New Home, New hub, what to do with the old one (c4)

We recently bought a new home. Before we moved I force removed most of my Z-wave devices (mostly door and window sensors and a Kwikset 910 lock). That left me with a bunch of Zigbee bulbs and one Inoveli switch (that I kept) on the old hub. I purchased a C7 hub, intending to just start over (I plan to concentrate on zwave), Now as I'm starting to plan how to do this, I'm starting to wonder if I would be better off just leaving the Zigbee devices ( and any new Zigbee devices) on the old hub, and keep just zwave on the new hub. Any thoughts, or suggestions (including how to set this up)?

I'm one that will look for parallelism where I can find it. :slight_smile: The two Z-Radios in each hub are parallel, in my view. I would not expect much from splitting 'Z by Hub'. In my own situation, my Zigbee devices are all Sensors (Iris v2 and v3 Motions) except for 5 Hampton Bay Fan Controllers which each need a Repeater in each room. (11 'sensors' + 11 HBFC and repeaters)

The sensors are all 'causes' to ZWave 'effects'. A Zigbee motion causes a ZWave dimmer or switch to be turned on.

As a result, I use Area as the splitting criteria. I want my meshes to be fast. I prefer 1 hop to 2 or 3, Zero is even better :slight_smile:

That's not the same as saying I don't have 3 and 4 hops.. I have switches at the far end of my property but they control things that aren't 'human timed' -- meaning a light comes on at sunset.. if it's off by 5 seconds, how's a person going to tell. Versus walking in a room and stepping on a Lego because the light is 5 seconds late.

I split my house 18 months ago into "upstairs" and "downstairs" and I did so trying to make then 100% independent. It didn't work out any better than any of may great plans BUT it's quite reasonably close.

Today, If I were to do it over, I think I'd split "Front" and "Rear" because the 'rear' mesh could be better suited to delays from mesh hops, meaning 'bigger' - extending out back to the furthest extent of the property. It's very much OK as is.. because even though the furthest ZWave devices are on the same Hub as my most critique driven device, the distant ones are 'once-a-day' types and I can't detect any impact.

There's one opinion :smiley:

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hubconnect and use one for devices and the other to run rules/apps

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I like this idea. Does it matter what goes on which hub? Im thinking of using the C4 for the rules/ Apps/ dashboards etc., and putting the devices on the new C7.

I saw in a different thread some one had suggested loading a backup for the old hub onto the new one, then just removing what I don't want . This is probably one of the most advanced things I've tried yet, any suggestions for how to proceed are greatly appreciated!

How dare you use logi I thought that was banned. :stuck_out_tongue:

My first thought would be move everything to the C-7 (assuming this was intended to be your primary hub) and see and find out if you have any issues. You then could look at using hubconnect to cover gaps in your mesh rather than adding repeaters.
If all is well in your mesh others have used one hub for communication and another or handling computations via hub connect.

As the C4 does not support the upcoming Protection Service's Radio migration, and the benefits of the zwave 700 radio in the C7, I would use the C7 for your device hub and the C4 for rules.

Edit:

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Yep, that was exactly my plan. Truth be told I'm already thinking of getting another C7 (shh! don't tell my wife!) to handle the rules side, so both would eventually be C7's. That is probably a couple of months off unless I see a good sale. Then I just need to find something to do with the C4, this rabbit hole is getting deeper.

Does't it make sense then to use the C-4 as the rules part of the setup and the C-7 the device the devises controller?

Let me add that I'm not overly concerned with having to redo my rules and dashboards again (right now). The layout of this house is quite different from my last, so I think I will have to essentially redo them all anyway. If I swap the C4 out for another C7 later, I am assuming I can just make a back up of the rules, etc on the C4 and upload it to a new C7 (am I correct in that thought?).
If I can find an easier way to move the devices from the old C4 to the New C7 I currently have, that would be awesome, In reality, I don't have that many devices (maybe 25?), it wouldn't be a huge burden to manually remove them from one hub and add them to the new one. I would rather do it now while that number is relatively small, than later as the number of devices is sure to grow.

Most of what I currently have is Zigbee bulbs (several of which I'm replacing with Zwave bulbs anyway) and some z-wave outlets and switches. Going forward, I plan on focusing on z-wave, but won't rule ou ZigBeet if it fills the need.

That is what I'm planning to do.

When linking the hubs, does it matter which is the master hub and which is the secondary? should the hub with the devices be the master hub, or the hub with the rules, applications, etc?

If you are asking about HubConnect, then no, the software doesn't care. YOU might care when you add additional Hubs, because each one will use the Server as it's focal. If you have 3 hubs, A B and C, then you'd have two connection pairs.... A <-> b and A <-> c

If you need devices on C to be available on B, then you have to select the device twice.. once on C to 'mirror' it to A, then on A to 'mirror' it to B. Again, HubConnect is happy to do that and it's amazingly fast as well. You may be the one that doesn't like doing that for every device, wishing you had made B the server. :smiley:

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Yikes! so it sounds like I'm better off making the one that houses the rules, apps, etc the main hub, and the one with the devices secondary. I don't really see my self getting to the point of needing 3 (then again I never thought i would have 2), but if I just remember to make them point to the primary, I should be good, correct?

It can run away if you're not careful...

Screen Shot 2020-08-17 at 10.29.39 AM

And then for Development, I have another set completely:
Screen Shot 2020-08-17 at 10.26.23 AM

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Ahhh I see where my first problem was, I was thinking HubConnect and Link to hub were the same thing ....

HubLink and Link to Hub are also used to make connected pairs of Hubs, however, there a few limits that need to be understood. First, one instance per hub, which makes multiple hubs a bit more of a mental hurdle. :slight_smile: Second, HubLink / Link to Hub 'mirror' only a few Attributes. My favorite example (from when I had 3 hubs linked BEFORE HubConnect was written) was a Garage Door Opener. I could 'mirror' the tilt sensor portion, which allowed me to see if the GDO was open or closed, but HubLink / Link to Hub would not 'mirror' the "Door" attribute, so I could not control the GDO. I had to create a workaround via a virtual switch, that I could then use in Rules to mimic.

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Well, this was enough to convince me to go ahead and buy a second C-7. I'll hold off doing anything until I get the new hub and start fresh with both. I spent most of the morning yesterday removing devices from the old hub. There are a few basic devices left that will be the last to be added, or replaced with newer equipment. My wife seems open to the idea of replacing a lot of the dumb switches with smart switches, so it looks like there will be a lot of work on that in the foreseeable future. That just sorta solidified the decision o start completely over with 2 new hubs. I will probably need some help (a lot?) setting hub connect up on both when the time comes. I should have the second C-7 by saturday

it's not as difficult as you think. make sure to read the descriptions as Hub Link goes on the primary, and Link to Hub goes on the secondary. You then select all the devices you want to be made available in the second hub