I run Airbnbs, I need Remote control and compatibility over all else. What would you guys recommend that has similar Hub and Wifi capability?
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SmartThings is leaving Canada and apparently Aeotec is taking over hardware manufacturing.
I wouldn’t use any of those. If you are managing a commercial enterprise, then I think you should be using a commercial solution. Don’t know about coverage in Canada, but in the US there are a number of such solutions. As you might expect, they’re much more reliable that a home automation enthusiast solution. They also don’t rely upon a native WiFi connection if other data services are available.
Of the options you list, I would recommend Hubitat. If you get it set the way you want you can basically leave it. It also uses a wired network connection so it can be more reliable than wifi.
That being said, I only have practical experience with Hubitat & Securifi.
Many of the places we lease instead of own, so commerical heavy duty solutions don’t make financial sense.
Can Hubitat also work well as its own wifi hub? I typically have one network for the guests and another for the Smarthome
Also how does Hubitat do remote control? Does it have a good app or web controller?
Smartthings isnt pulling out of anywhere. They are concentrating on software and having companies manufacture the hub and sensors. They are getting out of hardware, not the smarthome.
Hubitat has a good webpage that runs on the hub. Everything can be controlled through there, it does not rely on any cloud access for Rules or such. They do have a mobile app now but I would say it is still a work in progress, mainly used for the Dashboards. There are also community developed apps and such.
Hubitat does NOT have it’s own wifi. There are plenty of wifi devices it can control just fine, but if you can only connect it to the Network via WiFi it will need an adapter. The newer models (C5 or latest C7) have ZigBee and Z-Wave built in.
There is a lot of possibilities but it can be a bit intimidating at first. Their community has a lot of dedicated people that can respond to almost any question and have provided an awful lot of additional capabilities. Because one major thing is that it can have custom apps and drivers added. So in many cases if you have a device (networked by wired or wifi, ZigBee, Z-Wave, or even something in the cloud) there is likely built in support OR a community-written driver/app to do it.
Thanks James, title updated for accuracy
@Melerann, I would suggest you to stay out of Vera. I was a long time user of Vera for many years. I have used 2 generations of their hubs from Veralite to Vera Plus. Getting new Z-Wave devices setup are very painful, you have to repeat the inclusion process so many times to a device connected. Where Hubitat setup at the first shot for most of my devices (except Alfred). I also found delay with Vera turning on/off devices too. Hubitat works almost instantly for me. Some people said Hubitat require more technical knowledge, that may be true. But at least, everything works at the first time and so far they are very reliable. I regret that I did not switch sooner. Wasted so much of time to deal with Vera issue. Specially keep hearing Alexa saying to me “your Vera Hub is not responding, please check your network connection”. No longer hearing that after I switch to Hubitat.
I would second this advice. Vera was my first Z-Wave hub. The software was by far the most flexible of anything anybody had ever seen.
Then they tried to make it simple and just broke it. Pairing any device Vera doesn’t have an out of box driver for is PAINFUL, especially if you want the extra features to work. And there’s a lot of really boneheaded stuff- for example security. Used to be you could set a password. Now there are only two options- 1. no security (anyone who loads the web page gets full admin access) and 2. cloud access only (can’t connect locally, have to connect in through vera’s web page).
I’d suggest consider HomeSeer. If you pay them a small fee their cloud thing lets you instantly connect to multiple locations from one account. And unlike all others, it does not need any drivers or device handlers for Z-Wave devices. Plugins (some free some paid) will interface with almost everything else.