I recently bought a new iPhone and used the iCloud backup of my old phone to transfer everything to the new phone.
The Hubitat app transferred and works fine except that in the app settings for the new phone it shows the same Device Name as the old phone.
How do I register my new phone (with a new device name) to the app on the new phone? How do I add my new phone as a device to the Hub's list of devices? I assume I need to do this in order to configure notifications to the new phone.
I finally figured out that I need to go to the add virtual device dialog to add a mobile device. After doing that and deleting/reinstalling the app on the new phone, I'm good to go.
Here is the link to the Hubitat Mobile App documentation that describes the process.
Replacing a phone is really as simple as installing the Hubitat Mobile App on the new phone, logging into your Hubitat account, selecting your hub, and then selecting the existing Mobile Device on the Hub to associate it with the new phone. This allows the new phone to work and receive notifications without having to touch any of your Hubitat Hub's apps.
Yep, that's another way to save some time. But re-using the old phone's Mobile App Device on the Hub is by far the easiest. One can even change the Label of the Hub's Mobile App Device to be whatever is desired, should the name have the old phone's model number in it, for example.
My problem was, like most people (I assume), I used the cloud backup of my old phone to transfer everything to the new phone. This resulted in a fully configured clone of the app on the new phone which worked fine except that it wasn't receiving notifications.
I also did not realize that mobile devices are listed as virtual devices, so when I went to the add device dialog, I couldn't find any category for mobile devices.
I believe you could have simply logged out of the mobile app, then logged back in and selected the Hub's existing mobile app device. At least, I think that is what I did a while back when I replaced my phone...
really all you had to do is log out of the app on your new phone then log back in. it would have prompted you to create a new device. Then use device swap
Could it be that you had not logged in on the new phone yet, as the reason why you were not receiving notifications? My guess would be this may not have happened automatically after restoring your phone backup.
While troubleshooting this issue, I completely deleted the app and it's data from the new iPhone at least twice. After re-installing the app, each time I was prompted to login. The result was always the same: a fully functional app on the new phone that allowed me to view and operate dashboards. Everything worked, except that the new phone's app did not receive notifications.
Remember, this was before I figured out how to add a second mobile device to the device list. The name of the phone shown in app settings (on the new phone) was identical to the name of the old phone.
At this point I appeared to have two identically configured apps on each phone, both apps working, both showing the name of the only configured mobile device in the device list. Both apps worked in every way I could see, except the new phone's app did not receive notifications.
Once I added the second phone to the device list and re-installed the app, the new app showed the correct phone name and notifications started working. It may be that after adding the second device to the device list, I only needed to log out and back in, but I did not try that. Instead, I re-installed the app.
I could have saved a bit of grief if I'd only known that I needed to add the new phone as a virtual device.
The app or cloud system remembers what virtual device is tied to a specific real mobile device, to assist if you switch between multiple hubs so you do not have to select the correct device every time. That is why it kept attaching you to the old "device".
For any future users who stumble into this. I think the most simple fix would be to just edit the virtual device on your hub, and then you can rename it to anything you want. I think that is the name of the old phone that OP was seeing.
If you want to force the app on your new mobile device to create a new virtual mobile on your hub then you can do the following:
Log out of, or delete the mobile app
Edit the existing virtual device on the hub, edit the Device Network ID (DNI) and change it to anything else. I like to just add _OLD to the end.
That will de-link that from your physical mobile device.
Log back into the app and it should prompt you to select a device, DO NOT select it. Use the button to create a new device.
Once new device is created use the Settings > Swap Device on the hub to swap connected apps from the old virtual mobile device to the new one.
I could not for the life of me get the app to ask me which decice it wanted to register as on the hub. I was migrating from a 15 Pro Max to a 17 Pro Max.
I deleted the app (and data)
Reinstalled the app
Logged in
Automagically got the old device entry when I selected the hub.
This happened for both phones and they both kept arguing over the old virtual device entry. This is even after I created a new virtual mobile device entry. Renaming the old phone (in Apple's General settings) also made no difference.
The solution that worked for me was to delete the app (and data) on both phones AND delete the old, original virtual mobile device in Hubitat. Only after that I was then offered the option to pick which virtual device I wanted to be on each of the phones as I logged in from a fresh install of the mobile app.
