Hubitat Elevation is a popular smart home automation hub known for its local processing power, privacy-focused approach, and high level of customization. It provides a way to integrate and control various smart devices within your home automation setup. Today we’re going to be talking about some of the features of the device and why you should consider purchasing one.
What is the Hubitat Elevation:
The Hubitat Elevation C8 shown here is a smart home automation hub designed to centralize and control various smart devices within your home. It serves as a central brain for your smart home ecosystem, allowing you to integrate, automate, and customize the operation of your connected devices. With this one device you’ll be able to connect your smart home devices together and be able to control them with your mobile device, a PC, and if you have a device such as a Google Home Hub or Alexa hub, even via voice commands.
Why we like the Hubitat Elevation?
Local Processing: Hubitat Elevation emphasizes local processing, meaning that most of the automation tasks and device control occur within your home network. This local processing enables faster response times and reduces reliance on cloud services. It also enhances privacy by keeping your data within your premises. Also, because this device doesn’t require to be connected to the Internet or send information to remote servers, it means that if you lose Internet services, you won’t be lose the ability to control your devices.
Device Compatibility: Hubitat Elevation supports a wide range of popular wireless protocols, including Zigbee, Z-Wave, Lutron, and more. We very much like the fact that this device has the big three – Zigbee, Z-Wave, and Wi-Fi built in. This broad compatibility enables seamless integration with a vast array of smart devices from different manufacturers. It allows you to bring together devices like lights, switches, thermostats, sensors, and more under one unified system.
Rule Engine and Automation: Hubitat Elevation features a powerful built-in rule engine that empowers you to create some pretty impressive automation routines fairly easy. It enables you create actions to automate specific behaviors and responses based on your preferences. For example, you can automate your front porch lights to turn on at a certain time, or control your sprinkler system, or set your thermostat to a certain temperature when you wake up in the morning or even something as simple as brew a pot of coffee for you in the morning.
Dashboards and Mobile App: Hubitat Elevation provides the ability to create customizable dashboards. These dashboards serve as control interfaces, allowing you to monitor and control your devices from a central location. The Hubitat mobile app further enhances accessibility by providing remote control and monitoring capabilities from your smartphone or tablet.
Third-Party Integrations: Hubitat Elevation supports integrations with popular voice assistants like Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. This allows you to control your smart devices using voice commands and incorporate them into your voice-controlled routines.
Community and Developer Support: Hubitat has an active user community and a dedicated support forum. The community provides a wealth of resources, ideas, and assistance for users, including community-developed apps and drivers that expand the platform’s functionality.
Setting up the Device
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Initial Setup: Setting up Hubitat Elevation involves connecting the hub to your home network, pairing devices, and configuring automation rules. While the process is generally straightforward, it may require some technical knowledge and understanding of wireless protocols.
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User Interface: Hubitat Elevation provides a web-based interface for configuration and management. The interface is functional but may not have the same level of visual polish or simplicity as some other smart home platforms. However, the interface has been improved over time based on user feedback.
We found that in our own testing, the Hubitat Hub was fairly easy to set up on our network and device integration was mostly straightforward. It may require some technical knowledge of your home devices and what protocols they use (for example, we have doors that use Z-Wave so knowledge of how to place the doors in pairing mode may be required) but overall, we were impressed with the fact that the general majority of the devices that we tested were compatible with the device. The downside is that sometimes in our testing we found that sometimes devices were not always responsive, meaning that we might have to reissue commands once or twice in order for the device to work.
Does it require a lot of expertise in order to get this device setup?
In general, no. This was one of the easier devices that we came across in our testing. In general, setting this device up requires:
- a little bit of knowledge about your home network (i.e. what your home network is, how to connect a device to it, how to connect to that device, and what devices are on your home network)
- A little bit of knowledge on how to place your devices in pairing mode or connect to your device. For example, do you have a Zigbee, Z-Wave or Wi-Fi device. If your device is on Wi-Fi or your home network, what is it’s network address? The instruction manual for your device should contain information about how to place the device in pairing mode or how to get it connected to a smart hub. We believe that even someone new to home automation with perhaps a little guidance should be able to connect and use the device fairly easy, and once the devices are set up, it’s usually a set and forget type thing.
Are they expensive and where do I get one?
The Hubitat Elevation usually retails for around $189.00 but you can usually find it for less elsewhere. Usually somewhere in the market of $140-$160 plus shipping is around the price you’ll pay for this product. *Note: The C-7 of this product without built-in Wi-Fi is also a great buy and can also connect to your devices as long as both devices can see each other on your network. We have shared our affiliate link for this product, so we may earn a small commission when you make a purchase through link below at no additional cost to you. We think for less than $200 this device makes a great buy and is a great way to get started with your home network setup.
How do I know if my device is compatible with Hubitat?
Hubitat publishes a list of compatible devices. You can view that list here.
Do you offer support with the Hubitat hub?
Yes, Dassl provides several support options, including purchasing, installation, setup of the hub and connecting third party devices, and troubleshooting. You can reach us via email at smart@dassl.co, by phone at (818) 646-6490, or you can contact us via our contact page to schedule an appointment.
