Homeseer 4 vs Hubitat

[mik3]

So I’m hoping for a friendly discussion on what everyone’s thoughts are.

Why Homeseer over Hubitat?

[Bigstevep]

The GUI (web interface) and building events are way better in HS than HT. Getting device information into the system is better/easier to do and supported better in HT. With the mcsHubitat plugin fo get the device into HS you can get the best of both, that's what I do..

[Pete]

I have kept my Hubitat but not using it right now. That said it is a tweaked TV Box. Gonna take it apart to look inside. My guess is that the Zigbee / ZWave are USB connected inside of the box and not part of the motherboard of the box.

So here tried an Android based S912 Octocore TV box with 3Gb of RAM and a 64Gb emmc and WiFi and Bluetooth and Gb NIC.

Replaced the Android OS with Ubuntu 18.04 and Homeseer, HA, Mono, Docker. Worked great and really it is a smaller footprint than the RPi. Total cost for this box was $69 on Amazon last year (on sale). It was easy to utilize ZNet and or USB Zigbee / ZWave sticks on it.

Next went to an Intel TV box with a base OS of Windows 10. This is using an Intel quad core Atom, 4Gb of RAM and 64Gb eMMC.

This one added Oracle Virtual box to main build such that it runs Windows 7 and Ubuntu 18.04. It has done well for a few months now. Also paid $69 USD for this box on sale.

Found pictures over here ==> https://fccid.io/2AHYK-1218C5/Intern...Photos-4139995

[mik3]

I have kept my Hubitat but not using it right now. That said it is a tweaked TV Box. Gonna take it apart to look inside. My guess is that the Zigbee / ZWave are USB connected inside of the box and not part of the motherboard of the box.

So here tried an Android based S912 Octocore TV box with 3Gb of RAM and a 64Gb emmc and WiFi and Bluetooth and Gb NIC.

Replaced the Android OS with Ubuntu 18.04 and Homeseer, HA, Mono, Docker. Worked great and really it is a smaller footprint than the RPi. Total cost for this box was $69 on Amazon last year (on sale). It was easy to utilize ZNet and or USB Zigbee / ZWave sticks on it.

Next went to an Intel TV box with a base OS of Windows 10. This is using an Intel quad core Atom, 4Gb of RAM and 64Gb eMMC.

This one added Oracle Virtual box to main build such that it runs Windows 7 and Ubuntu 18.04. It has done well for a few months now. Also paid $69 USD for this box on sale.

Gonna do a tear down of the Hubitat hub in the next few days here.

That's cool, keep us posted.

I'm not focusing on price, but feature driven, development, etc...

[will2568]

I am not yet a Homeseer user as I am still shopping for a home automation platform that suits my needs. I have used Hubitat for a few months and I'm not impressed to say the least. Customer support is non-existent. I've sent three support requests to their support email address, and not one of them has been replied to with anything other than an automated reply. They were surprised when I got irate in their community forum about not receiving a reply to my first email for over a month. Most customers would be irate if they requested support and never got an answer, but they can't seem to grasp that concept. They have developed apps for Android and iOS devices for such functions as presence detection and dashboards, but the presence detection features are unstable and unpredictable at best. Hubitat may be cheaper than homeseer, but if you value your time and your sanity I cannot recommend Hubitat. Customer support is part of the cost of the product. In my opinion, if a company cannot afford to provide adequate customer support for a technically complex product, that product is not worth buying at any price. The fact that Homeseer publishes its phone number on its website is a good indication that the level of customer support is much higher than Hubitat, which has no phone number to be found anywhere on its website.

[pcgirl65]

I started withn Smartthings then hubitat and then homeseer. So far, homeseer has been the most stable by far. My devices work very fast and for the most part, I haven't had too many hiccups. Occassionally, a motion sensor won't trigger but I believe that is because of the motion sensor. I wish I had bought the homeseer brand ones. The ONLY thing that I miss a lot is trying to implement presence detection like I had it in Smartthings using Webcore because I could utilize different locations. I have implemented it somewhat by sending HTTP commands to homeseer but I would like it to be more reliable. Other than that, I am pretty happy with homeseer!

[mik3]

Old thread, but for anyone reading or lands on this during their own research.

The key take away is reliability! Homeseer has it and Hubitat doesn’t. That’s all you need to know to make your decision.

[pcgirl65]

I would agree. I have been on homeseer for over a year now and it is very reliable. I am very happy with it so far. The only thing that I still have on hubitat is my konnected board.

[Pete]

Here have shelved the Habitat and Samsung Smartthings hubs in the last couple of years.

[fresnoboy]

I agree with what's been said - events and management is much better on HS. However, device support is much better on Hubitat. I have a couple Nuheat thermostats that are wifi connected, and it was straightforward to get them installed on hubitat, but there is no driver support in HS. Likewise no support for Nest devices, but they have support in Hubitat.

It seems like the HS staff focus on dealing with platform improvements and bugfixes, but not on writing drivers for popular devices. If it's supported in HS, then that generally is a much better experience, but if there is not device support, it doesn't matter how nice the automation logic is.

That's why the HE plugin is so useful - sometimes you can get the bets of both worlds.

[mik3]

I agree with what's been said - events and management is much better on HS. However, device support is much better on Hubitat. I have a couple Nuheat thermostats that are wifi connected, and it was straightforward to get them installed on hubitat, but there is no driver support in HS. Likewise no support for Nest devices, but they have support in Hubitat.

It seems like the HS staff focus on dealing with platform improvements and bugfixes, but not on writing drivers for popular devices. If it's supported in HS, then that generally is a much better experience, but if there is not device support, it doesn't matter how nice the automation logic is.

That's why the HE plugin is so useful - sometimes you can get the bets of both worlds.

I agree with this partially. Depending on what devices you get. Some of what Hubitat supports and has drivers for are crap decices too. Iris v1 for instance...

I support homeseer all the way and hope to see my support for devices too.

[wkearney99]

It seems like the HS staff focus on dealing with platform improvements and bugfixes, but not on writing drivers for popular devices.

This. I get that there's always limited resources for implementing drivers. But nothing drives people toward a different platform like lack of support for popular devices.

[pcburcham]

I can't speak to Hubitat's latest hub, but I have an older one keeping the bottom of a drawer weighted down around here somewhere.

Device support really took off with HS4 and is continuing to grow. I don't see any reason why that trend won't continue, but I don't expect it will come all at once. Node-RED and MQTT bridged a lot of gaps for me, but I realize that doesn't cover all the bases or suit everyone's needs.

My big things are reliability and ease of use, and I haven't seen anything that comes close to HS in those departments. I've played around with Home Assistant, and I liked it, but I got to thinking about how in God's name I'd write documentation for my wife to follow if I died and she needed to make adjustments or address a problem (someone call the police and tell them you suspect foul play and to run a thorough toxicology exam if I do). That has been much easier to do with HS. I have a BookStack wiki instance on my LAN and have most of the documentation up to snuff on our current setup. And as far as reliability, HS does such a good job of it that it often takes me a couple of days to realize there is an issue to address. It just works.

[Pete]

Here wife has stated she has no need for automation other than it makes me happy and keeps me busy. (Like tinkering with Golf and automobiles).

When I am gone she will unplug every device in the house related to automation. It is good that the switches will continue to function as is with no control.

[upstatemike]

It seems like the HS staff focus on dealing with platform improvements and bugfixes, but not on writing drivers for popular devices. If it's supported in HS, then that generally is a much better experience, but if there is not device support, it doesn't matter how nice the automation logic is.

It occurs to me that the problem is not so much with Homeseer as it is with the Home Automation industry in general. If things worked the way they are supposed to then Homeseer could write a driver for a "Standardized" Z-Wave Switch or Zigbee Bulb and they would work with any Z-Wave switch or Zigbee bulb from any manufacturer. That is the world we were promised but it is not the reality we see. Every single device from every manufacturer seems to need an automation hub or software maker to write smething special to support their unique product. As the universe of automation products continues to expand I don't see that as a sustainable model for any automation controller company to follow. The focus of any company needs to be improving their core product and reacting to the latest revision of each product from every fly-by-night company who decides to dip their toe in the Home Automation craze. Hubitat supports new product drivers more quickly than Homeseer at the cost of less reliability and features and they will eventually hit a resource wall trying to keep up with new devices and new versions of existing devices.

I think at some point there has to be a fundemental change in how standards for HA devices are defined and enforced because the model of writing a unique driver for every new device that comes along is simply not realistic.