My Hubitat Elevation hub arrived late last week and I decided to take a very conservative, step-by-step approach to implementing it. I had a fairly stable ST environment with about 60 devices including z-wave, zigbee and LAN. I decided I would carefully convert over two light switches as my first "baby" step. I recalled reading that I should remove them from any apps before trying to exclude them from the z-wave network. I found the two devices were tied into three apps, two dashboards and a smart-lighting app. The smart-lighting app was the key to most of my ST automations as I tried to maximize devices and apps that would run locally (you can see why HE was appealing to me). I removed the devices from the smart-lighting app and as I exited out (save . . . save), I was presented with a button labeled "Remove". Before I even thought about it, I clicked on it. It took less than a microsecond to realize I had completely deleted my quite complex smart-lighting app. Arrgh!
So my HE implementation plan was greatly accelerated! I spent the afternoon excluding, removing, (from ST) then installing the devices on HE. For the most part it has gone smoothly. Getting the minimote moved was a pain, I was saved by some advice found on the community forums here. I now have 28 devices on the HE hub and I have largely re-created my smart-lighting app as a simple lighting rule. I've made some crude dashboards and I've migrated my ST code that issues a hub command to my iSpy system to take snapshots when motion is detected.
I haven't had a chance to exhaustively test yet but initial indications are positive.
The community information here is a wonderful resource and I want to extend thanks to the pioneers that blazed the trail and documented it along the way. I'm sure I will have more posts and more questions as I continue along the migration path but, for now, jumping in with both feet was not excessively traumatic!
Thanks for sharing your experience. We will continue to strive to make Hubitat Elevation the best home automation system available. Stay tuned for more features, integrations, and supported devices!
I stumbled a bit bringing over one of the ST Motion sensors. It was a V1 (which, IMHO, was the best one they ever made).
It paired as a Multi not a Motion. When I tried to use it in an app, I realized it didn't have motion capability, only open/closed. I tried re-adding it again with the same result. Ultimately I added it and manually changed the device to a generic zigbee motion sensor and it worked fine.
I have transitioned 42 devices from my SmartThings hub to my Hubitat Elevation hub. That leaves 12 devices remaining on the SmartThings hub.
The biggest pain has been the Sensative Strips Door/Window sensors. Because they are mounted to the door or window and because the delete and re-pair routine requires waving the magnets over the sensor, it took a while (and a good bit of running back and forth) to get them moved over.
My voice commands to the Google Home devices is working well using IFTTT as the intermediary.
Initially I was routing the notifications to my smartphone through SmartThings using Hubitat to ST Notification Pusher but this past weekend I switched over to using Pushover. That is working well. I will be removing the Hubitat to ST code as soon as I am sure I have moved all the instances over to Pushover.
All in all it's been a fun experience. The support from the community through this forum has been great!
Update.
I now have only three devices remaining on my ST hub. Two are in the attic and it's just too hot up there right now. The other is a Schlage lock and I'm not going to move that until I have plenty of time to play with it. I have been able to pair all the devices and between Simple Lighting and Rules Machine, I have functionally replicated all my automations. Thanks to this community for both direct and indirect assistance!
All my devices have now been moved from the SmartThings hub to the Hubitat Elevation hub - 55 total. 14 Zigbee devices and 41 Z-Wave devices.
The last three were the Schlage lock (had to shutdown the hub and move it to be within 6-8 feet of the lock in order for it to pair. Once paired, it takes a very long time to sync - be patient!), the Sensative Strips Comfort that I use for the attic temperature sensor (no specific problem, I just find the whole Sensative Strips process with using the magnets to be counter-intuitive), and the Zigbee relay that controls the attic fan (un-pairing and pairing about as simple as it can get). Mostly I was waiting for a cooler day to work in the attic (even briefly).
Now to see if my Rule Machine rule works to turn the fan on when the temperature in the attic exceeds 100 degrees F . . .
Nice, I live in Florida and I was planning to install attic fans but not sure if the fans electric consumption will be worth vs the good insulation and a 17 SEER new A/C, what is your opinion?
Another (final-final?) update on my transition from ST to HE:
I have eliminated the last custom driver code (for the new ST Button) since the new ST buttons are now built in to the generic zigbee button driver. I have also eliminated the last custom app code now that Rule Machine can send an HTTP GET when triggered - that is taking care of my "need" for iSpy snapshots based on motion in different areas around the house.
The ST hub has now been offline for over a month now.
