Hubitat Elevation is a smart home Z-Wave & Zigbee hub that focuses on local automation. This means that your data is not shared, and your automation will still function without being connected to the internet. Most Hubitat end up transferring their devices over from another hub such as Wink or SmartThings and tend to be a little more advanced.

It is not as easy to set up as Samsung SmartThings but it provides a deeper level of control and functionality. One of my favorite things about Hubitat Elevation is the Lutron Caseta integration, when paired with a Lutron Smart Bridge Pro the system opens up two-way communication through the telnet protocol.

This allows users to use Lutron Pico remotes as button controllers for any device connected to the hub including smart bulbs and the ability for those devices to control the Lutron switches, shades, etc. Other hubs that integrate with Lutron use cloud-based services, so they are not able to receive commands from the Lutron Pico remote and have problems when the home’s internet connection is down.

The list of other device integrations is quite lengthy and updated frequently with new drivers that often give great control than with native apps. Hubitat has created a video series that helps walk through the setup, the discovery of devices, apps, and automation with rule machines.

The learning curve is a little steeper, but the online community is very helpful should you run into problems or are looking for new ideas. I would recommend this product for anyone who has a variety of Z-Wave/Zigbee devices, some experience with home automation, and the desire to control your devices locally without relying on cloud-to-cloud services.