Hi all,
I'm a new comer to Hubitat, migrating from Smarthings after I read all the good feedback and the great support in the NE open platform but unfortunately - 2 weeks into the migration with ~120 devices migrated and 2 Hubitat hubs, I must say that unless I'm doing something really wrong, the platform is unstable, devices are dropping from the hubs occasionally, radio coverage is by far worse for Hubitat (I had only single Smarthing hub covers 2 floors of 1800sq each) , One of the hubs is not allowing any device that is 5ft far to connect to it.
I want the believe I'm missing something and it seems to me something is not right with my HE setup so wanted to reach out to get anyone advise what should I do differently to stabilize this platform.
Both hubs are C7, Most of devices connected to the remote Hub, only few of them are connected to the main hub.
The main hub is hosting most of the apps and basic roles.
Overall there are 83 devices connected to both hubs+integrations with Nest, Ring, Bond, IFTT, Actiontiles, InfluxDB, Life360, Sensibo & Webcore currently.
I am verifying all the time that any ghost devices are immediately removed from the hubs.
I would appreciate any advise/Ideas how to make this setup stable and working with 0 issues.
First and foremost, welcome to the community! Second, please join the owners group that will give you some additional privileges (like attaching pictures). Third, here's an excellent quick start guide around Hubitat in general.
Lastly, are the problematic devices Z-wave or ZigBee?
You are absolutely correct in assuming that something is not right, and I am glad you reached out instead of fighting it alone.
There are so many members here that would be more than happy to help you, however based on the details you've shared it is very hard to figure out what's happening.
Please tell us more about your devices, make model, which protocol is giving you trouble, are devices for both Zigbee and Z-Wave unable to pair, do you see any errors in the upper right corner, how about in the logs, past logs? So many questions that need answered before we can be of any help to you.
When I migrated from SmartThings to Hubitat, I discovered the Hubitat radio to be weaker than the ST radio. However, there is an easy fix: a few more repeaters.
I was advised to add a repeater in the same room as the Hubitat. I did so, placing both z-wave and Zigbee repeaters about 10’ from the hub. This fixed my connection problems.
Or if you prefer, @lewis.heidrick has an antenna modification for Hubitat that seems to work great.
Don’t give up on Hubitat! It’s a great platform, always improving, and there are a lot of people on this forum who will help you with your migration from ST.
It will get better...so many former ST users (like me) who are very happy they came to HE. No platform is perfect, but this one is excellent, and combined w/this very active community of users and Hubitat staff actively helping each other, it really can't be beat.
If it really starts to act up, as in your scenario where it becomes difficult to pair new devices do a full shut down, remove power for at least 10 seconds, then plug back in. This will reboot the zigbee and zwave hardware which a normal reboot does not do that. It helps if the radios get into a bad state and stop working properly.
Thank you all, seems like a great team with great support 
so I'm now hopeful this would work at the end.
I did order 2 x Aeotec repeaters that should be here tomorrow - I'll place each of them next to the hubs as recommended. The weird thing is that one of the hubs already established well connected ZWave Mesh network (The remote one) while the Master cannot pair any device to it which is more than 4-5ft. away. Will see tomorrow if the repeaters will solve this issue.
As for more details on the setup:
Most of the devices are Z-Wave:
~50 GE Switches,
4 x Zooz 4-in-1 sensors
4 Schlag locks
Go Control Garage door opener
10 Minoston power outlets
Blinds are Zigbee (12)
~20 Ring contact sensors
Main issues I'm currently facing:
- Unable to pair 2 of the Schlag locks - no matter what I tried
- Some Ring contact sensors are giving me very hard time pairing them
- Fibaro Leak sensor - unable to pair
- Devices (Mainly GE switches) are dropping from the Z-Wave network overnight and need to be re-connect
- Very slow response of some of the devices - this changes occasionally - I noticed longer delays with the devices - mainly when sending the OFF command for most of them.
- Garage door control is sometimes working instant (Few sec. delay) and some other times it takes few minutes for the device to respond to an open/close commands
I tried to look at the logs but do not see any errors at the time delays/failures of commands executions or failed inclusions/exclusions. It seems to me all mainly related to the Zwave radio not being reliable/stable enough in both hubs, but will take any advise if there are ways to do things differently.
Can you post a copy of your z-wave details page?
Turn off your old hub. Factory reset the lock(s). Use standard z-wave inclusion. Locks musy be paired within 2-3 feet of the hub due to the whisper that they use. Locks must be included with encryption (everything else should be paired without)
Factory reset them, then use smartstart to include. When you so so let the phone just sit there for 10 mins, the devices will show up in the device list.
How far is the hub from them? How old are the switches?
Post your z-wave details page in it's entirety
Any repeaters out in the garage?
This really does sound like a mesh issue.
Not all GE switches are equal. Can you tell us how many are "legacy" Z-Wave, meaning how many are not Z-Wave Plus?
One of the major advantages of Z-Wave devices, is that they don't drop off the network, do you mind sharing more details about what do you mean by dropping? If they stop working, it means that the mesh may be weak, you have ghosts in your mesh, or some devices are too far from last repeater and can't communicate with the hub properly.
This is also indicative of a mesh in trouble. Sharing the Z-Wave Details table may reveal what might be causing this latency. Usually latency happens when devices are included with S0/S2 encryption and the firmware on the respective device(s) may not be up to date and fails to properly communicate with the hub. As a rule of thumb, I would only include locks and garage doors with S0/S2 encryption, which are required. All other devices can be included without.
Here is a snapshot of some of the Zwave current view.
As you can see - the Kitchen Island switch just lost connectivity and no longer working. this devices is ~6-7ft. from the hub and was working last night.
These are all GE devices - some legacy and some new Z-Wave Plus (~60% of them legacy in the house). All of them paired with no security.
Can you post the whole thing?
Is there a way to export this view somehow? I have 80 devices there so it would be multiple screen captures if it cannot be export somehow.
That's fine... Make one big post
I would address the Kids Bathroom Sensor, that seems to have really hard time and is included with S0, likewise the one above, but that at least is able to communicate with the hub better...
Can you please give us more details about these (model, firmware, security pairing) -- unfortunately, some versions of these Zooz 4-in-1s are very problematic, and have singlehandedly brought down z-wave meshes.
I have three of those in the box of shame.
Hopefully your pain has been temporary..... and the Community has stemmed the flow.... In their unique style....
These need to be paired without security as they will bring down your mesh. This is done using a z-wave stick paired as a secondary controller to hubitat then pairing the sensor using no encryption.
Here is the full list of devices, all connected to the remote hub:
The kids sensor mentioned as a struggle is actually working well and reporting constantly with no issues since the last time I paired it.
As for the 4-in-1 Zooz devices - I have 4 of them (ZSE40) Ver. 2.
I'll look into removing and adding them back with no security. BTW when I did try to add Schlag without security - the process never ended - it was only ended successfully for 2 of them after I used security with DSK codes.
Locks and garage door openers require encryption either S0 or S2.
