Just got off a support call with my friend in Michigan that had to factory reset a switch that went crazy on New Years day. We had to force remove the device and factory reset it. The horror was the contactor that installed the switches pealed off the barcodes from the switches when he installed the faceplates and the boxes were throw away. The good news was I still had pictures of the barcodes when I registered with their Hubitat on OneDrive. Camera Roll saves the day but I had to go though like 40 pictures of his barcodes to find the right one and use it to re-join with the Hubitat.
So my question is what are folks doing to save their Device Specific Key's? I am thinking that both a image of the barcode and a human readable version needs to be saved for disaster recovery purposes and don't want to go through this scramble again. Also using a sharpie and writing the PIN on the back side of the switch just in case the barcode label is not readable on the switches.
Maybe I am a little anal but when I did my migration from the C5 to the C7 I dumped my devices to a spreadsheet. As I joined zwave devices without security I did cut and paste the security IDs into the spreadsheet. Even now I am keeping the spreadsheet updated as I add new devices.
I do the same, I have a spreadsheet of all their network devices and their mac address and also a spreadsheet of devices connected to the Hubitat for that client. I am just going to add a column to the sheet and as needed add the key to the sheet. The problem with turnover documentation there is never enough and the homeowner never keeps it up to date when they make changes.
I did similar, but made a Contacts entry in my address book for each device with the full DSK, Serial number, model, firmware level, link to online documentation, link to online support, date of purchase, where purchased, and order #, and, for those devices that require a cloud account for auth, the username and password (different, of course, for each integration).
For WiFi/LAN devices, I include the LAN IP and MAC.
My wife says I am OCD, but always comes asking when there is some information that she needs but cannot find.
I’ve also mentioned before in the forum that the house has its own email address, and all devices/accounts are registered to the house, not to my or my wife’s email addresses. That way, when I die or the house is sold, the buyer gets a file/printout with all the home automation stuff for the house without getting access to our personal email. Buyer then can change passwords if desired without affecting our personal accounts.
I did see your post before with this idea and I thought it was great. I think you have the idea to someone who was moving. I have not done this but it is on my list of things to do.
I too figured there must be an easy way to view the key but apparently its not that simple for security reasons :). I assumed if you were logged in as admin you could see your own keys but it is reserved for controller operations. This thread (ZWave Network Security Key - Devices & Integrations - SmartThings Community) has some good info in there and mentions a utility called Zensys Tools (Z-Wave command class configuration tool download. : Aeotec Group) that can be used with a zwave usb controller to see the key. I haven't tried this so can't vouch for anything but figured I would share the links. Good luck.
That is a cool idea! Have to think about it a bit. On one hand I would prefer Google and others not having access on the other it would make things easier when moving etc. Thanks for bringing it up again - I missed it the first time.
