I have been trying to leave SmartThings for a while now and I tried my hand with HassIO, but was disappointed with the zwave performance,so I punted. Now that I am ready to buy some of the new Inovelli dimmers, I decided to revisit using something other than SmartThings. Here is what I am looking for if folks could give me some pointers…
- I want low lag zwave performance. I know that my current setup has lag between SmartThings, webCore, and using scene controller remotes (Hank) that are not zwave associated. I know I must embrace zwave associations as much as possible, so it needs to support that.
- locally processing with access to the internet for phone, ifttt, etc. Must be able to interact with Google Assistant
- I don’t mind wizards for setting up different automations, but having a power user side is highly desired, something like webcore was great.
- Would love to bridge the gap with my cameras. I have amcrest camera and I would love to have a one stop shop application for monitoring.
- Ecobee?
- needs to support my GE, Schlage, and Inovelli products. It would be great if I can still use my Hank One and Four Button scene controllers.
Thanks!
V/R,
Frank
I’m a convert from SmartThings. Actually, due to the cloud processing woes, I had associated everything with my Alarm system (Abode) a few years back and had been shopping around for “the” solution ever since. I’ve tried it all. HA, openHAB, HomeSeer, Control4, ect. The open source solutions are very powerful but they lack the polish I was looking for. Everything was custom and a lot of research and time is needed to keep everything working properly as the platform is upgraded. HomeSeer was very solid but the level of integrations I wanted meant that it was basically a $900 purchase…I can buy a lot of Z-Wave switches for $900. The Control4 setup was interesting (bought a house with it last year) but required very specific hardware and a $200 service call every time I wanted to do anything with it…definitely not a system for people who want to be involved.
I landed on Hubitat because of the “local first” approach and because most of the things I wanted to do with it are supported by Hubitat right out of the box. Zigbee AND Z-Wave, Telnet Lutron support, Google Assistant…I don’t need to worry about these things breaking because the lead developer has a final exam on Thursday. Lastly, I spent ~$80 on the hub on sale, completely worth giving it a go. AND driver support has been very strong. The Hubitat team seems to be all over getting popular devices hooked up and working. They also seem to have developed important relationships with premier hardware vendors such as Inovelli 
The one thing I’m doing that is not natively supported is alarm integration with a DSC 1832 system. Our home came with one that was previously integrated into a Control4 setup. I’ve been switching over our alarm to use this over the last few weeks. The community app and driver that have been developed work very well (local LAN integration via a Envisalink board). The nice thing about using an old school alarm like this is that it never changes so even if the app developer moved to Iran in the next three days I assume it would continue to work.
+1 for openHAB. I’ve been using it for a long time and really enjoy the flexibility.
It’s definitely lacking polish and can seem daunting for new users, but to me, the offline nature and wide ranging support to connect pretty much all IoT devices I’ve ever needed (google home, ecobee, zwave included). I can’t speak for ip cams because I use blueiris (also integrated with OH) for that.
The zwave latency is great, provided you have a good mesh for your network.
This is my first experience with home automation. I was on the fence between wink, smarthings, and hubitat when i discovered it. After watching some videos and reading some articles, i jumped on the Hubitat bandwagon.
Like Inovelli, the folks at Hubitat are very community oriented and there is plenty of support from within the community. Local control and response is lightning fast…you’d never think that the signal is bouncing around your house.
my set up isn’t overly impressive, but Hubitat has been a lot of fun to work with and as a novice with a little bit of smarts and common sense, i really haven’t run into any issues.
I’ll add another vote for Hubitat.
- I haven’t had any issues with zwave performance, but that does depend somewhat on your mesh strength.
- Processing is performed locally, with the natural exception of cloud integrations (Google, ifttt, etc)
- The native apps provide a great deal of flexibility and power. In the event what you want to do isn’t supported, you can always write your own apps/drivers to extend functionality.
- Depending on your goal Hubitat may or may not work. Some users have integrated camera feeds into their dashboards, but there isn’t really a native integration.
- Ecobee - I haven’t used the integration, but one exists
- Yep - I have GE Switches and Outlets, Schlage locks and Inovelli among others. I look forward to phasing out the GE’s for Inovelli.
- I would check the forums regarding Hank One and your scene controllers to confirm functionality. I think there have been threads on Hank One, but could be wrong.
Great. My Hubitat hub shows up later this week. It will be fun moving things over. 
If you haven’t already I would recommend reviewing their guide on building a solid z-wave mesh, and taking your time with the migration.
https://docs.hubitat.com/index.php?title=How_to_Build_a_Solid_Z-Wave_Mesh
You may find Link to Hub (https://docs.hubitat.com/index.php?title=Link_to_Hub) useful during the migration process to keep everyone happy.