I’ve been An HE user for years but have never had the need for more than one hub. I’m visiting my brother in Canada and brought a c7 , 2 jasco 40 Amy relays, 4 dimmers and 2 switches to start his home automation. We put the hub in the pool house as the main reason for the automation was for pool pump and pool light control. Also put a switch out there. All good.
I was pleasantly surprised that the 1 switch and 2 dimmers we put in the house ( at least 50 feet away ) paired so easily. I did have some issues with a dimmer in the far part of his house which is about 100 feet from the hub. It connected but I’m certain I’m on the limits of distance. So. Tomorrow I have a 2nd c7 arriving as well as 6 more switches that when installed should make the mesh considerably stronger. But as it’s a long distance from the pool house, we will be installing the 2nd c7 in the house.
So….as I’ve never set up a second hub I’d greatly appreciate any advice on how to set up and configure. Should I remove that dimmer that was struggling and repair it to the new hub that will be closest?
Also. Do I need to log on each hub and manage each discretely or do all of the paired devices show under my main menu for the pool.
Thanks. Mac
I'd probably pair the device in the hub it's closest to, but if it works fine on how it is now, there is no reason to change.
Regarding Hub Mesh itself, no, only devices you specifically shared are made available. You then also have to add then to the other hub. So, nothing Will appear on the other hub automatically. You Also need to use the hub the device is paired to to manage the device, including changing preferences and network operations like including and excluding.
Ultimately, Hub Mesh is just a way to share device events and commands over your LAN. If you don't need pool devices on the house and vice versa, you could even keep them opereting as two independent hubs without this feature at all!
Thanks. I searched for hub mesh and found posts about hub connect as well. It’s going to be a fairly simple set up. Maybe a dozen switches and a half a dozen door contacts. I don’t think managing as separate is an issue but almost certain he’ll want to see everything on the same dashboard. If that’s possible. I still think it’s a good idea to have both as it is a fairly large distance between the pool house and house. Would connect or mesh allow everything to be on the same dash board?
Thanks again.
Mac
Use Hubitat's built-in 'Hub Mesh' feature to share devices between hubs when both hubs are on the same LAN. 'Hub Mesh' is lightweight, and performs very well. There is no custom code to maintain, as it is truly built into the Hubitat platform.
'Hub Connect' is a community maintained solution, that was very popular prior to Hubitat's addition of 'Hub Mesh', especially when SmartThings still supported Groovy. These days, I believe 'Hub Connect' is often used when trying to share devices between hubs on different networks (e.g. betweenh a main house and a vacation house over a WAN.)
You can set it that way. IMO the best way would be to make one hub your main rules hub. Just share all the devices on the remote hub and setup all your rules and dashboards on the rules hub. Then you can control everything with one dashboard and all your rules are on one hub and no jumping back and forth from one hub to the other if setting up or modifying automations.
Normally, I would agree with this architecture if the additional hubs were simply to increase coverage in a very large house (i.e. being used as a simple range extender.)
However, in the case of a Hub being used to control pool equipment, I would probably leave all rules/automations specific to the pool pumps and associated equipment on the 'pool hub'. This will help to improve reliability and stability of the pool automations. This way, the 'main home hub' can be taken down for maintenance without any concern for impacting the pool automations.
This is true but the pool hub could be the main rules hub. I guess it depends on how good the network connection is between the two.
I have my shop on a separate hub and I keep all of it's rules on that hub. I do this because the shop is on a network CPE device that spans my back yard. It can drop from time to time, so I keep the rules for that hub on that hub. You can still share all the devices and only have one dashboard to maintain.
Morning
I have both hubs set up. And I can see them connected to each other in the setting / hub mesh main menu. I have shared devices across to each other ( can see them listed in the linked devices ) under the linked devices tab but I can’t see any of the linked devices when I try and select them in a dashboard.
Question.
once linked across, should I be able to see the devices on the other respective hub in devices menu?
let’s say for example I have a water valve on one hub. And. Leak detector on the other hub, can I create a rule where the valve closes when the leak detector gets wet? Or do I need both the valve and the leak detector on the same hub.
Similarly. With devices on each hub, can I see them on the same dashboard ?
Thanks in advance
Mac.
