I have 1 C-4 and 1 C-5 Hub on the fence about buying C-7

I hadn't thought much about it, but I wonder if the C-7 will do better, worse, or the same with problematic Schlage Connect locks...

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I just pulled out a Vera Plus and a SmartThings hub from two of my clients last week and they put in C7's per my recommendations, Made sure to update the hub to the latest version and flashed the radio stack before adding the devices onto the hubs. One home had about 15 Jasco/GE switches (no I didn't advise them to buy these) and about 20 ZigBee bubs, door sensors, and buttons, the other had 5 Z-wave and 7 ZigBee devices including a Kwikset Zwave lock. Both are moving way from Nest thermostats to Ecobee due the the great driver by @storageanarchy

I never had a more easier time adding the devices to the Hub I didn't even have to take the lock to the hub this time to include. Can't wait for the services to come online to backup their hubs in case something goes wrong but just in case I keep copies of the final configuration backup before I left their locations.

My thoughts are I have a C4 personally and haven't bit the bullet yet to move since I need to dedicate time to re-associate all my devices the only thing I can think of is one day the C4 will stop working and the USB radio has all the devices that I cannot backup. I need to think about if it's worth 2 days of work to make the migration based on the ability to backup the network configurations.

After this last update for the C-7 seems that my hub is working ok. I have been able to use exclusion and inclusion without issues. Version 2.2.3.119 is working.

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I have a C-4 and it seems to be running slow, freezing, etc. Thinking of upgrading to the C-7. Would I be able to do a backup on the C-4 to migrate everything over to the C-7 without having to recreate everything?

[long story: tried to add z-wave plus plug last night, did not read it then tried to reset the Hubitat, it froze at '30% Initializing' and would not start up. tried again, same thing. ended up starting in safe mode, then restoring a backup (fortunately from an hour earlier when I was doing other work). My C-4 also seems to need resetting every couple of days...hence the thought to upgrade to 'refresh' with new technology. HOWEVER, I don't really have the time to reprogram every device/scene/etc.]

And....re: the stability/bugs of new item - do folks feel those are generally worked out (last post was 20+ days ago).

thx...

There are several issues here. First, firmware releases are still happening. It’s getting better. Biggest issue seems to be the inclusion process.

Second, you will still have to migrate if you get a new C-7. The process is here:

Third, by moving your same database and devices to the C-7, you might be bringing the issues with you. Some of the firmware releases are helping the stability of the platform as a whole. If your issues are caused by a jabbering device that’s bringing down your mesh, then you will still have those issues. If you have some odd user drivers, those will come forward.

My C-7 still sits powered with no devices, but I’m almost at the point of moving stuff from my C-5, which is fine, to the C-7. C-7 issues do seem to be stabilizing. Not all user drivers have been adjusted to handle S2 inclusion.

:wink:

I just completed a C-4 to C-7 migration. I too just started to have hardware issues with on of my C-4's. The LED went out one day, then since I rebooted it after that the blue LED just flickers telling me it's a power issue. Even engaged support from Hubitat and they also though it was an internal power issue.

I waited until the last hot fix came out before doing the conversion this weekend. And following the support article was able to make a mostly painless conversion. I have lot of Z-Wave and Zigbee devices and only had one issue with paring a device. It turns out that the Z-Wave device, even though it was operating, no longer responded to the 6 taps up to put the switch into exclude / include. I had a spare to replace it with but not bad for a full Zigbee / Z-Wave migration.

As for performance I would say the response time between the C-4 and C-7 when it comes to editing rules and other actives is just a bit faster not by much. What I am really waiting for is the full backup capability of both the database for configuration and the radio configuration. After living though moving from SmartThings, to Hubitat C-4, and now C-7 I hope this will be the last time of doing all the manual work.

Folks I'm still starting with HE but I had a question when reading this topic, can I have more than one HE on the same network? Example, I saw that some people have a C3, a C4 and a C7, all would be integrating the same network zigbee and zwave ?? I bought my HE this week, in case the C7 version would be correct? let's say that in a few years I bought a future C9 version, I could put them on the same network and with that I wouldn't need to unpair any device or have to do a correct migration? and in the case of more than one hub on the same network it would be stronger and more stable right ?

Yes I have 2 hubs currently.

No separate hubs separate z-wave and ZigBee networks

Your talking about ethernet network and ZigBee/z-wave networks they are all different and one doesn't effect the other.

Essentially, yes this is correct if you sign up for their hub protection service (soon to be released). That will back up the whole hub to the cloud and can be imported to the new hub.

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Excellent, thank you very much for the information.

you can use hubconnect to share devices between the hubs

Any further feedback on the C7 regarding performance when issuing multi device commands?

I just finished a migration from a C5 external USB key to the new internal C7 hardware. All I can say at the moment is it’s FAST really FAST and to be honest I’m delighted I purchased the C7 even as I only had the C5 for a short time. Purchase 100% don’t even think about it, you’ll be happy with the performance.

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Thanks for sharing. Which aspects are fast? Are you running many apps including LAN based apps like Sonos, Hue Hub, etc? Are you running many rules within RM?

My C-7 seems a tad slower than my C-4 for some of my NR rules.. I have a set of sequences that handles a fake "5-way" switch - 3 power only and 1 main dimmer controlling a light - all older Zooz V2 toggles. I notice a slightly longer delay when getting all the switches to synchronize (you can tell by hearing the clicks firing off). It's not bad as this is kind of a weird way to do it but just a little slower.

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Switching devices on and off is much faster in comparison to the C5. I never used the group On/off feature as I found it slow and sometimes missed switching devices off or on. Since the upgrade to C7 I’ve not had any problems with group commands.

Rules machine I have about 40+ rule, everything from basic motion to lights on and advanced rules moving some PTZ cameras when contact sensors are triggered.

I currently have about 30+ devices all Aeotec however I’m going to test out the fibaro smart smart transplant over the weekend.

Apps = influxdb , HSM , make api , rules machine, basic automation , notifications , at home simulator (must have) , hub connect (sync back to C5) , mode manager.

I’ve no amazon or Sonos integration, however I’m kind half interested in the Sonos hardware so that might be on my next purchase.

Hope this helps, let me know if you need more detail.

Very nice, now we just need the hub protection auto restore feature. I'm assuming you manually reconnected your devices when attached to your C7? Ouch, I bet that was time consuming. ;-(

Yep tell me about it, i basically rebuilt the C7. Manually migrated rules , apps etc. I was aware of a backup / restore with some manual way of moving devices around but I said I’ll take this opportunity to clean up rules. The hub connect app really helped as I could push the migrated devices back to the old hub (C5) while I was still migrating to the C7.

Aeotec have a handy feature of switching the external switch on / off 3 times to trigger an exclusion. The last 3 Aeotec switches I had to reset manually I suspect they lost the path back to the hub after I removed some key devices. They are back working fine now after joining back.

Also the C7 hub will now show you the routing path to each device, it’s a small feature (I’m sure more will follow) but if you need to test performance problems at least it will point you in the direction of the devices you might need to test.

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I absolutely love this page! The individual Node Repair + logs in another tab help me resolve routing issues and/or maybe detect flaky or badly paired devices. Not perfect and I am likely misinterpreting some things but I would rather have the information than not.

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