitat (until i moved to aeotect 700 a few months later), but controlling all devices from HA.
Those anomalies happen with hubitat too. Press button to turn on 4 lights and 3 turn on no matter how many times you press. Ask alexa and it turns on the forth one. Several instances of lights not turning on or off from switches, automations etc in hubitat too. Improves if you reboot regularly. C7 I have
If you're still running HA on RPi, then change to something that has actual processing power and your automations will be a lot quicker :) I would also welcome suggestions for Zigbee radio for HA, that has actual antenna and decent range
This. RPi's are overrated. Ever since I moved my HA install of the RPi4 and into a virtual machine one of the little Lenovo PC's I use as servers, performance and reliability have massively increased. I use one of the TubesZB zigbee to PoE co-ordinators as I have installed ethernet throughout my house and would rather not have anything plugged directly into the HA server or deal with device passthrough (although that was very easy using both Proxmox and ESXi on the Sonoff Zigbee dongle I used) and it's great to be able to access it via it's own IP address. It's been rock solid in the 18 months I've had it and it covers the entire house though I've also got four of the tiny little USB Tuya Zigbee routers strategically placed around the house to make sure the Zigbee network is as good as it can be. Have a look at the SONOFF Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus for a rock solid Zigbee co-ordinator. They're usually around £25'ish. Make sure it's the "Plus" version you get.
Paul, I'd be happy to help you walk through any HA issues. I've had a whole bunch of different problems, and a lot of it has to do with a couple of things: 1) cloud services - i.e. Tuya. The fix is to ditch their ... crap ... for the most part. 2) Overlapping frequencies with Wifi and Zigbee. My TP-Link multi-node WAP system has a wide frequency space in the 2.4Ghz range, but I've managed to get all 3 (yes I said 3) of my Zigbee sticks to run outside of the used 2.4G Wifi Channels. The reason I have 3 is that I'm migrating from the built in ZHA to Z2MQTT so that's 2 on the main HA server, and then I also put a 2nd HA in my upstairs and run a separate Z2MQTT Zigbee stick on that box. I use the Remote Home Assistant HACS add-on to tie the servers together. Geek? Yep. Why, because I want each floor to operate on their own if need be. For example, running automations on the local box instead of only on the main server. AND, now one last thing .. get off of RPi and get a mini PC. I'm so much happier since migrating over. I'm on your Patreon as well, so feel free to reach out.
I have 29 Tuya lights. Typically way cheaper and, when I bought them, way brighter than anything else. Now I’m stuck and wishing for a way to move Tuya to local and such. Ideas??? 😁
@@scdealey4867 the problem with Tuya lights is getting them to work with Tuya Local. I've seen some videos on YT of people who can get them to work, but I found that it was way more trouble than it was worth, and as it turned out no 2 Tuya bulbs were just like another. It seems they got every manufacturer to make them and though they all act the same to the SL/Tuya App, they are not the same in the Tuya Dev website, and therefore did not act alike in Home Assistant under Tuya Local. I ended up swapping out almost all of my Tuya bulbs for Singled Zigbee bulbs and I keep buying exactly the same bulb, so they are the same acting and same wattage in HA. I'm planning to sell my old bulbs. Another nice benefit of getting rid of Tuya devices is that my Wifi network is much more reliable now. Yes I said devices... That means outlets too. I'm buying a variety of zigbee and zwave outlets. Some of them are power sensing, and I use them for special purposes, like seeing if the washing machine is running and then I have an automation that watches it. The outlets are a crucial part of getting the zigbee and zwave networks to be reliable.
@@paulhibbert The Hubitat Broadlink integration by tomw has been available since 8/22. I was able to use that along with the ROKU integration by armand to replace my discontinued Logitech Hub.
@@paulhibbert The new broadlink driver is pretty good. The HA/Hubitat bridge is also very reliable, I'm still using my C2 hub as a controller with HA handling some random bits and dash duties. Tempted by the C8 though.
@@paulhibbert Yeah, it said withdrawn, but you can still get it with the thread. You only have to insert the RM pro within the code, which is absolutely no big deal. I've done it and got no coding experience. I think I even posted the mod. I can send it to you, if you like. Or you can just use the new driver for the RM pro. :)
Absolutely. When I first tested the stick on my desk, I had some trouble with the pairing of devices. At some point I lost interest and mounted the PI back into the rack. And of course I used an usb extension cord, so the itself stick can be outside the rack. And suddenly I could pair devices without issues. I had a similar issue with the left HDMI Port and Wifi-Channel 1. That is the reason why my RPs are all mounted inside a small rack.
Paul this new setup seems overly complex. Why not simply upgrade your USB zigbee stick to the latest Sonoff Zigbee dongle which has amazing range. Plus instead of HA on a Rasberry Pi just put it on a NUC/dummy PC so it's more powerful than anything the Hubitat C8 can be. Your using underpowered hubs (Rasbery Pi) and an underpowered dongle. No wonder your HA set-up is frustrating.
Switched between Home Assistant and Hubitat a number of times. Everything you say is correct, you have to keep repairing Home Assistant regularly. And it was forever failing on a Raspberry Pi. So been on Hubitat for a number years, and was happy with it …. except it never seemed to improve! Dashboards are terrible. So switched back to Home Assistant running in a docker container on a mini PC. It’s amazing! I won’t go back to Hubitat
Quick tip if you want to use the Alexa integration on the Hubitat since it's free. Use groups even if it's just a single device. For example, if you want to control the bathroom lights via a smart switch, setup a group in Hubitat, have that light switch be the only device in that group, then control the group via the Alexa integration. This way, you can mess around with exactly what the device is and what it's paired to, and don't have to worry about setting everything up again in Alexa. Alexa controls the Bathroom Light Group. The Bathroom Light Group can have a single switch that's paired directly to the Hubitat. You can replace the switch because AEKETLH is the sponsor of the week and oh boy is Hue in trouble now! Then switch back because turns out it's crap. Then you get a new Home Assistant Greyscale box and pair everything to that. Then you decide to switch out the smart switch for smart lights (side note, I setup groups to expose full color control even if the actual devices don't actually support that yet...just in case future devices do). As far as Alexa is concerned, nothing has changed. Just makes life a little easier.
Hi Paul, I have been using Home Assistant with Hubitat for past 3 years, and get the best of both worlds. So most of my Z-Wave and Zigbee devices connect to my C7 (I may upgrade to C8 at some point), and most automations are controlled via Home Assistant on my QNAP NAS via the HA->Hubitiat intergtraton. It means I can reboot Home Assistant when needed and because the devices are connected via the C7 they resume immediatly upon HA restart. It is a bit of a faff getting the devices into HA using the Maker API, but not overly complcated. Thanks for another great video.
Great video Paul, great to see you got back online! I am running HA Yellow and the range for the Zigbee/Thread radio is terrible! I have to have a zigbee plug next to it to share the signal. Using a Sonoff Zigbee stick makes it much better but then I loose Thread! Always the trade offs hey! Not bashing home assistant but some external antennas could have solved this. On the pictures of the Yellow it shows a plug on the board to add one but my version does not have the plug. And yes I still love Home Assistant !
I've been using Hubitat for about 3 years and really not happy with the dashboard aspect. I've just ordered the latest home assistant to try it. However! I'd not considered using both... thanks Paul for opening my mind. A faithful viewer from deep in the woods of Arkansas, USA.
Not sure if you've offended or appeased both Hubitat and HomeAssistant communitites by having a digital 3way :D On a side note, did you try the Sonoff Zigbee 3.0 dongle for HomeAssistant (the one with the antenna) I just got one to replace my ConbeeII as it should have better range, but before I swap them over, was curious to know if you tried one and if you found it any better?
I currently use Hubitat as my device handler for a majority of my devices and expose them to home assistant with that exact integration. Works flawlessly!! I absolutely love the threesome 😜
I bought the new Habitat C8 before the video was over. I'm hoping I can resolve some of the inconsistencies in my smart home setup that drive my husband crazy. Sent from my 2,650 square foot house. 🙈
I'm sorry Paul, and Hubitat, but I won't be moving from HA. First off, as a disabled person, I need the exercise of the required hip-thrusts, and second, my HA install isn't as vast as yours, and mine works fine. I was about to put in "perfectly" but it's not perfect, but it is good enough for me.
Hi Paul are you still using Hubitat in April 24?, just moved my Zwave and Zigbee devices to the new C8 Pro, what can I say this hub connects to devices my Sky Connect couldn’t even see, even though I have loads of routers in every room. Post migration to Hubitat connection are super rock solid. I am using this hub as a bridge to Home Assistant, Alexa and HomeKit but am using safety monitor and lighting automations, which have rock solid. Shame Hubitat cannot update their Dashboards.
I'm using a C7, and love it. When I've got some cash to spare I intend to upgrade. As far as dashboards go, have a look at the Action Tiles Hubitat integration.
Hi Paul, I did not understood how you control the tuya 3 button dimmer that you show on minute 5:30. I have one as well and I have been strugle to use it. Only was able to use 2 button up to now, and poorly. I have no additional hubs or bridges, only HE C7.
Raspberry Pi, Docker, JS Server, Zooz 800 series USB. RPi4's work fine. Build as many as you want or need. Sometimes it's not about the size of the home but what's in the walls. My home is complex with mudset floors (metal mesh that kills radio signals) and HVAC sheet metal and occasional steel beam or two in just the wrong places. I need 3 of these and then I use a VM to run home assistant. Backup includes SSH trusted key exchange and HA running a connector to OneDrive and everything is backed up there. Oh and on one of the Pi's I added Zigbee too, as I had two floor thermostats that needed it, used docker there too. Zigbee is a pain in the butt, BTW! (getting it running, flashing USB keys, etc.). I do agree its bad that one has to pay for subscription where pretty much no one else does that. However, I always wonder how anyone else makes any money and this is simply putting the cost of cloud access to where it belongs and makes it sustainable.
I went hubitat mostly because I knew it was going to work and it still allowed complicated rules. I didn't really want an exspensive pi that needs an SSD and dongles.. then all the horror stories about updates brakeing people's smart homes. Unfortunately there are less nerds on it. So wifi devices are much harder to get to work. If the device is super popular somone probably made a driver to control it but if not.. good luck. Where HA has tons of nerds that make drivers for nearly everything. My new rule is that every smart home device I get needs to be locally controllable. It's just far more reliable that way. Alexa not allowing complex routines and getting slower/inconsistent pushed me this way. I just with zigbee and zwave devices were as cheap as the wifi equivalent. Either way. It's been the best home automation thing I've added. They just need more nerds to adopt the platform as that's what really makes the platform different.
@@paulhibbert If you're interested they covered it on the WAN show this week ruclips.net/video/lh8Zdyy3zTQ/видео.html Also that outtake was absolutely fantastic! All the best, have a great weekend!
He finally said it!!! He finally said it! "These incredible people running UP your screen". UP! UP!! Aah love this man. Keep it UP Paul. Thanks for everything you do.
First, thank you for the video, I Only have one question, I have some Wifi wall switches instead of bulbs. Those use Smart Life application and I have some automations in this app with Zigbee sensors. So if I purchase hubiat, I will be not able to turn on/off those switches ?
Great little device, but I love HA. I moved my HA from a raspberry pi to my Unraid server and put it on a docker. HA runs a lot better, and updating HA has never been easier. However, I do have a Unifi setup with 2 APs, which wifi coverage in my house it awesome.
Great video Paul. Are the Aqara E1 TRVs likely to work as currently I have 16 of them over 2 hubs as range not good. Is Hubitat similar to Homebridge (excl the radios of course).. Also dont think you mentioned and plans to add Thread…. So I assume not?
I have a C7 at one location and the I cannot stand the interface and much prefer the HA dashboards. I use the C7 as the radio's for most things and started porting over rules to HA but still have a mixture of rules in each hub. Started to look at the C8 as I'm starting fresh at a new place and have HA set up with Hue bulbs at moment.
It's funny if theres one thing I would say about Home Assistant is once you get through the pain of setup its absolutely rock solid, but I designed my setup around home assistant with stuff that plays nice. I can see why it gives you grief you aren't the average smart home user giving the amount of products you go through with reviews and the like.
Huh. I'm feeling that "Home Assistant must be better", but also thinking "man, I'm glad you found something you liked that helps solve some long-time issues!" It's easy to be happy for someone who's needs are being met. Also, I like competition in the market.
I run both HA and hubitat in much the same setup as your plan. Hubitat manages the connections to all my ZigBee and Zwave devices (plus a few wifi devices that are a pain with HA). then Hubitat exposes the HA setup to cleanly named devices.
I had lots of issues with the c7 and ended up switching to home assistant. My first c7 died whilst updating about 5 months after purchase, credit to hubitat they replaced it no problem but the second hub was no better than the first, lots of issues pairing even with devices from the supported list, for example I bought 2 innr zigbee power sockets, the first paired fine the second was a nightmare to pair, I also had lots of issues pairing sonoff zigbee devices. On paper hubitat looked like the ideal solution but it didn't work out for me, the new hardware does seem to be a good upgrade but I think I'm too far down the home assistant route now and if I were to upgrade and find I still had the same issues that I had with the c7 I'd be back where I started. I've not had any issues pairing with home assistant, currently everything just seems to be working as it should.
I've had my Hubitat C7 for about half a year and it has been very consistent without repeaters. But my house is pretty small. I like hubitat. I've got a whole bunch of stuff on it (Aqara, Ikea, Yeelight, Sonoff, a broadlink IR blaster and an assortment of Tuya blind motors, sensors and more) and it has all been working flawlessly. I don't see any reason to switch to HA and will probably just grab one of these C8s if I ever move into a bigger home.
@@Fastmack Not a pro, it's an RM3 mini (off Aliexpress). Not sure about the pro but there's community drivers for several broadlinks. Getting it connected is a pain though and it's the only device that will be dodgy at times.
You could also run HA on a better piece of hardware, a better zigbee dongle than ConBee and (most important!) use an extension cord for your USB dongle.. HA is rock solid here, and have a long range for a big house.. So 150 bucks is a heafty cost!
Hey Paul I am curious on what wifi hardware you run? I have 4 unifi access points over my house and have 70ish wifi things on it, and I put anything I can on to Ethernet, at the start I did have some issues but upgraded to the extra waps to keep the wifi rage down. Also on local tuya I had alot of unavailable issues and the creators of the integration have done some updates and it's alot better now, I also created a simple automation that detects if 4 local tuya devices show unavailable for more than 15mins it restarts local tuya, that elevated most of the issues.
Ubitat and HA seems a great mix. I'm still slowly building out my smart home. Got one of the IKEA white shade changing bulbs in my lounge and it's great, plus the ikea blinds on google assistant routines to open and close based on sunset/ alarm/etc I'm just hesitant I need to stop turning off the bulb at the switch tho 😂
The only real pain I had was when I was running HA from a RP4 with no RTC. It does not really help to get the Time corrected via NTP after booting. After I moved HA to a Proxmox VM, all problems known to me were gone. Maybe it was the RTC, maybe the ARM stuff is not as stable as the x86 builds and drivers. Maybe that could be a solution for your unstable integrations, too.
Great video, as ever, Paul. Quick question, regarding the driver for your Tradfri Bulbs, I can’t seem to find one anywhere in the “community”, and I’ve tried typing in all sorts of variations. Any chance you could point me in the right direction, as to where you found it or who created it? 7:20 I’m new to Hubitat, and only just got hold of the C7 about a month before they released the C8, so gutted I made the jump a little early. Keep up the great work 👍🏻
I'm not at home at the moment but I THINK it was this one... github.com/eliotstocker/hubitat-ikea-rgbw/blob/main/ikea-tradfri-rgbw-device.groovy Like I said in the video, I had to hold the hub against the bulb to pair it, so keep that in mind 😊
@@paulhibbert thanks 👍🏻 I managed to get them parked without any real issues, but soon realised the colour spectrum was not going to happen 😂 The other thing was, I bought the ones with the dimmable controllers, but when you “pair” them with the light, that’s the only way to use them then, so have to re-install them on Hubitat. Not seen anything to show you can use them both together yet, but keeping a look out Thanks again Paul 😊 really appreciate it 👍🏻
I have to agree with what others have said. It is a communication problem, not a platform issue. I live in a condo and have concrete walls an HA with my WiFi and Zigbee devices are working just fine.
SOME, some, of these are communication problems. What about the led strip turning on at 20% after I last set it to 100? What about the tuya LOCAL devices that frequently don't respond? It's not mentioned in the video, but what about the scenes that don't execute properly and that I have to make massive automations to cover instead to ensure ALL the lights turn on or off? And the automation that announces my wife is home when she arrives at work despite the automation being clearly defined? Or the android TV that will turn on just fine, but won't turn off with an adb command? That last one used to work by the way, like many things in home assistant it just stopped one day at random. If you aren't experiencing issues in home assistant then trust me, you just haven't pushed it far enough yet.
Can you please do a comparison of this to the Homey Pro. It has aerials for most things too but not sure how well it works with a wide range of devices.
Hey Paul. Sure you've seen already, but Linus Tech Tips got hacked the same way you were. A small amount of solace that a large organise like that has the same issue. Though Google seems to react faster to them. Glad your back up and running
I'm in a 3,500 square foot house with 3 generations living here. My wife, child, and myself living in the front 3 bedrooms, and my wife's parents and sister in the back 3. So, sure it's a huge house, but it's really 6 people with 6 bedrooms, with one kitchen.
Question: if I have the old Hubitat C-7, do you think the C-8 is a worthy upgrade? I've just started switching from a primarily Alexa-driven smart home, to having the Hubitat manage pretty much everything it can, and it's been great. What does the C-8 bring that the C-7 doesn't have? I see hints that they may support Thread and Matter on it later this year; do you think they'll deliver on that? Maybe I should just wait and see if they do a Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale and spring for the upgrade then?
My C7 is absolute junk. I was having all kinds of problems connecting to any of my devices, while SmartThings could reach a sensor in my mail box 200Ft away and through two walls… And that was with the hub parked directly on top of my Wi-Fi router. The C7 can’t connect to my Zigbee bulbs unless they are three feet away… And that is with the external antenna mod people were doing on the forum and as far away as possible from the Wi-Fi router. With the issues I have had with it, I will not be risking even more money in the C8. The Hubitat forum has been nothing but toxic towards me and the work arounds and excuses they give for things that work just fine elsewhere has convinced me to stay away as well. I think they just want to get bought like SmartThings did and that requires good hype and a large user base. Once you buy the hub, they have your money and don’t care if it’s working for you.
If you are talking about speed of response then it is probably not fair to compare a 4 year old RPi4 vs the latest Hubitat C8. I would be interested to know things compare with latest HA hardware and radios.
![The TRUTH About Home Assistant [Vs SmartThings]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/cSzuWKsyuKI/mqdefault.jpg)
Happy Saturday everyone! What do you all think to Linus Tech Tips getting hacked!? Same buggers that got me! Anyway!....
BUY THE NEW HUBITAT C8 HERE: hubitat.com/products
Linus Tech tips got hit by the same hack as you Paul, gotta make you feel better that even his channels fell for the same attack vector, kinda shows RUclips needs to fix their security!
Tell me about it. Sadly Linus didn't mention the biggest vulnerability because he probably doesn't know about it. Linus has Google's advanced protection program which stopped the hackers kicking him out. I got booted out of my own account and couldn't get back in because standard 2FA let's hackers swap it out for their own!
@paulhibbert it's insane that once logged in, that you can swap out 2FA without the need to use the 2FA...
Hell, I remember losing my physical 2fa dongle for Final Fantasy 11, and I had to call up and speak to a person, provide proof of purchases, proof of residence matching my account etc before they would remove it and put a new one on! Insane that a game has better security than Google which pretty much runs so many aspects of our lives!
@@paulhibbert unbelievable they allow this to happen.
Totally
@@paulhibbert I'm guessing the only reason it didn't happen to him is because over 20 people have access to his account. It wasn't his specific account that got "hacked".
So pleased they are keeping up and not becoming irrelevant, they have always struck me as the best inroad to a reasonable techy house, without going completely mental.
The usability and suitability for a beginner in HA is so much better than Hubitat. Huge changes have been made over the past year. Hubitat can't keep up. I had one running for 3 weeks and had to return it - abysmal user experience.
Quick fix to try with your HA box is to use USB extension cables for your Zigbee or other dongles. There are interference issues when connect directly to a USB port. This is true for PCs and PIs. Try it, I guarantee it might work! (That's confidence there, huh?) My son's PC couldn't see all of my wireless networks until we put on an extension, now he sees our neighbor's as well.
You may also be able to change the antenna on your Zigbee dongle, depending on the dongle. Mine, Sonoff Zigbee Dongle Plus, has a screw on antenna but some don't. I know how much you like screwing on antennas!
My biggest issues are that it's a closed box and it lacks many integrations that exist on HA, like Nest. I also understand that the interface is not great and hasn't had as much developement as HA.
Or use Ethernet coordinators like zigsrar/lilyzig
I converted from a Smart Things hub to a Hubitat C7 years ago. I just use it for hardware access and use Home Assistant for the control panel. I have all my automations in NodeRed. I was contemplating moving hardware access to Home Assistant. You just convinced me to stay with Hubitat and maybe upgrading to the C8.
No issue controlling my zigbee stuff from far away and no issue pairing IKEA bulbs without having the hub close by. I use ConBee II like you. And reliability cannot be compared in such a short amount of time. Everytime someone tries Homey, Hubitat, Hue and different dongles they are always like: Been using something else for years and it worked great until it didn’t. Now I tried this new thing for a week and it is much more reliable 🤔
I use a hacked LIDL gateway (TuYa ZigBee module (TYZS4) under the hood) of all things and it has given me zero problems for well over a year so far. Now I just need to reign in my toddler so she doesn't turn the lights on/off six times in a row, causing bulbs to leave the network ...
Finally a Hubitat C8 review. Great job as usual
Hi Paul, thanks for sharing your thoughts and experience. Question: have you considered the idea that the root cause of your reliability issues could be in the wireless communication itself? In other words, that the reliability might not the result of choosing home assistant but the result of your choice of wireless transmitters?
Can I be excused for jumping in on this one?
I have at last count over a dozen different Zigbee interfaces - Conbee, a Pi HAT, several Sonoff USBs, the Sonoff standard and Plus standalone Zigbee to WiFI gateways and a few others and I’ve run HomeAssistant on Pi through to i7-7700T Mini PC hardware and the simple fact is that none of them have been absolutely reliable.
I end up running a ‘live’ and a ‘test’ HA instance so that I can make sure that when I do something I do it first on the ‘test’ setup to make sure it doesn’t break something on the ‘live’ setup…
Now I’m not bashing HomeAssistant itself - God I love what those guys have done, it’s a massive achievement and it’s because of that that I keep plugging away at it and it is getting better but it isn’t ready for non-techie users who don’t want to have to tend to their home automation setups like a modern day Tamagotchi or Furby.
I’ve been doing this stuff for over 20 years now - I started out with HomeVision and HomeSeer (go look them up) and then I did Clipsal C-Bus and HomeGate (which is the stuff that runs the ‘new’ Wembley Stadium lighting - 4,500 points of control - and places like McLaren Technology centre, I have worked on both of those) and those systems have to be absolutely reliable.
Latterly I’ve done Crestron and again the stability and flexibility of that stuff is hugely impressive so I don’t think I can have the label ‘inexperienced newbie’ levelled against me on this one …
Home Assistant is definitely getting better … it really is … but it isn’t solid or stable *YET* and that’s the point. Home Assistant isn’t yet at a stage where you could set it up in someone else’s house and walk away knowing that you won’t have to go back and tickle its testicles in a weeks time to convince it to do what it was doing previously.
You're both probably right in equal measure! I LOVE home assistant still, but a purpose built system is tidier for now. If I ever get the time I might put the aeotec dingle on an extension away from the Pi (conbee stick already is) and then spend some time turning off the various electrical devices in my house to see if there is improvement. It's all very time consuming though.
If your Pi has USB3 you have to run the Z-Wave and Zigbee dongles on at least 2ft extensions otherwise the USB3 causes no end of issues with noise. I had a Fibaro HC2 before HA and it worked great on the hardware side in terms of reception for Z-Wave, but on HA without extensions the same devices were pretty unusable. Now with both Z-Wave and Zigbee dongles on extensions away from the Pi, its great, far quicker and more reliable than the HC2 and I have at least twice as many devices compared to what I had on HC2.
@@paulhibbert Oh come on Paul, you of all people should know that if you want the missus to accept Home Assistant, you have to elongate the dongle as much as possible. Why, my missus LOVES my Home Assistant after I elongated both dongles.
For best results, I'd plug the dongles into USB2 ports. If you run out of USB2 ports, I'd use a USB2 cable on a USB3 port for anything that doesn't actually need USB3 speeds. You get massive (but fairly localized) interference if you're using a USB3 device on a USB3 port.
@paulhibbert could some of your HA issues be extending from the fact your using a Pi which is very under powered combined with using a lower powered usb dongle for zigbee no wonder your having a bad time. Even the most basic NUC/Dummy PC with the latest Sonoff USB stick has amazing range. That's what my friend recommended earlier this year and I'm not having any of the issues you mentioned. It just sounds like you need something with a little more grunt for HA. Just my 2 cents.
Hi Paul! I want to say first off, I find your videos informative and entertaining. Loving what I've seen so far.
Something I'm having difficulty with here is that you're saying "Home Assistant vs Hubitat" when these aren't really the two things you're comparing. Home assistant is software that can be installed on any hardware. When referring to things like range, you're leaving out whether you've installed antennas on your Raspberry Pi (or whatever hardware you are using.) Those "rabbit ears" aren't special, and you can install something similar on a Pi (or again whichever hardware you've chosen.) As you've pointed out, it's possible to use Home Assistant, Home Bridge, Hubitat, and other tools, in harmony. It seems to me the hardware is responsible for a large portion of the benefit you're seeing in this video.
I think it's important to point out that you're comparing (software with unknown hardware) with (software and hardware made to work together and packaged up for you by a manufacturer)
I think there is a fair point here, but I would note that Hubitat did seem to be much cheaper compared to similar hardware for home assistant.
@@nowfocus577 That's called "Moving the goalposts" because price comparison wasn't really part of the review, yeah? When you run SW on underpowered HW this is exactly the kind of behavior you will get. Hubitat is great for something, and has narrow gates (defined by the manufacturer alone) when it comes to expandability and future-proofing. The real lesson here is about buying the right kind of solution for your actual problems.
Really glad that you like Hubitat! I also recently moved from the earlier version(s) to the C-8 and have been extremely happy with the move! I noticed in the video a mention that the Broadlink RM Pro isn’t supported by Hubitat… Wanted to chime in to say I have been using the RM Pro with Hubitat for many years now. There is a great community integration that makes it very easy to use.
Last I looked the integration had been removed and I couldn't find a copy anywhwre
😭
@@paulhibbert there's another integration that has been developed for hubitat and broadlink now.. I'm still using the old integration until it breaks
I love my hubitat! I have the C5 and going to be upgrading to the C8. It does work with Tuya WiFi with custom drivers (I wrote one for the strip). I have it working with a Tuya light strip locally. They also have a community package manager for easily installing community apps and drivers and keeping them updated.
That’s my challenge. My entire place is with Tuya (29 lights)…
But I go nuts when Internet drops or power loss (OK, I live on an island and when power comes back on everything goes full bright.. argh).
Any direction would be awesome.
Never can seem to get good direction.
As others have said in other areas. I would love to see a HA video where you migrate away from a Pi to something like a HA Yellow or a NUC with a proper zigbee stick installed on a usb extension cable so it is further away from other devices.
Ohhhh the Zigbee!!! 🤣😂
Great video, Paul! At the rate your channel is growing, you'll be in a 3,000 ft home (or yacht) in no time!
Why did I have to scroll so far for this comment?
Hubitat OG early adopter here.... The HA cope in this comment is incredible 😂. Love you guys ❤
i've been using Hubitat and HA together for around 18 months. I have a C4 and a C7 and am debating buying a C8, but need to prepare myself to update all my HA dashboards and automations as the Hubitat integration will add a whole new set of devices and entities. Hubitat is a reasonably good controller, but can be frustrating in that sometimes (and with no explanation) devices will just not work, maybe the C8 is the solution. The other thing Hubitat needs to fix is the drivers, especially for us in Europe and the UK (Fibaro drivers for example), the functionality is very limited (Fibaro switches have the capability to monitor energy, but Hubitat doesn't use this) and Hubitat needs to improve them and the overall user experience which can be poor. The community is good, but they can't solve everything. Keep up the videos Paul, thanks.
i have a fibaro external outlet and some double switches, both report energy and power.
I updated from the C7 hub to the C8 hub. I have a 2,750 sq foot home and I am down to zero hops as well. The migration was painless. Both hubs have been very reliable / low maintenance. I use the hub primarily for home security so reliability is high on my priority list.
What are you using for your HA hub?
@@scdealey4867 I am using Habitats hardware hub. Not using HA. I set my system up primarily as a security system. Habitat for the most part for me has been set it and forget it. Not as feature rich as HA but I think it is pretty easy to set up and it is reliable.
Home Assistant can really chug on underpowered hardware. The latest RPi hardware helps, or running it on a more powerful NUC or even a x86 thin client works far better and faster.
Agreed. I moved from a VM to a dedicated Dell Optiplex 3040m (TinyPC) and performance has been great. Although in Paul's specific case and as others have pointed out, his HA issues are more likely specific to his zigbee and zwave network rather than specifically HA related. The C8 does look like a nice piece of hardware so a hybrid model seems like a good idea.
@@leemarsh5258 I did the same - optiplex 3070 Micro with an SSD running HomeAssistant OS directly and not enough a VM. Even heavier automations like press&hold on my Inovelli switches routed through NodeRed are instant.
I see that this has been replied to by Lee and Gek and I put this reply to another comment above but on the same lines as Lee and Gek (and apologies for popping up a duplicate reply) but may I suggest a quick eBay search for HP T630 thin clients?
There are many other thin clients available but the T630's are meaty enough that they will run full fat Linux distros and Windows 10 without being immediately so laggy that you want to put a hammer through them yet cheap enough that they can just be loaded up with a single task without feeling guilty. I have eight of them here, they're passively cooled AMD x86 based, use between 8 and 12w typically when under load, take up to two m.2 SATA drives (they usually come with a 32 or 64GB 2242 fitted in the short slot and have space for an ADDITIONAL 2280 if you want to add one), they also take standard DDR3 SODIMMs (usually have 4GB or 8GB fitted but can take up to 32Gb if you are a total power crazed loon) and even have an internal USB port if you want to boot from USB or put a USB device internally...
I think I've paid between £35 and £50 for them previously - and that's with a 32GB m.2 SATA "drive" and 4GB of DDR3 fitted - which is cheaper than you can get a Pi with comparable RAM and storage for (even when they are available without being scalped).
Alternatively if a T630 isn't meaty enough for your needs (and they do run Home Assistant very well, hell, I've got one of them running docker and multiple containers and it isn't even breaking a sweat but it does have 16GB of RAM and a 500GB m.2 SATA SSD) then have a look for HP Desktop Mini 600 or 800s (again on eBay).
They can usually be picked up "barebones" (i.e. picked clean of CPUs, RAM and storage) for about £30 or so but they take standard socketed 4th to 7th Gen CPUs, DDR3 or DDR4 SODIMMs and m.2 or 2.5" drives (depending on which "version" you get - G1 being the earliest - just be aware that if you want to put an m.2 drive in a G1 Desktop Mini then it has to be an AHCI m.2 drive which are scarce and therefore expensive to buy secondhand but they do also take 2.5" SATA SSDs of course), the G2 onwards take a standard NVMe and / or a 2.5" SATA. They can usually be had with CPU, RAM and storage for about £80.
I have an 800 Mini G3 here that I bought as a barebones and stuffed in my old i7-7700T (35w) with 64GB of DDR4 and a 2TB SSD and that gives me my main everyday "work" PC that's able to run dual 4K monitors and is the size of a small stack of CDs...
Agreed. At this point the RPI is just too underpowered for any medium amount of HA work. Basic stuff? Sure..
@@JohnMayfield-NS Hi John, my issue with using a Pi for Home Assistant isn’t really the power of the Pi itself - if you look at the actual work the hardware is doing it’s pretty minimal and the hardware that I’m using (16GB DDR3, i7-4700T & 256GB SSD) is stupidly over spec, it just happens that those machines are physically a convenient size and they were sat around doing nothing at the time and they just stack nicely with the similar machines that run my Roon Core and MyMovies / CMC and Docker / Portainer servers.
Spinning up HA, Node Red, an MQTT server and Zigbee2MQTT as Docker containers shows that the CPU and RAM usage is pretty much negligible and it seems that it’s far more the storage device that it’s running from that is the limiting factor - if I’m using SD cards on the Pi then I seem to get about a year and a half of life out of them before they fail but I don’t really find that I’m ever getting CPU bound. I really wish that they’d put an m.2 slot on the Pi’s as m.2 drives are now cheap as chips.
The physical format of Pi’s and Pi cases (I use the Argon One cases with the m.2 ‘slice’ on most of my Pi’s) just makes using Pi’s clunky as they don’t really fit into anywhere very nicely whereas the 6-high stack of HP Desktop Minis works quite nicely.
Paul’s using one of the NES Pi cases which are great (I have one set up with RetroArch) and work well as something that you have ‘stood out’ or ‘portable’ but they don’t tuck away nicely for those situations where you just want a machine that sits in the background chunking away. :-)
I'd be really interested in a follow-up video of your experience combining home assistant and hubitat
Same!!!
Same
So basically you blaming HA for stuff it's not responsible? A.k.a zigbee antennas? HA is software it's up to you what hardware you use...
Ok but Homeassistant is software, tho the video talks about hardware dependent problems 🤔? I'm a bit confused.
Could you clarify? Are you running HA on C8's HW?
So if you setup a three way are you not using a Co-ordinator on HA? Sounds like the popular choice is to use Hubitat as your Zigbee device handler and HA for automation, for example. I would have thought if you have both running Zigbee devices (pairing different devices), they would conflict on the Zigbee network
I see they've still not invested any time in the interface. I lasted about 4 days with my C7 before I relegated it to the great storage box in the sky (well, my garage tech dumping ground). I still struggle with the cluster£$%^ of the Home Assistant interface but it's leagues ahead of the Hubitat, still.
Conclusion on the video:
- base on Home Assistant
- add a hubitat
- add alexa
- add more things 😂
I'm not sold. I just purchased Hubitat and sent it back. Not user friendly at all. I have a vera, which is great except that they aren't in business anymore; no more updates. But at least it was user friendly. Hubitat makes me feel like I have to program my devices. And going through my house an reconnecting every z-wave switch, including the aeon types that are inside of boxes, is a pain (that would be the issue with any new hub, to be fair). I've looked at some videos on setting up Hubitat and NONE of them show it to be easy and almost all of them acknowledge that it is non userfriendly. In 2023, why is this not easier by now? Why didn't a company take over Vera? Thoughts?
Also softwarewise. The community is like a bunc of nerd programmers who look down everyone. Its fine if you like to abused...
Paul, I love your videos, don't misunderstand me. However, with Hubitat (at that time C7) I had a bad experience. Actually, I decided to order C7 based on one of your previous videos and without checking in depth details and if it fits my expectation. Finally, C7 landed in my drawer (waste of money) and is still there. Indeed, Hubitat was able to connect all my zigbee devices, but was unable to be used with any wi-fi device or build scenes with mixed devices, the device which I really wanted. Therefore, since then I'm planning using HA one day (not with Pi due to unavailability, but maybe with old laptop motherboard and 3D designed case). I think the only one system which can control zigbee and wi-fi different brand smart devices on one platform is still HA. Of note, I have no real issue with distance and zigbee devices as I introduced bridging devices in some places (e.g. Sonoff mini zigbee, of' course with purpose such as controlling a light with regular switch and with app), which can forward signal and interact as extender.
Aye, see the end of the video for that. Both tuya and Broadlink integrations are sadly missing. I've been banging onto Hubitat about that for literally years.
For automation it's their only real failing. HA is still the answer for very complex things like sending adb commands to android TVs for example.
Monsieur! May I suggest a quick eBay search for HP T630 thin clients?
There are many other thin clients available but the T630's are meaty enough that they will run full fat Linux distros and Windows 10 without being immediately so laggy that you want to put a hammer through them yet cheap enough that they can just be loaded up with a single task without feeling guilty. I have eight of them here, they're passively cooled AMD x86 based, use between 8 and 12w typically when under load, take up to two m.2 SATA drives (they usually come with a 32 or 64GB 2242 fitted in the short slot and have space for an ADDITIONAL 2280 if you want to add one), they also take standard DDR3 SODIMMs (usually have 4GB or 8GB fitted but can take up to 32Gb if you are a total power crazed loon) and even have an internal USB port if you want to boot from USB or put a USB device internally...
I think I've paid between £35 and £50 for them previously - and that's with a 32GB m.2 SATA "drive" and 4GB of DDR3 fitted - which is cheaper than you can get a Pi with comparable RAM and storage for (even when they are available without being scalped).
Alternatively if a T630 isn't meaty enough for your needs (and they do run Home Assistant very well, hell, I've got one of them running docker and multiple containers and it isn't even breaking a sweat but it does have 16GB of RAM and a 500GB m.2 SATA SSD) then have a look for HP Desktop Mini 600 or 800s (again on eBay).
They can usually be picked up "barebones" (i.e. picked clean of CPUs, RAM and storage) for about £30 or so but they take standard socketed 4th to 7th Gen CPUs, DDR3 or DDR4 SODIMMs and m.2 or 2.5" drives (depending on which "version" you get - G1 being the earliest - just be aware that if you want to put an m.2 drive in a G1 Desktop Mini then it has to be an AHCI m.2 drive which are scarce and therefore expensive to buy secondhand but they do also take 2.5" SATA SSDs of course), the G2 onwards take a standard NVMe and / or a 2.5" SATA. They can usually be had with CPU, RAM and storage for about £80.
I have an 800 Mini G3 here that I bought as a barebones and stuffed in my old i7-7700T (35w) with 64GB of DDR4 and a 2TB SSD and that gives me my main everyday "work" PC that's able to run dual 4K monitors and is the size of a small stack of CDs...
@@philharris9631 Thanks for this tip Phil. Having some old laptops home, I was wondering to use one of them for HA/little NAS (actually none of them has dedicated GPU), but still have not figured out the power consumption (should not be too high) and would it be powerful enough for home media server. In summary, instead of putting laptops to landfill, I wanted to use them for something useful.
I suspect the root cause of your HA issues was an under-powered HA hub (under-powered in transmit power and CPU power). Trying a new HA device may have solved the problems too.
I say under-powered CPU because you mention the delay between input and action, which means the software is running slowly, and this could be the non-working problem too.
have you considered the idea that the root cause of your reliability issues could be in the set up and quality of your zwave/zigbee coordinators used on your HAS instance?
Yes. The theme of this video really is that a purpose built box is less susceptible to these issues. I imagine home assistant yellow is a good solution too!
As a long term home assistant user and having used several coordinators over the years I can tell you this. There is always a few problematic devices for some reason no matter what you use. It's can be maddening.
Hi Paul, you should consider upgrading to a sonoff ZigBee stick for homeassistant Vs the conbee. I am running both at the moment as running ZHA (conbee) and slowly transferring to ZigBee2mqtt (sonoff) and the sonoff has loads more range! You can use the sonoff on both protocols though. Nice to see this video though, I have the same relation with HA 😅
Also running the stick on a ubs extension can help due to usb interference
Could be worth checking if anything is causing some unwanted radio noise too, if having ZigBee problems. I had a shitty 12V power supply on one of my led strips, that was so noisy it made my ZigBee devices drop out occasionally. It was occasional enough that it took me quite a long time to figure it out, I was cussing out my Conbee stick and Zigbee2mqtt, but the turns out the issues was elsewhere entirely. It's been rock solid ever since I tossed that shitty psu.
Great advice gents! Thanks!!
Yes, a USB cable can help GREATLY if you have issues. It also helps WiFi dongles. The difference is night and day.
@@Iisakki3000 I had something similar with a temperature sensor that apparently had zigbee rabies or something. The second I pulled the battery out of it, everything started working again.
Use sonoff zigbee dongle. I had same issues with other small dongles and they had no range or connectivity issues. It's not HA problem its the hardware you use with it.
I have home assistant running in virtual box in the company office. Been crashing the last few weeks because of a memory leak in an integration. Increased the memory and now it’s stable again. I like the concept of the mqtt server as the spider in the web. It sure pays of to spend some time on learning to know that, especially if you work with sensors and remote nodes
I feel you man, i am the biggest HA fan and i love it but there are some issues that are truely annoying. Like some lights don't come on, crashes, endless updates, reverting to old backup when restarting, z2mqtt losing half it's devices etc.
Nonetheless it's still the most versitile and usefull home automation platform
endless updates is just a silly complaint though. If you don't like the monthly update cycle don't update monthly.
@@wizbowes1267 Free bug fixes and new features, how dare they?!
I have been using Hubitat (C5), HA, Alexa, and Google all together in my 3800 sq ft home. I tried the Conbee stick you recommended and the Sonoff stick - both shit. I only use Hubitat to pair my devices, then I import it all to HA for automations (better UI). I got rid of any ZigBee and wifi bulbs - z-wave lights are FAR more stable. I've been so happy with my GoControl z-wave bulbs, Zooz z-wave multi sensors, third reality zigbee motion sensors, and Sonoff ZigBee plugs. A year worth of headaches to get to this point. Still can't find reliable contact sensors tho.
I'd go to the pub with home-assistant beard man - he'd be a riot.
He would hate that, and he would tell you! 🤣
Using Home Assistant as a dashboard front end and heavy lifting apps and using Hubitat as the back end and connecting all of the devices and basic automation is exactly how I do it. The Hubitat dashboard simply sucks. I started using Sharptools and the dashboard is great, but it relies on the internet. I went back and installed HA on a 1-liter box as I was interested in some of the camera AI integrations and discovered the custom dashboards. HA dashboards can be made to appear so much more sophisticated. Plus, due to HA talking directly to HE the speed in most cases is near instant.
I think the one thing that is holding Hubitat back is the lack of options for dashboards. They could create a custom dashboard tool much like HA and that would be a killer app for sure.
I'm glad to hear this is working for you so well in advance if me actually doing it!
This does seem a "sensible" solution ... let (in this case) Hubitat provide the underlying stable platform and use Home Assistant to add bells and whistles.
I think I'll pick up a C8 after next payday and see how it goes - the only thing I don't like after doing a bit of digging is that the Ethernet and USB C connectors are "on the side" rather than on the same face as the antenna connections which would have been cleaner.
I have been using a c7 hubitat as my device hub, connected to HA for automations and interface, for about 2 years. This is the way.
What benefit do you feel you get from the hubitat? I ask as someone who ran a similar setup, but recently migrated everything to HA and retired the hubitat because it seemed redundant.
@@geoken2 Simplicity of hardware setup. HA runs in a docker container for me.
Same as some other commenters, but not to put down your point: I've had several Zigbee radios and I'm on the Sonoff Dongle-E and it has awesome range. I can pretty much pair an ikea bulb from the other side of my house. BUT if many devices are called on at once, it might skip a few. i think that's a zigbee thing and not so much a HOOOOME ASSISTAAAANT thing, but still, it's a real issue. I kind of doubt that new device really fixes it or just has a proper antenna and isn't very taxed with those few devices yet, but I hope that it is better. At the very least it would inspire the Home Assistant devs to find out why and implement some improvements.
I have used the hubitat and home assistant at the same time with the HA integration. It worked very well. I had it for a few months while migrating from Hubitat to HA. I kept my zwave on hubitat (until i moved to aeotect 700 a few months later), but controlling all devices from HA.
Those anomalies happen with hubitat too. Press button to turn on 4 lights and 3 turn on no matter how many times you press. Ask alexa and it turns on the forth one. Several instances of lights not turning on or off from switches, automations etc in hubitat too. Improves if you reboot regularly. C7 I have
If you're still running HA on RPi, then change to something that has actual processing power and your automations will be a lot quicker :) I would also welcome suggestions for Zigbee radio for HA, that has actual antenna and decent range
This. RPi's are overrated. Ever since I moved my HA install of the RPi4 and into a virtual machine one of the little Lenovo PC's I use as servers, performance and reliability have massively increased. I use one of the TubesZB zigbee to PoE co-ordinators as I have installed ethernet throughout my house and would rather not have anything plugged directly into the HA server or deal with device passthrough (although that was very easy using both Proxmox and ESXi on the Sonoff Zigbee dongle I used) and it's great to be able to access it via it's own IP address. It's been rock solid in the 18 months I've had it and it covers the entire house though I've also got four of the tiny little USB Tuya Zigbee routers strategically placed around the house to make sure the Zigbee network is as good as it can be.
Have a look at the SONOFF Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus for a rock solid Zigbee co-ordinator. They're usually around £25'ish. Make sure it's the "Plus" version you get.
Paul, I'd be happy to help you walk through any HA issues. I've had a whole bunch of different problems, and a lot of it has to do with a couple of things: 1) cloud services - i.e. Tuya. The fix is to ditch their ... crap ... for the most part. 2) Overlapping frequencies with Wifi and Zigbee. My TP-Link multi-node WAP system has a wide frequency space in the 2.4Ghz range, but I've managed to get all 3 (yes I said 3) of my Zigbee sticks to run outside of the used 2.4G Wifi Channels. The reason I have 3 is that I'm migrating from the built in ZHA to Z2MQTT so that's 2 on the main HA server, and then I also put a 2nd HA in my upstairs and run a separate Z2MQTT Zigbee stick on that box. I use the Remote Home Assistant HACS add-on to tie the servers together. Geek? Yep. Why, because I want each floor to operate on their own if need be. For example, running automations on the local box instead of only on the main server. AND, now one last thing .. get off of RPi and get a mini PC. I'm so much happier since migrating over. I'm on your Patreon as well, so feel free to reach out.
I have 29 Tuya lights. Typically way cheaper and, when I bought them, way brighter than anything else. Now I’m stuck and wishing for a way to move Tuya to local and such. Ideas??? 😁
@@scdealey4867 the problem with Tuya lights is getting them to work with Tuya Local. I've seen some videos on YT of people who can get them to work, but I found that it was way more trouble than it was worth, and as it turned out no 2 Tuya bulbs were just like another. It seems they got every manufacturer to make them and though they all act the same to the SL/Tuya App, they are not the same in the Tuya Dev website, and therefore did not act alike in Home Assistant under Tuya Local. I ended up swapping out almost all of my Tuya bulbs for Singled Zigbee bulbs and I keep buying exactly the same bulb, so they are the same acting and same wattage in HA. I'm planning to sell my old bulbs. Another nice benefit of getting rid of Tuya devices is that my Wifi network is much more reliable now. Yes I said devices... That means outlets too. I'm buying a variety of zigbee and zwave outlets. Some of them are power sensing, and I use them for special purposes, like seeing if the washing machine is running and then I have an automation that watches it. The outlets are a crucial part of getting the zigbee and zwave networks to be reliable.
The Broadlink RM Pro is supported in Hubitat. There are two drivers now. They are not native, but work perfectly fine. :)
I'll have to check them out, last time I looked the only driver had been removed by its creator 🤔
@@paulhibbert The Hubitat Broadlink integration by tomw has been available since 8/22. I was able to use that along with the ROKU integration by armand to replace my discontinued Logitech Hub.
@@paulhibbert The new broadlink driver is pretty good. The HA/Hubitat bridge is also very reliable, I'm still using my C2 hub as a controller with HA handling some random bits and dash duties. Tempted by the C8 though.
@@paulhibbert Yeah, it said withdrawn, but you can still get it with the thread. You only have to insert the RM pro within the code, which is absolutely no big deal. I've done it and got no coding experience. I think I even posted the mod. I can send it to you, if you like. Or you can just use the new driver for the RM pro. :)
The conbee is known to work a lot better when you add a extension cable in order to reduce interference with the wifi of the raspberry pi.
Absolutely. When I first tested the stick on my desk, I had some trouble with the pairing of devices. At some point I lost interest and mounted the PI back into the rack. And of course I used an usb extension cord, so the itself stick can be outside the rack. And suddenly I could pair devices without issues. I had a similar issue with the left HDMI Port and Wifi-Channel 1. That is the reason why my RPs are all mounted inside a small rack.
Thanks Paul, I've been waiting to have time to check it out before I upgrade my C7, but after this video, it's a done deal..
Paul this new setup seems overly complex. Why not simply upgrade your USB zigbee stick to the latest Sonoff Zigbee dongle which has amazing range. Plus instead of HA on a Rasberry Pi just put it on a NUC/dummy PC so it's more powerful than anything the Hubitat C8 can be. Your using underpowered hubs (Rasbery Pi) and an underpowered dongle. No wonder your HA set-up is frustrating.
Switched between Home Assistant and Hubitat a number of times. Everything you say is correct, you have to keep repairing Home Assistant regularly. And it was forever failing on a Raspberry Pi. So been on Hubitat for a number years, and was happy with it …. except it never seemed to improve! Dashboards are terrible. So switched back to Home Assistant running in a docker container on a mini PC. It’s amazing! I won’t go back to Hubitat
Half of Utah in the US lives in houses 3000+ however a large portion of those have unfinished basements so they’re really closer to 1800 livable space
Quick tip if you want to use the Alexa integration on the Hubitat since it's free. Use groups even if it's just a single device. For example, if you want to control the bathroom lights via a smart switch, setup a group in Hubitat, have that light switch be the only device in that group, then control the group via the Alexa integration. This way, you can mess around with exactly what the device is and what it's paired to, and don't have to worry about setting everything up again in Alexa. Alexa controls the Bathroom Light Group. The Bathroom Light Group can have a single switch that's paired directly to the Hubitat. You can replace the switch because AEKETLH is the sponsor of the week and oh boy is Hue in trouble now! Then switch back because turns out it's crap. Then you get a new Home Assistant Greyscale box and pair everything to that. Then you decide to switch out the smart switch for smart lights (side note, I setup groups to expose full color control even if the actual devices don't actually support that yet...just in case future devices do). As far as Alexa is concerned, nothing has changed. Just makes life a little easier.
Hi Paul, I have been using Home Assistant with Hubitat for past 3 years, and get the best of both worlds. So most of my Z-Wave and Zigbee devices connect to my C7 (I may upgrade to C8 at some point), and most automations are controlled via Home Assistant on my QNAP NAS via the HA->Hubitiat intergtraton. It means I can reboot Home Assistant when needed and because the devices are connected via the C7 they resume immediatly upon HA restart. It is a bit of a faff getting the devices into HA using the Maker API, but not overly complcated. Thanks for another great video.
Great video Paul, great to see you got back online! I am running HA Yellow and the range for the Zigbee/Thread radio is terrible! I have to have a zigbee plug next to it to share the signal. Using a Sonoff Zigbee stick makes it much better but then I loose Thread! Always the trade offs hey! Not bashing home assistant but some external antennas could have solved this. On the pictures of the Yellow it shows a plug on the board to add one but my version does not have the plug. And yes I still love Home Assistant !
I've been using Hubitat for about 3 years and really not happy with the dashboard aspect. I've just ordered the latest home assistant to try it. However! I'd not considered using both... thanks Paul for opening my mind.
A faithful viewer from deep in the woods of Arkansas, USA.
I think it's the best possible solution!
I moved from the Conbee to the HA branded skyconnect stick.... ZigBee performance is way better ever since.... Worth trying.
Good to know man, thank you!!
Not sure if you've offended or appeased both Hubitat and HomeAssistant communitites by having a digital 3way :D
On a side note, did you try the Sonoff Zigbee 3.0 dongle for HomeAssistant (the one with the antenna)
I just got one to replace my ConbeeII as it should have better range, but before I swap them over, was curious to know if you tried one and if you found it any better?
I currently use Hubitat as my device handler for a majority of my devices and expose them to home assistant with that exact integration. Works flawlessly!! I absolutely love the threesome 😜
I bought the new Habitat C8 before the video was over. I'm hoping I can resolve some of the inconsistencies in my smart home setup that drive my husband crazy. Sent from my 2,650 square foot house. 🙈
I'm sorry Paul, and Hubitat, but I won't be moving from HA. First off, as a disabled person, I need the exercise of the required hip-thrusts, and second, my HA install isn't as vast as yours, and mine works fine. I was about to put in "perfectly" but it's not perfect, but it is good enough for me.
You must always capitalise HOME ASSISTANT to let everyone know you are shouting! ❤️
Hi Paul are you still using Hubitat in April 24?, just moved my Zwave and Zigbee devices to the new C8 Pro, what can I say this hub connects to devices my Sky Connect couldn’t even see, even though I have loads of routers in every room.
Post migration to Hubitat connection are super rock solid. I am using this hub as a bridge to Home Assistant, Alexa and HomeKit but am using safety monitor and lighting automations, which have rock solid.
Shame Hubitat cannot update their Dashboards.
I'm using a C7, and love it. When I've got some cash to spare I intend to upgrade. As far as dashboards go, have a look at the Action Tiles Hubitat integration.
Hi Paul, I did not understood how you control the tuya 3 button dimmer that you show on minute 5:30. I have one as well and I have been strugle to use it. Only was able to use 2 button up to now, and poorly. I have no additional hubs or bridges, only HE C7.
I have several similar ZigBee switches... Can anyone tell us if they 'just work' on the C8?
Post your Tuya dimmer device details in the Hubitat forum and surely there will be a solution for your particular device model/manufacturer.
Raspberry Pi, Docker, JS Server, Zooz 800 series USB. RPi4's work fine. Build as many as you want or need. Sometimes it's not about the size of the home but what's in the walls. My home is complex with mudset floors (metal mesh that kills radio signals) and HVAC sheet metal and occasional steel beam or two in just the wrong places. I need 3 of these and then I use a VM to run home assistant. Backup includes SSH trusted key exchange and HA running a connector to OneDrive and everything is backed up there. Oh and on one of the Pi's I added Zigbee too, as I had two floor thermostats that needed it, used docker there too. Zigbee is a pain in the butt, BTW! (getting it running, flashing USB keys, etc.).
I do agree its bad that one has to pay for subscription where pretty much no one else does that. However, I always wonder how anyone else makes any money and this is simply putting the cost of cloud access to where it belongs and makes it sustainable.
Hi, Can you please make a video, How to integrate Hubitat devices with Home Assistant?
I am also looking for the integration
I am also looking for the same solution.
I went hubitat mostly because I knew it was going to work and it still allowed complicated rules. I didn't really want an exspensive pi that needs an SSD and dongles.. then all the horror stories about updates brakeing people's smart homes.
Unfortunately there are less nerds on it. So wifi devices are much harder to get to work. If the device is super popular somone probably made a driver to control it but if not.. good luck. Where HA has tons of nerds that make drivers for nearly everything. My new rule is that every smart home device I get needs to be locally controllable. It's just far more reliable that way. Alexa not allowing complex routines and getting slower/inconsistent pushed me this way. I just with zigbee and zwave devices were as cheap as the wifi equivalent.
Either way. It's been the best home automation thing I've added. They just need more nerds to adopt the platform as that's what really makes the platform different.
Great video Paul!
Did you see that LTT was hacked in the same way you were? Hopefully RUclips will implement mitigations!
Yeah, it would be nice if they finally took it seriously. My money is on them doing absolutely nothing though 😅
@@paulhibbert If you're interested they covered it on the WAN show this week ruclips.net/video/lh8Zdyy3zTQ/видео.html
Also that outtake was absolutely fantastic!
All the best, have a great weekend!
I'll check it out!
Home assistant: I should’ve allowed your brother to “fix me”. He is an executive and has a vacation home. mama said.
He finally said it!!! He finally said it! "These incredible people running UP your screen". UP! UP!! Aah love this man. Keep it UP Paul. Thanks for everything you do.
Love the garden lights Paul, what make are they? Very Christmassy.
Would be interesting to see how you get on with HA Yellow vs Hubitat instead of your current usb sticks.
Me too actually!
Have you compared to the new Homie Pro with the C8 hubitat? I know there’s a massive price difference but I am curious what is the better product?
First, thank you for the video, I Only have one question, I have some Wifi wall switches instead of bulbs. Those use Smart Life application and I have some automations in this app with Zigbee sensors. So if I purchase hubiat, I will be not able to turn on/off those switches ?
There is a community driver for tuya smartlife Wifi devives but it was made in 2021 and I've tried more than once to get it to work without success. 😕
@@paulhibbert thank you so much, That is sad, I have to think first the cost to change my switches to a ZigBee alternative before purchase hubitat.
What are the string bulbs you have up in your garden, are they zigbee😮?
Worst experiences with home assistant were on RPI only fit for the bin.
Old micro PC works great only using 1% memory 😂
Great little device, but I love HA. I moved my HA from a raspberry pi to my Unraid server and put it on a docker. HA runs a lot better, and updating HA has never been easier. However, I do have a Unifi setup with 2 APs, which wifi coverage in my house it awesome.
I've been running a Habitat C5 for three years, and I have been considering a C8.
Looking to get into smart home what would you recommend Hubitat or Home Assistant to someone new.
Great video Paul. Are the Aqara E1 TRVs likely to work as currently I have 16 of them over 2 hubs as range not good. Is Hubitat similar to Homebridge (excl the radios of course).. Also dont think you mentioned and plans to add Thread…. So I assume not?
No thread unfortunately. Looks like your TRVs will work though!... community.hubitat.com/t/aqara-smart-radiator-thermostat-e1/105894
I have a C7 at one location and the I cannot stand the interface and much prefer the HA dashboards. I use the C7 as the radio's for most things and started porting over rules to HA but still have a mixture of rules in each hub. Started to look at the C8 as I'm starting fresh at a new place and have HA set up with Hue bulbs at moment.
It's funny if theres one thing I would say about Home Assistant is once you get through the pain of setup its absolutely rock solid, but I designed my setup around home assistant with stuff that plays nice. I can see why it gives you grief you aren't the average smart home user giving the amount of products you go through with reviews and the like.
Until now, I was satisfied with my C7, but... the C8 is on my to-do list now!
Huh. I'm feeling that "Home Assistant must be better", but also thinking "man, I'm glad you found something you liked that helps solve some long-time issues!" It's easy to be happy for someone who's needs are being met. Also, I like competition in the market.
WiFi built in? As an avid C7 user, I think I need to move to the C8!
Hard same
I run both HA and hubitat in much the same setup as your plan. Hubitat manages the connections to all my ZigBee and Zwave devices (plus a few wifi devices that are a pain with HA).
then Hubitat exposes the HA setup to cleanly named devices.
Hubitat adopter here. Only thing I miss is the ‘pretty dashboards’ as you so finely put it.
I had lots of issues with the c7 and ended up switching to home assistant. My first c7 died whilst updating about 5 months after purchase, credit to hubitat they replaced it no problem but the second hub was no better than the first, lots of issues pairing even with devices from the supported list, for example I bought 2 innr zigbee power sockets, the first paired fine the second was a nightmare to pair, I also had lots of issues pairing sonoff zigbee devices. On paper hubitat looked like the ideal solution but it didn't work out for me, the new hardware does seem to be a good upgrade but I think I'm too far down the home assistant route now and if I were to upgrade and find I still had the same issues that I had with the c7 I'd be back where I started. I've not had any issues pairing with home assistant, currently everything just seems to be working as it should.
Just a thought, sounds like you need a mesh net work if you don’t have one already🤔
I've had my Hubitat C7 for about half a year and it has been very consistent without repeaters. But my house is pretty small. I like hubitat. I've got a whole bunch of stuff on it (Aqara, Ikea, Yeelight, Sonoff, a broadlink IR blaster and an assortment of Tuya blind motors, sensors and more) and it has all been working flawlessly. I don't see any reason to switch to HA and will probably just grab one of these C8s if I ever move into a bigger home.
You have a Broadlink RM pro working with Hubitat?
@@Fastmack Not a pro, it's an RM3 mini (off Aliexpress). Not sure about the pro but there's community drivers for several broadlinks. Getting it connected is a pain though and it's the only device that will be dodgy at times.
I think I will start testing Home Assistant. If this grows on me, then Hubitat will be my next addiction :D
You could also run HA on a better piece of hardware, a better zigbee dongle than ConBee and (most important!) use an extension cord for your USB dongle..
HA is rock solid here, and have a long range for a big house.. So 150 bucks is a heafty cost!
what are you running it on and what dingles
Paul is one of the funniest people on RUclips for tech. Thanks Paul for all you do. ❤
Hey Paul I am curious on what wifi hardware you run? I have 4 unifi access points over my house and have 70ish wifi things on it, and I put anything I can on to Ethernet, at the start I did have some issues but upgraded to the extra waps to keep the wifi rage down. Also on local tuya I had alot of unavailable issues and the creators of the integration have done some updates and it's alot better now, I also created a simple automation that detects if 4 local tuya devices show unavailable for more than 15mins it restarts local tuya, that elevated most of the issues.
Ubitat and HA seems a great mix. I'm still slowly building out my smart home. Got one of the IKEA white shade changing bulbs in my lounge and it's great, plus the ikea blinds on google assistant routines to open and close based on sunset/ alarm/etc I'm just hesitant I need to stop turning off the bulb at the switch tho 😂
"Part of me likes the abuse" - sums up most of our journeys with HA 😂
I think most of the issues I've had with Home Assistant aren't really their fault, it's the third party integrations that just suddenly stop working.
The only real pain I had was when I was running HA from a RP4 with no RTC. It does not really help to get the Time corrected via NTP after booting. After I moved HA to a Proxmox VM, all problems known to me were gone. Maybe it was the RTC, maybe the ARM stuff is not as stable as the x86 builds and drivers. Maybe that could be a solution for your unstable integrations, too.
@@andreas7944 I second that. I've been running HA in a VM on Proxmox for two years now, rock solid. I see no sane reason to move it back to a RPi.
Great video, as ever, Paul. Quick question, regarding the driver for your Tradfri Bulbs, I can’t seem to find one anywhere in the “community”, and I’ve tried typing in all sorts of variations. Any chance you could point me in the right direction, as to where you found it or who created it? 7:20
I’m new to Hubitat, and only just got hold of the C7 about a month before they released the C8, so gutted I made the jump a little early.
Keep up the great work 👍🏻
I'm not at home at the moment but I THINK it was this one...
github.com/eliotstocker/hubitat-ikea-rgbw/blob/main/ikea-tradfri-rgbw-device.groovy
Like I said in the video, I had to hold the hub against the bulb to pair it, so keep that in mind 😊
@@paulhibbert thanks 👍🏻 I managed to get them parked without any real issues, but soon realised the colour spectrum was not going to happen 😂
The other thing was, I bought the ones with the dimmable controllers, but when you “pair” them with the light, that’s the only way to use them then, so have to re-install them on Hubitat. Not seen anything to show you can use them both together yet, but keeping a look out
Thanks again Paul 😊 really appreciate it 👍🏻
I have to agree with what others have said. It is a communication problem, not a platform issue. I live in a condo and have concrete walls an HA with my WiFi and Zigbee devices are working just fine.
SOME, some, of these are communication problems. What about the led strip turning on at 20% after I last set it to 100? What about the tuya LOCAL devices that frequently don't respond? It's not mentioned in the video, but what about the scenes that don't execute properly and that I have to make massive automations to cover instead to ensure ALL the lights turn on or off? And the automation that announces my wife is home when she arrives at work despite the automation being clearly defined? Or the android TV that will turn on just fine, but won't turn off with an adb command?
That last one used to work by the way, like many things in home assistant it just stopped one day at random.
If you aren't experiencing issues in home assistant then trust me, you just haven't pushed it far enough yet.
Would be interesting to know, if you can flash the C8 with Home Assistant?
I wish! 🤤
Can you please do a comparison of this to the Homey Pro. It has aerials for most things too but not sure how well it works with a wide range of devices.
Hey Paul. Sure you've seen already, but Linus Tech Tips got hacked the same way you were. A small amount of solace that a large organise like that has the same issue. Though Google seems to react faster to them. Glad your back up and running
I'm in a 3,500 square foot house with 3 generations living here. My wife, child, and myself living in the front 3 bedrooms, and my wife's parents and sister in the back 3. So, sure it's a huge house, but it's really 6 people with 6 bedrooms, with one kitchen.
Question: if I have the old Hubitat C-7, do you think the C-8 is a worthy upgrade? I've just started switching from a primarily Alexa-driven smart home, to having the Hubitat manage pretty much everything it can, and it's been great. What does the C-8 bring that the C-7 doesn't have? I see hints that they may support Thread and Matter on it later this year; do you think they'll deliver on that? Maybe I should just wait and see if they do a Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale and spring for the upgrade then?
My C7 is absolute junk. I was having all kinds of problems connecting to any of my devices, while SmartThings could reach a sensor in my mail box 200Ft away and through two walls… And that was with the hub parked directly on top of my Wi-Fi router. The C7 can’t connect to my Zigbee bulbs unless they are three feet away… And that is with the external antenna mod people were doing on the forum and as far away as possible from the Wi-Fi router. With the issues I have had with it, I will not be risking even more money in the C8. The Hubitat forum has been nothing but toxic towards me and the work arounds and excuses they give for things that work just fine elsewhere has convinced me to stay away as well. I think they just want to get bought like SmartThings did and that requires good hype and a large user base. Once you buy the hub, they have your money and don’t care if it’s working for you.
I think you are simply brilliant. Good content and a great sense of humor! Cheers!
My house is 1500sqft and I can honestly say I've never had any of these signal issues with HA. Using a Conbee II stick for Zigbee.
If you are talking about speed of response then it is probably not fair to compare a 4 year old RPi4 vs the latest Hubitat C8. I would be interested to know things compare with latest HA hardware and radios.