I hoping this forum may offer some good viewpoints as to where I should transition. Yes, this is not SharpTools exactly related, but I do respect the opinions of folks here and hope yall can offer some advice.
I’ve been using SmartThings for a few years now. I probably have 86 devices…almost all are z-wave. SmartThings has been fine for me up to recently. It has some quirks, but the simplicity of the system and other features made it nice. Recently my hub has become SUPER unreliable. Possibly a firmware issue, but who knows if/when it will get fixed. This coupled with the fact that it seems like samsung is going away from z-wave device support is making me think that it may be time for me to change my loyalties.
My initial thoughts are Hubitat would be a good chose, but would love to hear thoughts of the masses. I do have multiple Samsung hubs on my property, and would love to still use some of those…From what I understand, there is actually a way to integrate Hubitat and Smartthings together??? I don’t look forward to having to re-install all 86 devices…that sounds like a nightmare to me.
Obviously continuing SharpTools compatibility is a must.
Suggestions?
So why not just buy a new Aeotec hub to replace the unreliable hub? I think they go for about $180 CDN. You said you had several other hubs on your property, so this will keep the system you already have and are used to. I understand the hub replacement process has had the kinks resolved, though I haven’t tried it myself.
Part of my beef is even a “new” aeotec hub is 2018 technology and there seems to be no sign of samsung ever having a v4 hub that is z-wave compatible. All indications I’m getting is that if I stay samsung, I will be stuck with the 2018 technology indefinitely.
Hell…even the v3 hub, although is "compatable with 700 and 800 series z-wave devices, it is only backwards compatable. I have many 700 and 800 series devices on my SmartThings network, but ST is unable to take advantage of the better features the 700/800 devices have to offer.
Samsung = a device company that happens to provide a smart hub for their devices.
Companies like Hubitat are a hub company.
I feel like when z-wave is concerned, samsung is a sinking ship…or maybe I’m just being pessimistic.
Drew, i went through a similar thing a good while back and looked at quite a few hubs and tried a few also. Hubitat, Smartthings, Fibaro Zipato.
I finally settled on Homey. Not saying it is perfect, (2019 version certainly wasn’t) but the new version 2023 onwards was a good step up in reliability. Integrates with Sharptools well so far (early days for me) and the reactions between both are quicker than i was expecting, almost instant !
The Homey advanced flows are great to work with and where a big plus for me plus the over-night remote backups !
Only downside / concern is a lot of the compatibility with device providers come through third party developers and users, who can sometimes disappear and leave an app you have been using and set your system up for, hanging, with no updates or support. Only happened to me once, but there is that risk. Although Homey or another developer can take the app over.
Andrew
PS, and Homey was just purchased by LG. Could be good, could be bad !!!
1 Like
eeek. That has some major potential to go the same direction that Samsung went.
The mobile app on Hubitat isn’t quite what SmartThings offers, but if you’re a SmartTools user, this probably won’t matter much. While the learning curve is a bit steeper on Hubitat, it’s a well-controlled platform, and the user community is one of the best.
Another option is Home Assistant, which, although the most versatile of the three, often has a release cycle that breaks things. You need to be ‘involved’ with this platform.
My vote is Hubitat and then use SmartThings for things that are not supported. You can bridge the two platforms with SmartTools, Mira or HubiThings Replica (and have multi-hubs of each).
1 Like
Hi @Drew_Nadig, I’ve been using my SmartThings hubs for more years than I can remember. In the last month or so it suddenly started acting erratically, with devices going offline / online seemingly randomly. After a bunch of searching, I discovered that it’s even though it’s hardwired, the wifi isn’t disabled (and cant be disabled). So, for whatever reason, it started randomly flapping between the ethernet and wifi connection. I think a firmware update probably introduced this issue since it’s never been an issue previously. I blocked the hub’s wifi IP in my router and my hub is back to normal. Maybe that could be affecting your hub too?
2 Likes
I had the same issue with my ST hub until I blocked Wi-Fi. You can disable Wi-Fi, but you have to do a hard reset, and I did not want to go through the hassle of reconnecting all my z-wave devices.
I have switched to Home Assistant, and it has worked flawlessly for me. I especially like the detail that you can get on all the devices, and I now have 736 “entities” that I can control and utilize in my dashboard, if I want to.
HA also integrates with other technologies that neither ST nor Sharptools gave me access to. There is a slightly higher learning curve, but once you figure it out you will be hooked.
2 Likes
Oh my! This I’ll give this a shot tomorrow. I really hope this fixes it.
1 Like
Went to Home Assistant as well, haven’t looked back for a moment.
It’s a bit more difficult to set up and you will need a bit more IT knowledge or have good Google skills. But mine works perfectly. I used to have all my rules in Sharptools, because what I wanted was very hard in Smartthings, but I migrated everything over to Home Assistant now. Everything works a lot smoother and quicker.
I only still use Sharptools at work now, because I can’t connect to home directly from there.
Hmmm. Didn’t seem to do the trick. I use eero mesh. I “blocked” the wireless connection but left the wired connection open.
Still does the same thing. Wonder if eero still connects to it via wifi, but then blocks any external connection. So from the hub’s point of view, it is “connected” to wifi (but it’s connection ends at that point)
The Ethernet / Wifi IPs could be a red herring issue… maybe try unblocking the Wifi IP and unplugging the Ethernet to see if the issue goes away when you know it’s only able to connect with a single IP (the Wifi).
Yeah, the problem first showed up in this configuration: Wifi only…no ethernet cable at all. It was only when the problem persisted that I tried moving my hub closer to my router to connect via ethernet.
There is a very very good possibility that the eero system in its effort to be more user friendly has not quite granted users to FULLY block a wifi?