Finally time to move from Wink2 Hub... C8 Acquired

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#1

OK, a little less than a year ago Wink was going through their typical shenanagans and I bought a C7. But then everything settled down and as I read on this site just a few minutes ago "don't touch a working system." So my C7 has just sat in the box waiting for the Wink2 to fail again.

Then Hubitat got me excited enough to buy the C8 and it arrived yesterday. So I'm considering going ahead and getting rid of the known-unreliable Wink and moving to the C8.

My plan is to install the C8 without taking down the Wink2, and then move devices, one at a time, from one to the other.

I'm a software guy, not a hardware guy, so I have some relatively stupid questions.

  1. Does that plan sound relatively OK? Is there any problem with having the two hubs operational at the same time?

  2. Due to the way I want to run my ethernet, they'd be within a foot of each other during the transition. Any problem with that?

  3. Since I need to buy a new 12' ethernet cable for this, what type of cable do I need? I'm entirely confused by all the cable "Cat X's" and have a box full of unmarked cables from different devices. My network is good, Speedtest tells me that this computer is running 937mbps down and 37.7 up. What designation cable should I be looking for?

  4. My devices are mostly exterior lighting via Wink bulbs (all currently working fine and responsive) which I understand to be Zigbee? Any issues I should be aware of/concerned about there?

Thanks!
-Ric

#2

FWIW, and I say this to pretty much anyone "moving from X to Hubitat"... is to keep your old X controller spatially separated from the C-8, so their radios don't go nuts. Amazing how many newcomers' (welcome, btw!!!) initial mortification turns to glee once they unplug the old hub, LOL.

#3

Nope. Hubitat relies on building a stable mesh. I would start by reading these two documents from the Hubitat documentation:

https://docs2.hubitat.com/how-to/build-a-solid-zigbee-mesh

Are they GE Link bulbs? Keep them on a separate hub from your main zigbee hub. For example, if you still have your C-7, put them all on the C-7, and put your other zigbee devices on your new C-8. The reason is that these bulbs do not have sufficient RAM to function well as repeaters for other zigbee end-devices. So it is best to leave them on their own mesh.

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#4

Welcome to the community fellow Wink escapee!

Ouch.... not gonna be smooth.
Just bite the bullet and get some Hue or Innr bulbs.

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#5
  1. Yes - no issues having the 2 hubs active at the same time. Do you have lots of devices to port over? That might be the main issue as you will be damaging one Z-Wave (or Zigbee) mesh while creating the other…
  2. Not an issue
  3. The cable type doesn’t really matter for that short a span…. Higher number is better though…
  4. Don’t know Wink bulbs, but I agree with @Ranchitat… getting new bulbs might be a good idea…. You could also consider Sengled.

I moved from Wink several years back and am so happy I did! :smiley: They were good at home control, but I am much happier with Hubitat. I bit the bullet and transferred everything at once.

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#6

In this application, at least for the bulbs outside, it's probably better to go with a ZigBee 3.0 bulb with repeating capability to enhance/extend the mesh.
Indoors, which usually has a better mesh, Sengled non-repeating bulbs are a solid option.

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#7

Having a devil of a time finding ZigBee 3.0 bulbs. Google search returns sketchy looking stuff and Amazon is only giving me one from a brand I've not heard of?

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#8

Newer Hue bulbs (the ones with Bluetooth) and the Innr brand are 3.0.
Both have been used with good results by community members.
I know the Innr bulbs are hard to find in Canada, they were pretty easy to get south of the border at one time. :man_shrugging:

You might want to change it up and go with a smart switch instead. :wink:

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#9

@user1679 Please read this post. It should help you avoid a lot of the gotchas.

#10

OK, so revised plan: Dumping everything that was hooked up to my Wink2 hub, and of course the Wink2 hub. Buying 4 sets (2 each) of innr Color Smart Bulb A19, and one pair of innr Zigbee Smart Bulb Smart Flood Light White. All these will be connected to and controlled by the Hubitat C8. (I want to go with the color-capable bulbs outside to help with holiday and party lighting, I know there are cheaper white-only bulbs.)

The only thing I haven't mentioned are the three remaining smart plugs, two inside my home that control a group of lights in my living room, and one in the back yard that controlls a string of lights in my gazebo. All the smart plugs are controlled via my Alexa devices, including some "On at Sunset, off at 11:00pm" programming done with the Alexa app.

Specifics on the smart plugs: Kasa Smart Plug Mini with Energy Monitoring (KP115), Amazon Smart Plug, and HBN Heavy Duty Outdoor Smart WiFi two grounded plugs. All three of those are (to the best of my knowledge) working off the 2.4ghz network.

The eight new innr bulbs will be going on the front exterior of my home, and the innr floods in the back patio (basically the layout I have now). The only legacy I'll be leaving are the smart plugs. Aside from having to power-cycle the gazebo switch occasionally I've not noticed any problems with these plugs function. All of the switches are controlled by my Amazon Echo devices.

Does this configuration suggest any red flags?

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#11

Sounds good.

Since Hubitat has the ability to work locally with Kasa you might want to switch the other two plugs and get everything local right at the start.
I've had good luck with the KP400 series and they also have a dimmer version if you want to run some lights from it.

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#12

I'm going to echo what @Ranchitat said. Switch both the other plugs to Kasa as well - I have 8 of these paired to Hubitat, and they work very well - especially for data intensive processes like energy monitoring.

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#13

Finally time to move from Wink2 Hub

I, for one, applaud your persistence.

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#14

That had to be a tough journey. I bailed on Wink and switched to Hubitat four years ago.

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#15

Just want to confirm that I can still use the Alexa voice control to manage named devices connected to the Hubitat C8? If I go through all this tme and expense and end up with my wife not being able to control the living room and gazebo lights with her voice I'm going to be in an unlit dog house.

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#16

Yes

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#17

I don't know...I think you're jumping the gun. Seems pretty obvious Wink is just about to stage an AMAZING come-back that you'll miss out on.

:wink:

I think most important for me when moving from ST was that I made the move in one day on a weekend...allowed me to move devices over very deliberately to build my Zigbee and Z-Wave meshes out from the HE hub, and meant I went from a strong mesh on ST to a strong mesh on HE. Just had to warn family that things would be out of whack for that one day or so.

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#18

You can when you have internet connecting you to Alexa.
And if you're set up with all local control, using dashboards or sensors when there's no internet.
Or even better, motion sensor on the gazebo = no voice control needed.

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#19

I did not know that, sounds like a good idea. I did order the Kasa Outdoor Smart Plug, Smart Home Wi-Fi Outlet with 2 Sockets, because I need the second socket as a utility power drop - it just doesn't get any programming and I turn it on manually.

Thanks

#20

Yeah, the problem is that once it was set up, and setup wasn't hard, the Wink stuff worked great for me for years. Even when things went down on their server, I was only screwed when I lost power here at home. But when it went down, it was down down down, and I really hate being dependent on the cloud for anything.

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