Homeseer vs Restricted Hubs

[mik3]

I just need to get this off my chest.

Homeseer is sooooooo much better then a restricted hub. Without naming the hub, I’m so relief using Homeseer over their restricted hot mess with a butt load of issues and slow downs!!!

I really wish I came over to Homeseer right from the beginning!!! I would of saved a year of my life!!!

[upstatemike]

I tend to think of Homeseer as a true home automation system while most hubs I consider to be just gateway devices to be interfaced with Homeseer. Many gateway devices have enough smarts to do some tasks independent of the main automation system but as you point out they are very restricted. A good red flag is any system that tries to define all of Home Automation using just a few protocols like Z-Wave, Zigbee and Wi-Fi. If your platform can only utilize those 3 protocols it is not a true home automation system.

[ezmaass]

I held off from home automation for a long time because I disliked everything I saw on the market... until I came across HomeSeer.

The way I see it, nothing is ever perfect, but HomeSeer gets the following right for me:

- It had a SW only option. I'm an engineer, so I wanted something with a lot of control. I don't like most cheap hardware solutions out there, especially where they tend to go unpatched and neglected over time, no less getting slow and outdated. My HS4 environment runs on a very powerful rack-mount server, giving me tons of current and future flexibility over anything a cheap hardware hub could do.

- It's not reliant on the Internet. HS is actually home automation software, not just a gateway to a cloud-based service. I don't like being reliant on some vendor's cloud service where I can help it.

- HSTouch. I had planned to build my own wall mounted app to control the environment. HSTouchDesigner made that chore a lot easier. I still haven't gotten to this part of my project yet, but knowing it was contemplated as part of the HS experience made it a much better option than a ground-up custom app.

- Flexibility. I'll be honest - I thought HomeSeer looked a bit hokey from a UI/UX perspective - and still does even with the HS4 upgrades. We're living in a day and age where SW interface design expectations are high, especially with regard to commercial products for consumers. But I looked past that because of the flexibility I saw in HomeSeer, which allowed not only a more comprehensive set of point-and-click configuration but the ability to get into custom code where/if ever needed.

I'm still only a few weeks into my HS4 project, but I've added 22 devices to my network thus far and counting - it's been solid. I couldn't see doing this with some cheap Internet gateway style hardware hub with restrictive capabilities.

That said, two recommendations I'd have for HomeSeer:

- DO invest in your UI/UX. In 2020, the interface can be made a lot more clean and friendly. It's not a deal-breaker for me, but I'll admit I needed to look past it to see what HS was capable of doing - had I let that "first impression" sway me, I would have crossed it off the list early.

- While I haven't spent a ton of time in HSTouchDesigner yet (just played a few times in prep for my tablet and wall mount gear to show up), I've noticed straight off the bat that the app doesn't play nice with Windows scaling - on a 4k monitor, the text is super, super tiny. Again, more interface design investment needed.

Overall, I'm super happy that HS exists, and the pros FAR outweigh the few cons for me. As an engineer (who still doesn't want to custom build everything!), it's a nice balance of out of the box control with extensible capabilities where I may desire it.

Keep up the good work!

[TC1]

I held off from home automation for a long time because I disliked everything I saw on the market... until I came across HomeSeer.

Overall, I'm super happy that HS exists, and the pros FAR outweigh the few cons for me. As an engineer (who still doesn't want to custom build everything!), it's a nice balance of out of the box control with extensible capabilities where I may desire it.

Keep up the good work!

^^^^ This.
I have enough knowledge and professional experience to probably tackle most hardware or software projects... but I don't want to. I'm at a point in my life and career where I want to enjoy myself, play with things, and not be locked in a room coding on my days off just to get something to function. I want to come up with the use cases and then figure out the best way to solve them with the tool I purchased... not having to write more tools, unless absolutely necessary. I'll leave that to folks who actually enjoy doing that either full-time or as a hobby.

[concordseer]

I imagine so many so called "hubs" have come and gone in the life time of HS. Some were quite useful but to be stuck with a particular protocol at the behest of the manufacturer lends very little long time appeal.

As can be seen from the many posts on this forum, your automation endeavours can be as simple or as complex as you decide. Some like to get the automations done and leave HS to get on with the business. Others spend hours fine tuning their setups. The main thing is HS can cater for both. HS4 is now going through a rapid period of ongoing development and I've no doubt that what comes out the other end will serve the user as well if not better than previous incarnations.

The best way to ensure this is, if we the user put our support squarely behind the HS4 project and test and provide feedback to Rich and the team. Remember we as HS4 users are large stakeholders in the HS4 project and we want this to succeed as much as the authors.

[macromark]

Without naming the hub, I’m so relief using Homeseer over their restricted hot mess with a butt load of issues and slow downs!!!

I really wish I came over to Homeseer right from the beginning!!! I would of saved a year of my life!!!

Just whisper it... I'll hold my ear close. 👍

[mik3]

Just whisper it... I'll hold my ear close. 👍

Hubitat.

My experience has been terrible. I spent wayyyy to much time troubleshooting this product and band aiding fixes which never worked right.

It has a ton of device support including zigbee but man, that damn thing sucked the life out of me! I set it up from scratch numerous times based off the teams suggestion all with the same result. Inconsistencies, database errors, hub slow downs, etc.

I felt like every wake and moment was troubleshooting that damn thing.

Homeseer has been a dream in comparison! Honestly I can actually spend my free time working out, renovating my house, spending time with the family!!! And the product does what it’s suppose to do. Automate and make life easier.