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Alternatives to Fibaro / HC3? WAF is becoming peanuts compared to the other issues


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This might have been discussed partly several places before but things develop quickly so daring to open this thread.

 

After a decade or 2 with Fibaro HC2 and HC3 I believe I have reached the limit of bugs and issues.

With 2 HC3 and 1 HC2 on 2 sites and roughly 117 devices I'm searching for alternatives especially now when converting the whole house to underfloor waterborne heat and then extending the amount of devices..

 

There is way to many bugs, devices do die and become unavailable, unconfigured devices, devices showing up as somethign else than what they are supposed to, fibaro support is close to none (try to exclude, factory reset or do a restore to old firmware is the standard answer.. this after ticket has been open for weeks and you call them up asking for status)

Have started from scratch several times and just ending up in the same place.

System has been tuned to bring down the amount of communication, routing seems to be okay but still there is lagging, learning mode errors etc.

That devices just stops working is probably the most annoying thing together with the lately lagging of the HC3 interface which made it almost useless.

 

I do prefer not to throw out Zwave but hoping there is another capable controller out there..

 

Anyone switched and want to share some pros/cons of alternatives?

Edited by tortho
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Well, the are plenty of alternatives

from free

home assistent

domoticz

 

to paid

homeseer

hubitat (i would not buy this)

thinka

homey

 

it depends what you want? only zwave or also zigbee?

 

I am using homeseer (it's no 50% discount) and you can try if for free for a month. Not all the plugins are free but they are really good (and also you can try them for free)

 

I would just try, there are lot's of people happy with the hc3 and also with others, but it's about you, so try and see if it meeting your needs.

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I came from homeseer hoping HC3 would be fix the bugs that were driving me nuts. It does....but has new bugs to drive me nuts. I don't think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence.

 

I found the answer for me was to automate only that which should be automated and return the marginal items to manual control. If your device count is unambitious and just doing the important jobs only then you can still make a lifestyle profit out of these system IMO.

 

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@gMike

i run hc3

1 master with 67 devices and a slave with 18

 

My homseer 4 is running 1854 devices/features, no problems

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  • 20 hours ago, gMike said:

    I came from homeseer hoping HC3 would be fix the bugs that were driving me nuts. It does....but has new bugs to drive me nuts. I don't think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence.

     

    I found the answer for me was to automate only that which should be automated and return the marginal items to manual control. If your device count is unambitious and just doing the important jobs only then you can still make a lifestyle profit out of these system IMO.

     

    Thanks,

    Do you have any examples of the worst Homeseer bugs which is fixed on fibaro or the oposite?

     

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  • 23 hours ago, akatar said:

    it depends what you want? only zwave or also zigbee?

     

    I am using homeseer (it's no 50% discount) and you can try if for free for a month. Not all the plugins are free but they are really good (and also you can try them for free)

     

     

    I do not have a lot of extreme automation, long scripts or anything..

    It is pretty basic like motion/lux light, good night seen, arriving home, starting/stopping things at various times during the day and now also heat.

     

    I do have:

    Phillips hue (which is zigbee) but I have the hue hub

    Ikea Trådfri (which is zigbee) but I have the ikea hub and also now controllign via hue hub

    approx 10-12 sonos speakers

    Washing machine and dryer - Samsung smart things- wifi

    Tibber (power company) on web

    about 10 web cameras - foscam

    3 chromecasts

    Husqvarna Automover

    Xiaomi Roborock vacuum cleaner X 3

    Complate Netatmo package including wind, rain, additional modules etc

    about 8 door locks (Danalock V3 with danapads and a couple of IdLock - all zwave

     

    Of the 117 devices about 95 is zwave and approx 85-90 of them is of the fibaro brand.

    This is what annoys me the most, with all this fibaro equipment and impossible to get support (not even paid) makes it not worth it. Happy that you purchase their equipment but then just dont care at all...

    I do not mind paying for configuration and support at all (within normal limits offcourse) so a system where this is possible might be something I would try.

     

    Do you see devices die on the other systems as well and then have to be factory reset, excluded / included and the hubs/controllers to be completely reset, restored to previous backup and so on? If so I might have to consider ditching the whole zwave idea..

     

    I have 3 buildings with a little distance in between, HC3 were able in the begining (test only) to reach almost all the area. HC2 I had to have 2 units to cover, one in the house and one to cover the barn and another storage building.

    So I need to have a master / slave or similar.

     

    This was a lot but main items for considering new system:

     

    - Available support or possible to get paid support

    - Stable in terms of not killing/dropping/not responding devices

    - Possible to cover all my buildings.

    - An app android and iphone

     

    Edited by tortho
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    I went from HC2 to HC3. After a year waiting for promised features I gave up and went to HomeAssistant. Really stable and working great. There are tons of integrations, scripts and configurable options. I first ran it on a RPI but then bought the HomeAssistant Blue. More features for a better price.

    While I kind of like the Fibaro products, I still feel very disappointed that the HC3 was sold in an alpha stage - not ready for use. Now a year and a half (I think) after release promised feature like ZigBee is still not working. Fibaro sells features that you don't get. I feel cheated, and I will remember that if there ever will be a HC4.

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    Thanks,

    Do you have any examples of the worst Homeseer bugs which is fixed on fibaro or the oposite?

     

    Hi Tortho,

     

    Actually this morning I had a break through on my fibaro and fixed the very worst bug that had been driving me banannas...it had wreck my whole automation project TBH

     

    I use GOAP switches with a bell press button, I had (as per the manual) changed param 1 and set it to =0....what i did not know what that for some reason you will need to do this a couple of times before fibaro will properly write the setting. This is a huge relief as half the fans and lights in my house now work as intended.

     

    Other people will have their own hit list but here is mine

    + is a good thing

    - is a bad thing

    --- is a really bad thing (and so on)

     

    Homeseer

    - Interface stuck in the year 2000

    ++++++++++ their "if this then that logic" is superb, smashes fibaro

    -- phone app was horrible (maybe there has been an update?)

    ----------------lag,signals often bounce back. never happens with fibaro

    ------------my house just felt like a science experiment gone wrong, fibaro has more of a "it just works" thing

     

    fibaro (these are for me only)

    -- You can't set RGBW controllers as irrigation controller. Nuts, the RGBW allows input and output so you can regulate soil moisture and control solenoids....the best controller there is, yet is the only one that can't be set as irrigation..GAH!

    +Hey fibaro, design a 24vac version of the RGBW unit and you can rule planet earth, do it now...so easy! all irrigation shall be yours. PM me if you like.

    ---firmware updates to z-wave devices fails nearly everytime, you cant get rid of the update flags of you choose not to update

    -scenes cant be grouped or multifunction, so one scene to turn on a light and another scene to turn it off, hard to organise the list, seems meh.

    --------the child list will vary often when you add devices, delete them and re-add them...erodes confidence

    ++++it has less function than HS, but HC3 just works

    ---scene block builder could use better "if this then that, else this" logic. I know there is LUA, but homeseer made it simple, why cant you?

     

    All said and done I am happier on fibaro compared to homeseer, I have 50000 projects going and dont need rework.

     

    cheers...m

     

     

     

     

     

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  • 1 hour ago, gMike said:

    Homeseer

    -- phone app was horrible (maybe there has been an update?)

    ----------------lag,signals often bounce back. never happens with fibaro

    ------------my house just felt like a science experiment gone wrong, fibaro has more of a "it just works" thing

     

    fibaro (these are for me only)

    -- You can't set RGBW controllers as irrigation controller. Nuts, the RGBW allows input and output so you can regulate soil moisture and control solenoids....the best controller there is, yet is the only one that can't be set as irrigation..GAH!

    ---firmware updates to z-wave devices fails nearly everytime, you cant get rid of the update flags of you choose not to update

    --------the child list will vary often when you add devices, delete them and re-add them...erodes confidence

    ++++it has less function than HS, but HC3 just works

     

     

    All said and done I am happier on fibaro compared to homeseer, I have 50000 projects going and dont need rework.

     

    Well, yours pros are some of my cons...

    The fibaro mobile app is dead slow.. you can see it updates screen for screen the rooms list... and sending actions do lag most of the time. Power consumption for instance is in many cases not updated in the app... still says 0 5 minues after something is turned on.. sometime light bulb still shows off as well even when turned on.

     

    Lagging is a great issue on the HC3, right now I have a case where I have disabled all my light scenes as I might be finished and walked out of a room before the light goes on... I have rebuilt from scratch several times. Turned off whatever I can on the devices, disabled power reports, reducing other communication as well not to overload.. (Slow interface in the last versions as well) Inclusion, exclusion, reconfigure or soft reconfigure fail quite often when the amount of devices increase. I have setup a sniffer and the amount of packages is low....

     

    Child list as you mention is also a great concern.. after lately some power consumption improvements by Fibaro I have way to many devices showing the power consumption... some devices have 3-4 childs...what shows up in the power dashboard... well only fibaro know the logic. The ticket they did not even bother investigating.. they sent one reply with questions which I answered and after that just closed the case.

    Quite a few devices do show up as wrong type / and somethimes without the required childs...

     

    Grass might not be greener on the other side, but I will try to find something where it is possible to get support and devices do not dissapear or stop working..(paid support as well)

    Homeseer installed so will have a look to see what they have to offer.

     

     

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  • 16 hours ago, robw said:

    While I kind of like the Fibaro products, I still feel very disappointed that the HC3 was sold in an alpha stage - not ready for use. Now a year and a half (I think) after release promised feature like ZigBee is still not working. Fibaro sells features that you don't get. I feel cheated, and I will remember that if there ever will be a HC4.

     

     

    Correct...After 3 controllers from Fibaro I'm not wasting my money anymore unless the equipment is proven to work when hitting the shelves.

    It is not acceptable to ignore their customers they way they are doing after filling our houses up to the chimney with their products.

    I do not require special treatment or support but I do require to get support when needed.

    I have opened the HC3 for them to log on but they do not bother.

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