I'm currently in the process of building a new home and will need to move my hub and all of my devices from my current home into the new build. I'd love some advice on how to best accomplish this with the least amount of headaches. Especially since everything about moving and building is a massive headache! I don't need any more headaches.
I've got all kinds of devices, scenes and rules in place. A lot of the rules I'd like to carry over once everything is set up at the new house. I don't know if starting from scratch is a better option than trying to recreate or migrate rules over to the new house.
I don't tinker much with Hubitat these days. I set things up years ago, and everything pretty much works... sometimes I get lag and I bet thats from a chatty device or something that needs a firmware update. But, if things get weird or slow I reboot the hub and it usually works itself out. I remember having to do a lot of setup with assigning the IP addresses to devices, something I'm sure I'll have to go through and redo. I'll have to re-educate myself on that process. I don't know if purchasing one of the new hubs is prudent...?
I'll also need to purchase some additional devices since the house we are moving to is bigger. I currently have to Go Control Thermostats and will need an additional 3rd thermostat at the new build. It seems that they don't make this thermostat anymore. Plus I'll need some more dimmers and switches, I'm not up and up on what is best these days. I have Lutron stuff, Inovelli, Zooz... etc. Lutron is great but expensive. ...Love the multi tap options for scenes in the Inovelli and zooz stuff. But, any recommendations on devices would be great as well. I tend to lean towards Z-Wave devices for any switches/ dimmers.
Basically, I just want to know the best way to do this so that I have the least amount of headaches and stress and I want to be on top of things before I have to start removing devices from the hub at my current home.
When we we last moved I had similar expectations as to wanting my new house to behave similar to the old one with minimal work. I removed each of the zigbee/Z-Wave/LAN devices from the old house and labeled them by which room they came from. When I put everything back I was able to put most of the devices into an equivalent room in the new place. Then I brought things up and started tweaking. If I remember correctly, it took about a week to get some semblance of the house working like I wanted.
There are arguments to be made for starting over to get a clean slate but this worked for us. We were moving 1500 miles away and I didn't have the time or energy to start over. Both house were similar in size so that helped. This was in 2017 and I ran this setup on Smarthings until I switched to Hubitat in 2020 and redesigned everything from the ground up.
Yeah, part of me dreads having to start over. The other part of me thinks that if I do things might run faster and smoother. I think the biggest thing is maybe somehow saving some of the more complicated rules to help rebuild them.
I dreaded having to start over too. Though the rebuild with Hubitat resulted in a better overall system. A lot of that is because the automation tools are so much better than was offered by Smarthings
I'd suggest mostly starting from scratch. Buy a C8 Pro hub. Screen print and export your rules that you want to re-use. If you started a long time ago there are new apps that have replaced old ones. Room Lighting replaces Mode and Motion apps and Groups and Scenes. If you want Lutron devices get quotes from dealers, they will compete for your business. My go to online is Hanks Electric, contact Paul Willemson at paul@hankselectric.net.
this is great information! I'll look into dealers. Lutron stuff is really great but it's also some of the most expensive stuff out there! Love their Pico remotes, and I love that just about anyone can look at a dimmer switch and figure out how to operate it in no time at all. All the other rocker dimmer switches, the hold function for dimming isn't intuitive. I do wish they had multi tap scene options though like the Zooz and Innoveli. I have a few Innoveli dimmers and switches and they are my favorite! But for common areas, the Lutron is the way to go.
