Migration from C-5 to C-8

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#1

Just wanted to say thanks. My C-8 came today, and the migration was fairly painless. I'd outlined the steps I expected to follow yesterday. Today the migration took longer than it might have because I was very careful and went through the steps very methodically. But I didn't run into many issues. Some of my steps:

  • I disabled every app and device that was vaguely LAN or cloud connected.
  • I made sure to update to 2.3.5.103 before doing the cloud backup.
  • When the backup was done, I shut the hub down. Then I changed the reserved IP to DHCP and rebooted my router so it would pick up that change.
  • When the C-8 came up, the first thing I did was to change it to reserved IP with the same IP as the old hub had previously.
  • I had to register the hub before the update would show up. But once it did the migration went very smoothly.
  • When the C-8 came back up, I enabled all of the devices and apps that had been disabled before. I hit "done" in the apps.
  • I had to tweak the following:
    Geofency - tweaked the web hook
    iOS app - selected the new hub
    virtual Harmony Hub - pressed "get current activity" to reconnect
    IFTTT - logged out and logged back in to select new hub
  • Everything else — Alexa, HomeKit, Ecobee, Ecowitt — just worked.

So far, so good. Everything is still working, and I expect it will continue to. [fingers crossed] Everything is very fast and responsive, and I'm very happy.

So thanks for a relatively painless migration, with just enough tweaks needed to keep the process interesting.

10 Likes
#2

I wanted to add a me too to this post. I upgraded from a c-5 to the c-8 this morning and it was amazingly painless. I was lazy and didn’t disable anything. I made sure my 5 was running the latest update, did the cloud backup, loaded the backup on the 8 and it just worked. All of my zwave and zigbee devices carried over just fine. My Lutron integration carried over, even HomeKit integration just worked. The only thing I needed to tend to at all was Google Home, which I fixed by going into the Google Home app and relinking.

I just wanted to thank the devs for creating an extremely reliable and boring (in a good way) upgrade experience.

8 Likes
#3

Same here. Migration from my old C-5 was amazingly painless. And, thanks @jabecker , Your list reminded me to work through the process of getting my new hub to have the same reserved IP address as my old one. That kept my Maker API integrations working perfectly without any hiccups.
Great Job by the Hubitat development team.

4 Likes
#4

I have a C-5 and am contemplating getting a C-8. Are you guys seeing a significant performance increase? It won't take much to talk me into it.

1 Like
#5

Shall I twist your other arm? :wink:

Seriously, though, I'm seeing a significant difference in the range of the radios — both zigbee and z-wave. It's just been a little over 24 hours for me, and I expect it's going to take another day or two for the mesh to settle down completely. But so far I am very happy. It's also nice to be able to see the z-wave mesh details that people in here talk about all the time that aren't available on the C-5. And rules do seem to run a bit snappier... but that might be my imagination.

I don't think you'd regret it.

3 Likes
#6

Then again, if the antenna is doing it's job well, you have more devices directly connected than you did.. which means communications to/from those devices finish in one hop vs 2, 3 or 4. The hub has to wait for the final ack in order for it to "move along" in the list of things needing to be done... and the time NOT spent waiting can be spent running Rules, or managing LAN traffic or...

Remember, the hub is Radio resource limited. Not CPU or memory. Radio is the slowest resource in the hub. At best, ZWave runs at 100k and Zigbee runs at 250k... on a CPU that is running 4000 times faster.

4 Likes
#7

OK, that makes sense. I wish I could analyze why my rules will sometimes take 20ms, and other times 1200. It is probably a mesh thing. I mentioned to the wife that I am thinking about getting a new hub, and she didn't baulk. I might as well go order it right now.

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#8

But like now now, while you have the free pass! :stuck_out_tongue:

2 Likes
#9

Just got this email!!!

image

Now I need to decide what to do with the C-5. Are you guys keeping it in your system, gifting to a friend, or retiring it?

2 Likes
#10

I simply retired mine.

#11

I'm debating the same thing.
I'm on my original C5, still have a C7 in a box I bought as a backup, and now considering if/when to do C8.

Considering when the time comes to move my devices to the C8 and have my C5 (or C7) be the App work-horse.

#12

I'll probably just retire it. I offered it to a friend, who declined. There are a few other people I might give it to, just to play around with. Or I might keep it around as a place to experiment. I haven't really decided yet.

#13

This is what I am leaning towards.

#14

I was leaning this way as well.

However, my concern is that since the C-5 still points to all my wireless devices, cloud services, etc. that it could cause issues when plugged back in. Is there a way to factory reset it on startup so it doesn't come up and start executing the configuration that I transferred to my new C-8?

Thanks

1 Like
#15

Power it up. Yes it will potentially interfere, so do this at a time when the impact has time to resolve after.

On both the ZWave and Zigbee Details page is a Reset the Radio option... do that for each. This is irreversible. At that moment, your ZWave and Zigbee meshes won't have a conflict and will heal if needed. (Usually a 2 min collision resolves quickly, but... )

Then go to the Diagnostic Tool and perform a Soft Reset. This will discard all you LAN connections and the Apps/Drivers.

The combination of these two steps, reset radio, soft reset, is very close to a Factory Reset but doesn't impact the Hub's registration.

1 Like
#16

What @csteele said. That's the process I followed and I didn't have any problems or notice any conflicts. That being said... I was in a place where there isn't a lot of automation happening anyway. But it only took about 5 minutes or so and there wasn't a lot of time for things to clash.

I also changed the zigbee channel on my old hub while I was at it, in case I decide to do something with it later.

#17

Thanks @csteele and @jabecker

#18

I just screwed up big time. I was going through the process of clearing out my old c-5 so I could use it as a test machine. I had browser tabs open for my c-8 and my c-5. I thought I was on the tab for my c-5 and I reset the Z-wave radio. Turns out I reset the radio on my C-8. What is the best way to recover from my stupidity. Thanks in advance for the help :grimacing:

#19

This is probably better posted in another place so I'm going to do that.

Download the Hubitat app