I would like to consolidate all of my devices on my second hub. I have already managed to do this with WiFi devices, but I am unclear on what to do for my 60+ Zigbee devices. Is there a way to smoothly, quickly move these devices over from hub 1 to hub2?
This is not a case of replacing an old hub with a new hub. I know to use backup and restore for that. This is a try device migration from one active hub to a second active hub.
I really don't want to repair everyone of these devices to Hub 2.
Unfortunately, what you are hoping for is not possible - devices are attached to one hub's radios and shifting from one controller to another cannot be done.
But that will wipe out anything on the hub you import to. I read that as they had two hubs already in use, and wanted to just transfer from one to the other hub automagically.
While it would still involve re-pairing, another option that doesn't involve completey re-doing everything is to pair the device to the new hub, then use the new Settings > Swap Apps Device feature to swap the Hub Mesh device out with the newly paired Zigbee device.
Hub Mesh won't be much help otherwise, since it has no awareness of the underlying device protocol and is just a way to share them among hubs on your LAN. But it could be a great help if you have apps on that hub and want to build those apps there with a device that is currently on another hub before pairing that device directly to that same hub. Unfortunately, there isn't any way around the need to re-pair the devices themselves when you switch hubs--just a couple things that might make it easier.
Just to clarify here. I've been reading about Hub Mesh and HubConnect. I am adding another hub to the other end of my house with the expectation that it MAY improve state changes of some fringe devices. I do not plan on moving any apps. Mainly this would involve door locks and motion sensors. So there is not a way to MOVE those devices to the new hub? I would have to pair them to the new hub?
Yes because essentially they're new devices to the system. What you can do before you disconnect things so your rules don't go nuts is create a virtual device with a similar name (call it placeholder-whateversensorname) then use device swap to insert that virtual device into all the rules that use that actual device. Once you get the devices established on the other hub use device swap to swap the hub meshed devices back into the rules.
I probably should have looked for this before ordering my new C-8, but then again, I didn't know from the description of the Hub Mesh that it didn't actually share the radios. I was expecting it to automatically rebalance my Z-Wave mesh network across the two hubs to minimize the hops to each device. That would be the logical way to make this work. Unfortunately, the Hub "Mesh" label is a bit misleading, since it's not really a mesh of your networked devices, it's just a shared Hubitat automation platform.
At any rate, now I'm at something of a quandary. I bought the new hub to try to resolve a few devices that don't want to pair, even though they're right next to switches that work fine. My assumption at this point is that they can't get a link that's less than four hops from my C-7 hub up in my wiring closet. Chances are, if I just relocated the C-7 to where I've currently put the C-8, it would pick up those added devices, but who knows if it would be able to rework the mesh without dropping something else.
I could back up the C-7 and move everything to the C-8 and see if the antennas improve the range and help add those devices, but then I've wasted the money on the original C-7 that's past the return window.
If I'm going to keep both hubs, it would be nice to rebalance my network, even if I have to do it manually. Unfortunately, the Z-Wave pairing process is painful, and I'd have to deal with renaming everything and getting it organized again. My one though would be to go ahead and do the migration to the C-8 from a backup, then force delete half the network off the C-7 and the other half off of the C-8, leaving only the closest subnet of each. If I'm going to do it, now would be the time.
One other pain point I've discovered, which I should probably put in its own thread, is that when I share devices across the hub mesh, it ends up tacking "on " to every label so that I then have to go back and rename every device that I added. What a waste of time! At a minimum it should at least set the label on the newly created local device to the name of the remote device from the other hub. If I have to set it up twice, then what's the point?!!
I have about 150 of the GE/Jasco Z-Wave switches, dimmers, and fan controllers (and a few of another brand where the Jasco had major problems). The Jasco switches have their problems, but in this case it's simply that the switches are at the edge of the mesh and all of the neighbors are at four hops already. I took the two that I've been fiddling with and they immediately were picked up on the new C-8 hub. I'm probably going to try moving the C-7 down to where I have the C-8 and let the mesh reform and see what that gets me.
