Switching from Vera to Hubitat

[wmarcolin]

Well finally after a long time, I bought my Hubitat and start the process of working with 2 hubs, with the final goal of staying only with Hubitat.

I want to share my first insight, and of course then a shortlist if you can help to speed up my change with some information.

First perception Hubitat is much more professional, lighter, more technical, and thus more difficult for beginners. Vera has the Dashboard and Devices part more visually elaborated, it is easier and faster to see things, something that Hubitat has to build but gives much more potential for creation. Hubitat's manuals and documents are infinitely better. In summary, the more technical features in my opinion, far outweigh the visual point of Vera.

Some small doubts:

1. Is there in Hubitat a way to update/force neighbor nodes?
2. In Vera I use the variable x_vera_device.failed or zwave_device.failed to detect devices with problems (long discussions in other posts), in MSR I don't see this variable for Hubitat devices, how to know the device is in a failure state? In MSR Entities I see that Vera devices have many more variables than Hubitat devices.
3. In this matchEntities({capability:['x_vera_device']}) expression that lists all the devices, for this x_vera_device parameter it only shows what is in the Vera, which would be common to any hub?
4. Who is the equivalent of Vera's Switchboard Plugin from @toggledbits on Hubitat? Do you have something like SiteSensor?

Sorry for asking these questions, I have already searched the manuals and forums and they are issues that after a week of searching I still can't solve.

Thanks.

[toggledbits]

@wmarcolin said in Switching from Vera to Hubitat:

Is there in Hubitat a way to update/force neighbor nodes?

We don't even know that a node is ZWave. But that's not different from Hass. One of the disappointments of those platforms.

@wmarcolin said in Switching from Vera to Hubitat:

In Vera I use the variable x_vera_device.failed or zwave_device.failed to detect devices with problems (long discussions in other posts), in MSR I don't see this variable for Hubitat devices, how to know the device is in a failure state?

See #1

@wmarcolin said in Switching from Vera to Hubitat:

In this matchEntities({capability:['x_vera_device']}) expression that lists all the devices, for this x_vera_device parameter it only shows what is in the Vera, which would be common to any hub?

x_vera_device is a capability that exists only on Vera devices. It's a container for the additional information we can get from the Vera that other platforms don't have in common.

@wmarcolin said in Switching from Vera to Hubitat:

Who is the equivalent of Vera's Switchboard Plugin from @toggledbits on Hubitat? Do you have something like SiteSensor?

This is two separate questions. Virtual devices can be created on Hubitat by clicking "Add Virtual Device" in the Devices list.

I'm not aware of anything like SiteSensor on Hubitat, but I'm not deeply familiar with the breadth of their community apps. It's a good bit of a looser environment than the Vera App Marketplace defined. But, MSR can fulfill the SiteSensor role, as has been discussed in this category in other posts.

[wmarcolin]

@toggledbits hi!

Regarding x_vera_device.failed or zwave_device.failed I understand and I am disappointed by this as well. Well, I follow the search task on the forums to see what I can find, surely I am not the only one who wants to do a check when a device stops responding.

With the point of listing all devices, something similar to x_vera_device for Hubitat to give the same? Any suggestions on what would be a common point across all Hubitat devices?

Ok, now I understand Add Virtual Device, but nothing compared to Switchboard searching now how to create a radio switch.

Site Sensor ok I will follow what we have discussed in this forum, I don't like, Sitesensor seems more transparent/impactful than being in a recurrent way triggering the MSR to test every 5 seconds the internet.

I'm seeing that the road will be longer than I thought, strong advantage that I'm really seeing is the compatibility with devices, especially S2, and of course start using Zigbee, I have 4 devices that I bought more than a year and finally will use.

[toggledbits]

@wmarcolin said in Switching from Vera to Hubitat:

With the point of listing all devices, something similar to x_vera_device for Hubitat to give the same? Any suggestions on what would be a common point across all Hubitat devices?

It is the purpose of the x_ capabilities to express hub-specific data and behavior. It is the purpose of the "standard" capabilities ( like power_switch and temperature_sensor) to provide a "lingua franca" interpretation of the data when possible (and I encourage you to use those capabilities when possible in preference to the x_ capabilties).

The x_ capabilities try to expose as much information as the hub offers in its raw form, so I would examine your entities and look at what's there. If there are opportunities to map those to standard services and it hasn't been done, bring that to my attention and I can add that mapping. But nonetheless, you are not cut off from the data; it's all there. What you don't find there is data that doesn't exist (i.e. isn't offered by the hub).

In the case of Hubitat, if data or capability (action) is not exposed through MakerAPI, the Hubitat forums should receive that complaint. And it's more effective if those complaints come from multiple users (i.e. not just me). But Hass, Ezlo, it's all the same... if there's a way to figure it out, I will (especially if you help by providing data I don't have access to), but if the hub's API doesn't offer the necessary data, the hub has to change, not MSR.

[wmarcolin]

@toggledbits thanks for the reply online, I will take your message and see what I should do and of course try to help.

But today I am really bothered by Hubitat not signaling clearly that a device is failing. Yesterday, more than 24 hours ago, I purposely unplugged a plug from the electricity supply to see if there were any failure signals, and there are none.

This to me is extremely serious, devices can for some reason lose communication, stop working, and only when an action fails should we investigate and understand. This is absurd to me, if I go on vacation and the door/window or motion sensors are not responding, does that mean that the alarm will not work? Maybe my analysis is hasty, but this is serious, I want to act before, when I already know that a communication established by wakeup interval does not happen, I will be warned.

I posted a similar message in the Hubitat group of users and received this comment (https://community.hubitat.com/t/how-many-ex-vera-owners-are-here/44951/122), I will look into this Device Activity Check that you have developed.

Again Patrick, thank you very much for your always kind attention, I saw that in another chat you mention that you have to take some time for your son, to go to University. Good luck, and unplug for a while who knows, maybe you'll come back with more brilliant ideas for all of us.

Thanks.

[toggledbits]

This is another reason I'm doing my own ZWave-JS integration for MSR, and not relying on, for example, HA (which uses ZWave-JS now) to be a sufficient pass-through. That makes Reactor much more "hub-ish", I realize, but this is a clear example where the middle-man (HA) is not contributing to capability.

[wmarcolin]

@toggledbits

Completing one week of full Hubitat use, and a few comments:

• Dashboard assembly, super easy to use, lots of customization potential, I don't believe I have to use anything external, positive point;
• Undoubtedly better the part of drives to add devices, accepted S2 devices that with Vera I couldn't add, finally I believe I will use Zigbee devices, extremely favorable point;
• Despite being easy to add devices, very, very bad antenna signal. What covered my house quietly with Vera, I am having a very difficult time with the signal. It's been 5 days since I migrated more than 80 devices, half of them connected directly to the electrical network, i.e. they are repeaters, and I still have communication failures, a worrisome point;
• My first impression is that Hubitat is slower than Vera, at least it has failed a lot with MSR. I see that MSR sends a command, and Hubitat ignores it, or doesn't execute all the action steps. I know there has already been some comment in this forum of interval times, I have to find the discussion and understand this detail, MSR flies and Hubitat walks, point of concern;
• No doubt cleaner drives, attributes are only the main thing without loading a lot of unnecessary stuff as Vera has, but I complain again and have already put in support, the fact of not having the device_fault, or zwave_fault as an attribute to indicate failure is very bad. The option to use the community's APP, I didn't like at all, because everything involves a complexity that used to be easier to see in the Vera panel, and now with MSR's DynamicGroup it would be great to manage failures, bad point.

Well, I hope this weekend I can have some time to dedicate to understanding what I can do to improve the Mesh network that they say Hubitat handles well, but that is not what I see.

Well Patrick, waiting your ZWave-JS

[gwp1]

@wmarcolin I did this migration over the last several months, finally turning off my Vera (to eliminate useless radio interference) just last week.

"My first impression is that Hubitat is slower than Vera"

That's interesting to me as my first thought was "wow, this thing is like greased lightning - it barely lets me finish a command and it's done", even when using the Alexa/Google/Homekit integrations which should be adding latency having to traverse the web and back.

I was heavily using the Reactor plugin in Vera along with two SiteSensors for calling weather APIs. I very recently replaced both of those SiteSensors with Expressions in MSR and they work flawlessly.

I do have H-A but it's mostly for dashboarding and my dislike toward paying another $5/month for another service from another hub to make my hub accessible online for status checks.

[wmarcolin]

@gwp1

I really don't know if I did something very wrong, but I consider myself an experienced person, so what I am witnessing in my Hubitat is making me extremely worried.

See the report below that I just ran, 31 nodes failing.

You comment about leaving Reactor that I'm sure was happy, and now using MSR, this opens up a huge universe of possibilities, I'm really a fan, I just hope to have a hub at the same level as MSR.