First, Kudos on the release of the new C-5 Hub! its really nice to see how this platform is maturing / progressing. I have some questions related to the new hub and its radios, I don't use ZigBee at all and have it disabled so I mostly care about Z-Wave, that said the questions probably apply to both:
My understanding is that one of the big pros of Hubitat is the backup / restore capability where it is really easy to recover from a dead/faulty hub by just plugging your USB stick on a new / replacement hub and restoring a backup. This seems like a great strategy and something I've see exercised in many cases in the forums where people needs a hub replacement. With this new hub, having internal radios, what is going to be the official Hub replacement procedure? will this have a negative impact on your support infrastructure and recovery time and effort needed for the user?
Similar to above, if I wanted to buy the new hub to replace my current one AND use the internal radio instead of moving the USB one as suggested, what would be the way to do this? would I have to exclude / include every single device?
The release notes is clear in that the hardware specs are exactly the same (cpu, mem, storage) and the same code runs on both hubs but, in relation to the radios and specially Z-Wave, is it the same chip / framework version? have you guys done any testing related to reliability and range? is is about the same or one is better than the other in any aspect? I would guess that having internal radios probably has an impact in range and positioning of the hub...
Is it still possible to disable either radio independently?
Great, I just bought mine a month ago. Had I known, I probably would have waited. I jumped because ST pi$$ed me off for the last time. So it was kind of out of anger. Any kind of tradeup program?
No real reason to trade-up, since the CPU/mem is the same... Unless there is some magically better zwave/zigbee stack in the new hub. But no one knows that, and it certainly hasn't been advertised by Hubitat.
Also keep in mind that the C-4 hub is still the one being sold outside of the US - so it isn't obsolete by any means.
So be happy with your purchase. The new hub doesn't do anything yours doesn't already do
The statement was a little tongue in cheek. I can't be bothered with emojis. I was wondering if the signal strength would be better though. There was a lot of chatter about that. Should/would reduce the need to have so many additional repeaters, possibly. It bugs me to have empty plugs just as repeaters. And it kills me that my wife questions them regularly. Some are clearly visible with nothing plugged in. She's even pulled some out squawking "There useless and ugly". I then explain, again. I am not getting an Xbee.
I fear that too.. I have a tiny Zigbee mesh, 9 devices, 2 of them christmas light wall wart switches and therefore not plugged in for the next 10 months. BUT the one motion sensor I have two rooms over from the Hub isn't functional without a repeater. I have a peanut plug for that and it's just an eyesore to my wife. She''ll get mad one day and unplug it and toss it in some random drawer. I'll take an hour to look in every drawer to find it
The FCC images show that the ZWave and Zigbee are on different modules and that the Antenna is different. The existing Nortek has a 'shared' antenna on the PCB.
Without a ruler or seeing the copper traces in each antenna, they look like they could be j-poles, with the Zigbee antenna being a half wave and the Z-Wave a quarter wave. I don't know what exactly Nortek is using, however if the Nortek stick is using a single shared wideband antenna then yes, there's going to be a significant improvement in usable range due to the inherent increase in antenna gain.
That's my other personal issue I forgot to mention. My hub is visible on the top of my roll top desk and I absolutely hate that usb stick, sticking out (that's for you @JasonJoelOld) with another blue led on it. And I love blue leds.
If there would have been a way to migrate my existing zwave and zigbee devices without re-pairing, I would have ordered one... But there isn't, so I won't.
On the new hub? You just insert the usb stick and it uses it rather than the internal one.. rather the same as exists on the C-4 where an Aeon Z-Stick supersedes the Nortek ZWave. No 're-pair' needed if I read that right.
Me too, that is one of the main reasons I'm asking all this, I am thinking on buying the second hub too but if the new radios are better then I would not want to connect the old USB one and would prefer to move yet I believe there is no easy way to migrate other than the manual repairing... kinda hoping HE would answer with something like "... we are working on a way to do this migration and will be released in some future ...", not sure if even technically possible for them to do something like that but hey, doesn't hurt to ask...
(that's for you 
