How to Balance Devices over Several Hubs for best performance

Why Hubitat Elevation
1

Hello All,

I am in need of some advice. As with so many other people I am in the process of moving from SmartThings.

Over the last couple of years, I have rebuilt my HA several times and come to appreciate that Aeotec Z Wave HEM devices slow Z Wave to a crawl. I keep 5 of these devices on a single HUB with all my other Z wave devices on a second Hub.

My Full device list looks something like this:

• 5 * Aeotec HEM, 1 three-phase, 4 single-phase (Z Wave)

• 30 * Dual Relays (Z Wave)

• 10 * Single Relay with power meters (Z Wave)

• 5 * PIR (Z Wave)

• 7 * Dual Relay Wallplate Switches (Z Wave)

• 5 * Temperature Sensors (Z Wave)

• 3 * Smoke Detectors (Z Wave)

• 5 * Valves (Z Wave)

• 1 * Z Wave Repeater

• 5 * Various Sensors ( Zigbee)

• 5 * Daikin Aircons (Wifi)

• 20 * IP addressable switch nodes.

All the devices are older without z wave security.

As far as Apps go. Everything runs via Webcore and Action tiles with data being squirted into InfluxDB. I may need to add node-red and am I am guessing I will need to install Hub Link as well. But certainly, none of the other built-in apps.

So, my questions are.

1/ How many Hubitat hubs do you think I should split my devices across!
2/ Should I keep the Aeotec HEM on a single HUB!
3/ Should I load the Main Hub more lightly with Devices to leave processing power for the apps!
4/ Does the Hub Link App take a lot of processing power and make the above questions irrelevant!
5/ Is there any way to see the loading on a given hub to help with the above decisions!

Any thoughts welcome, please!

PS. just waiting for Action tiles and full back up (inc Z Wave) so when I move across, I can save the setup as I go and avoid having to rebuild things which is one of my biggest headaches as devices are scattered everywhere with many hard to get at.

Happy New year and Thanks, Everyone.

2

You could most likely setup with a single hub, but a 2-hub setup would probably be even better. Everyone seems to have their own opinion on how best to divvy things up. Some prefer a hub per floor, others prefer to have all devices on a hub, automation on an other, etc.

My personal preference is to have almost everything on the same hub. What I pushed on my 2nd hub are things that take up a lot of bandwidth or that do not play well with others. In the scenario that you describe, this would include the Aeotec HPM.

HubConnect and Hub Mesh don’t seem to have any impact on the hub’s performance, so that is not a concern.

There is no way that I am aware to see the loading on a hub. There are apps that will keep stats on device reaction time. I find that when I can move quickly from one screen to another, the hub works good.

Hope this helps!

3

I would start with one and see how it goes. Multiple hubs is very likely unnecessary, counter to the general philosophy of mesh networks, and will probably introduce complications for no benefit.