Local Hub

I got the long-awaited Local Hub, but it came with no instructions and there is no support for it on YoLink's website or the YouTube site. I got it for Matter support so waiting for that also. I have confidence YoLink or one of it's users will step up to the plate and show us some tips and tricks for using the hub. As an ordinary hub, it's sets up fine and seems to work fine.

After purchasing the regular hub with four water leak sensors, they were working so well for me that I decided to purchase the local hub, since I prefer all my smart home tech to be ran locally. I was not sure whether it was worth it, given the $200 price. But since I’ve had it, I am glad that I purchased it.
For one thing, set up was really easy within the app. Second, it was very easy to migrate all my leak sensors from my old cloud dependent hub to this local one. Finally, after the migration, none of my leak sensors that I had already added to Home Assistant dropped off, so they did not need to be re-added, which is great.
All in all, I am very pleased with the entire ecosystem: the local hub, as well as the leak sensors... given how well they work, I will be looking forward to purchasing other devices from this company.

I use the Local Hub with Home Assistant, and it works great for both local and cloud integration at the same time. Setup was easy, the range is excellent, and local control is fast and reliable. This is a solid step forward for LoRaWAN tech, and YoLink needs to make more local hubs available for everyone. The only downside is the price and availability, it sells out quickly, so hopefully they can keep up with demand.

I've been using yolink devices (through home assistant), for about a year to automate a lot of things around the house and farm. Overall, I've been pleased. My biggest gripe was that even though they claim no internet is required, internet is, in fact, required. A real bummer living out in a rural area where internet stability and latency is less than desirable. I didn't fully comprehend this until I had already invested about $500 (probably more) into these devices. I'd heard rumors of a "local hub" and was excited when I saw it was finally released. I've been using it for about a week, and I'm not as impressed as I hoped I'd be.
If you want to use the "local" features of the local hub through Home Assistant you have to use the Matter - not the standard Yolink integration, as that still uses the internet. It would be nice if the Yolink integration utilized local hub, but it does not.
After getting it setup, I noticed right away that some of the switches are now "lights", no big deal, just a minor change in automations. Some of the switches (relays) that are setup to act as a pulse switch (turn on for a short period then turn off) stay on now when turned on, it doesn't update the status of the switch when it automatically turns off - so the next automation that calls to turn on the switch, does nothing since it thinks it's already turned off. Again, minor automation change can fix this, but just be aware.
Some of the devices, like the vibration sensor, power strip, outdoor power strip (basically any power switch with more than one outlet), and the button pusher just don't show up at all. And the water leak, or rather water level sensors, are exactly backwards. They show water when there is none, and do not show water when there is. Again, not a huge deal, just reverse some logic in the automations, but still... Oh, and I have noticed more than a few times, turning on a light manually, does not always update the status of the light in Home Assistant to "on". I've noticed this with some of the door position sensors as well. Doors will be closed, and it'll still show it open (and vice versa) I'm not 100% confident in this product.
This feels incomplete. Granted, I'm not using the native, Yolink automations, so I can't really speak to that. Maybe that works great, but for someone that's using Home Assistant, hoping to eliminate the need of an internet connection, be ready to be annoyed and disappointed. I will gladly revise my rating when I see this operating reliably, and support of all their products... and maybe an updated yolink home assistant integration that utilizes the local hub and eliminates the need for the internet.

I'll start with the hub is too expensive. I'm not sure why it needs a battery backup, but it has one. This can't help cost.
I'm replacing a basic YoLink hub with this to provide Matter support for better local smart home integration with Home Assistant. This does work.
Whereas my basic hub was rock solid, this one has stopped reporting device state at least once and needed a reboot.
Matter pairing was weird where it presented a QR code on the phone that I need to scan in to my home app, and pairing code couldn't be copy/paste.
After a rocky first week I think it's settled in to a healthy stable state and I have local control working with Home Assistant via Matter.
Hopefully it remains stable going forward, or future updates bring this stability I had with the lesser cheaper hub.
If we can get there it'll move up to five stars.