So I switched over to Hubitat. Don’t hate. I had a Vera 3, and as much as the Vera has been good to me, it was time for me to move on to a newer device. I don’t want this to be a “I hate Vera” post. Quite the contrary, I liked my Veras very much. They did a lot for me over the years and the last 4 years or so has been smooth sailing (mostly). I just want this to be an informative post for those who might be thinking of switching over, or for those who might be wanting upgrade like me. I’ve only had this for a few months, but having got my wings on Vera, Hubitat has been pretty straight forward. I’m not going to go into the technical details of these things, but hopefully my words will make you feel better about whatever decision you decide to make. We can always change our minds in the end.
I started with a Veralite in 2013. Then, a year later decided I needed more horsepower, so I got a Vera 3. I’ve had my V3 since 2014 or so, and the last 3-4 years its been smooth sailing. I have about 100 physical devices of all types, at least the types Vera could handle. I invested in Cooper hardware for lighting (which was a bit pricey at the time) but they’ve been great - plus all the other things Cooper didn’t make. I used HomeWave on my iDevices and had nice pretty screen to control and see it all. I also have about 16 cameras on the system to see what’s going on. I use other software for the grunt of the camera work, but it was nice to see it integrate into Vera and HomeWave, even if functionality was a bit limited.
I’m more in the ’control’ camp than the automate camp. Yes I have lots of automated things, but I used my control day to day. I don’t want my lights coming on automatically when I enter a room. Sometimes I want it dark.
But alas it was time to move on. Its been 6 years since I started, and so much has changed. I wanted voice command of some kind, a bit faster response, and of course my V3 wasn’t able to take advantage of the other standards like the newer Veras do, so less choice in devices to expand. I couldn’t stomach the cost of a Vera Secure, especially since a Hubitat was $99 (was $89 this past weekend) and seems to do a lot of what I wanted. Vera UI7 hasn’t had a good reputation. The question was, is HE as good as all the hype? Everyone wants something difference from their home “automation”. So its difficult to say what’s good for one person is good for another. Here’s my take:
Vera is a bit more technical. You can get into the details of your devices and Veras interface takes advantage of that. It seems to be set up from more of an engineers point of view. In that regard I finding it more customizable, even with the devices I already have. The learning curve was a bit steep, but Hubitat (or HE) doesn’t quite go as far as the Advanced device pages, so you can’t get in there and do all the same device customizations. It has a similar device page, but not nearly as many supported items per device. Direct associations also aren’t included. Although that seems to be a change in the z-wave standard, its not backwards compatible. I’ve had to use a separate controller for that. Not a deal breaker for me, but for many its not even an option. They also say they’ll never include that feature. It’s the past as they say. I’ve used rules to make up for that to some extent, but direct associations for me are almost immediate. Theres a bit more delay using the logic rules for the same purpose.
On the plus side for HE, it is simpler, and does a lot of what the average person wants to do out of the box. It does maybe 80% of what I want it to do, but again, not being able to get into all the device customizations for things I already have is a bit of a downer. I’ll live, but for me Vera was better in that regard. HE’s logic app is laid out a bit better, so its easier to use. I see that Reactor is set up similarly, so maybe its not that much of an advantage, but again it wasn’t included with Vera out of the box. And just like PLEG has disappeared? Maybe Reactor will in the future. I’m not disrespecting the creators for that, it was just a consideration of mine.
Device drivers are still a bit lacking for HE. Although there is a lot of functionality out of the box, for a power user like me it still has a lot to be desired. So far HE for me is like Vera used to be back in year 2014 or 2015, in terms of overall development and just getting things to work in the way that I want. Some of my devices had to be replaced because they aren’t supported. They wouldn’t even show up in pairing. In Vera I changed some of my device wake up times to increase battery life as half of my devices use batteries. I can’t even do that with HE, although on supported devices I can see the settings still held. I just can’t change them. So unless I re-pair it to the Vera I wouldn’t be able to change it.
HE doesn’t do cameras, at all. Vera wasn’t the best thing out there for camera, but at least I could see them and pan them around. I can’t even include them in HE. What?? Yeah. So I’ll have to use a separate app completely for the cameras. It also means I can’t use the cameras motion sensors. Oh well.
Vera has a nicer interface. Although HE gets the job done, its rather plain and mostly text based. I’m guessing its less overhead for the box, but it hasn’t translated to any perceived benefit. The graphical interface of Vera seemed more pleasing to use.
Speedwise they’re about the same, both in interacting with the interface, and device response speed. Actually right now my HE is quite a bit slower than Vera. Now, I know lots of people have lag in their Vera, but I had mine worked out pretty well, so even with all of my devices everything worked quickly. My motion sensors were almost immediate. HE’s cloud setup for phone use is even slower than Vera’s phone apps. HomeWave was faster. Maybe my mesh needs time to work itself out more, but I can’t tell because all of those ‘advanced’ options of controlling the z-wave mesh aren’t there. I can’t even see when things are polling, or when retries happen. Well I can, but I have to go to the logs. Vera had other places to see when things were working or not working. For trouble shooting Vera was easier.
PLEG has been great for me on my V3 and all the logic items I’ve had to use. Unfortunately it was not part of Vera out of the box, and should have been. But again, for the average person it was probably too technical, at least in layout. Fortunately that made PLEG super customizable. Since HE uses drop down boxes for rules, you’re limited to what rules they put in those drop downs and how you build the logic. They’re pretty complete, but I’ve had to get around some things by changing my logic. It seems like I have to get a bit more creative with HE to do the some of the more complex stuff.
HE has no app, yet. You basically create a mini web interface with buttons and it loads in your web browser, no matter what device you’re on. I guess that makes it universal, but it also seems slower. Just imagine controlling anything in real time in the real world from your browser. It works, but it’s about what you imagine. If you have multiple pages like I do, it take time to load the new page. Just like a website. Supposedly they’ll have an app next month. We’ll see how it works out. Third party apps are rather lacking at the moment. One that seems to do what I want including cameras requires a subscription. I’ll wait.
There’s more, but I won’t bore you. If you got this far, well congratulations! You win, nothing. But I think you get the idea. So am I happy I switched? Ehhh well I’m not unhappy. But I don’t regret it either. I needed to upgrade. I wanted to add more devices. I used all the features with Vera I could, and HE is about the same. It doesn’t do any more, but maybe for some HE is easier. Its also less flexible and detailed for a user like me. For $99 it was about right. From where I sit now, I can see myself coming back to Vera in a year or two if they get their act together, even at their higher price tag. Support for HE is like Vera used to be way back. Vera really needs to put more resources into support of something like home automation. It’s not easy, even on HE. But at the moment HE has better support, so maybe its okay.
