First of all, flipping breakers is not going to do anything at all, doing that is completely useless and a waste of time. Not sure what you were hoping to accomplish by doing that. Honestly, if that's what you are doing then it doesn't matter which system you try out, you will just be frustrated with all of them.
When doing exclusion, if you never saw any type of message that a device was actually excluded then it didn't work. Not sure how Iris or even hubitat handles exclusion, but with my experience with smartthings, you have to exclude one device at a time. Once you get the excluded successful message I had to exit out of exclusion (on smartthings), and then re-enter it to exclude the next device.
Also, for whatever reason Hubitat will only be able to discover ONE z-wave device at a time. No matter what you do, it will not find another. You have to exit out of device search and then start a new search to find a second device.
Just make note, if you never excluded the device in the first place, no amount of messing with it will get it to be found on a new hub. You HAVE to exclude it first. If you just want to pay for new switches so you don't have to exclude any of them then that works too.But exclusion is just the same process as including anyway.
I've heard reports of brand new devices needing to be excluded as well, so buying new may or may not solve the problem, regardless of which hub he goes with.
I'll be happy to trade my < 1 year old SmartThings hub for your new Hubitat hub. I'll even throw in my old Lutron Caseta hub, which I had to replace with two Caseta Pro hubs when I passed the 50 device limit.
BTW - Another +1 for the Caseta stuff. They cost $50 or so for each dimmer (in-wall or external), and they all come with a Pico remote. These are incredibly versatile and work even when your internet connection (or SmartThings service) is down, which was often enough to be annoying when I was using SmartThings.
I have honestly never had to exclude a brand new device before including it. But you are correct, most manufacturers actually say if it fails to include then you need to try an exclude first.
With GE switches I've had to do that on more than once occasion. My theory is that during QA testing they pair it to a factory test set and for whatever the exclusion process didn't complete at the end.
I also use Aeon minimotes to exclude devices that have this issue, which is a very handy device to have.
If all you need is light switch control, I would recommend getting a Lutron Caseta PRO hub and caseta switches (needs to be the Pro version). The integration with HE is fantastic and the devices themselves are the most well built and reliable that I've used. It will also work with smartthings (but will be cloud based of course) but on HE you get the benefits of local control and the ability to use the pico remote to do almost anything your imagination can think of.
Also, Lutron switches won't require exclusion and inclusion if you change ecosystems. You only need to connect the Lutron hub and done.
If you are having trouble with excluding them, for many device,s its easier just to factory reset. It's no longer important to exclude from your Iris hub.
What devices are you trying to work with ? We may be able to help with the factory reset
This is bad information. Most devices do not have a factory reset that is separate from an exclude. In all the z-wave switches I have, the exclude IS the factory reset. If you don't exclude them, they are not reset.
Actually I am afraid I have to differ. Most z-wave mains powered devices do have a factory reset procedure for exactly this reason. Problems can occur when a ghost device is left on an old hub - with that hub. Resetting the device and including in a new mesh is entirely approriate if there are problems in exclusion.
Mike Maxwell has recommended this on several occasions and I certainly found this useful when transferring from older hubs. On what basis do you state "this is bad information"?
I am using a Fibaro universal sensor with some ds18b20 sensors. You can connect up to 4 such sensors to one device, There is a new version called the implant which looks interesting.
