Pairing ThingShield to Hubitat

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1

I have a Aurduino ThingShield that was running fine for two years under SmartThings. I was attempting to move that to Hubitat . I have heard that other’s Thingshield eventually connected under Firmware 1.0.3.705. Mine has not. I was able to re-connect the ThingShield with SmartThings so I know that the pairing process does work on the ThingShield.

I have tried combinations of the below:

  • Updated all drivers and apps from the latest in github.
  • Uploaded latest Aurduino sketch.
  • Presses SWITCH button on ThingShield for six seconds, then pressed once for less than a second to initiate pairing mode.
  • Removed all power to ThingShield and let sit for 20 minutes, then re-powered.
  • Disabled Zigbee in Hubitat settings, waited, re-enabled Zigbee.
  • Updated to latest Hubitat Firmware (1.0.3.705), had also tried on 702-704.
  • Rebooted Hubitat.
  • Moved Hubitat hub to within six inches of the ThingShield.
  • Unplugged and removed batteries of the SmartThings Hub during the processes above.

The ThingShield has never been discovered by the Hubitat hub. Any ideas on what else I might try to get the Hubitat hub to discover the ThingShield (Zigbee)?

Thanks.

2

You did also ‘exclude’ it from SmartThings successfully first before ‘including’ it in Hubitat ?

3

What do you mean by this? The ThingShield is a Zigbee device so there is no exclusion process. You just delete the device via IDE or App and then perform a reset on the device itself to "exclude" it.

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4

Ahh sorry then, I’ve only added ZigBee devices rather than removing them. I did do a search on Google first and saw a few posts re ZigBee exclude / remove so assumed it was a valid thing to do.

I don’t see App delete or IDE remove device mentioned in the steps you’d taken in OP.

5

I wonder if the Zigbee channel being used by your Hubitat hub might be making the pairing process more difficult for some reason? This is just a guess as I have not seen the same issue with my ThingShield. It pairs almost immediately as a “SmartSense Muilti v1”, IIRC. I then simply change the driver to my custom one from there.

You could try changing the Zigbee channel on the Hubitat hub to see if it helps or not…

6

@ogiewon, not a bad idea.

@Matthew you should look at your Zigbee channels to see if there could be conflict. In ST IDE:

  1. Click My Hubs and click your hub
  2. Scroll down to the Zigbee section and see what channel is assigned, mine is 20 for example

In Hubitat:

  1. Click Settings
  2. Click Zigbee Information and see what channel is set on the right side, mine is 17 for example

If they happen to be the same, you could try powering down your ST hub, reset the ThingShield, and try to pair again to see if this works.

7

My SmartThings is using channel 20 and my Hubitat is on channel 26.

I may go ahead and change the channel on Hubitat now and let it stabilize as I cannot work on it until tomorrow night. That should give it time to migrate everything to the new channel before I try again. I don’t know much about Zigbee channels? Any range or channel better than others, or anything I should look to avoid interfering with?

Thanks.

8

Thats your problem! @Navat604 and @patrick have mentioned that ST devices don't seem to like higher channels for some reason.

@Navat604 I know you were moving your channel around and were having difficultly pairing some ST devices. Did you lower the channel to pair and then move it back or have you just left it at a lower channel? I am curious if the channel only needs to be lower for pairing.

9

I just changed my Hubitat to use channel 17, like your’s. I’ll report back if I can get it to pair.

Thank you.

10

Cool, just keep in mind it may take many hours for your other zigbee devices to recognize the channel change.

11

That is why I changed it now. I might be able to get to this late tonight, but more likely it will be tomorrow night. That should give it time to migrate to the new channel, I hope. Thanks for all your help.

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12

I left it at channel 21. Since you asked and I am also curious now. I will probably move it to 26 to see the outcome. Will try over the weekend and report back.

13

Success! After changing the Zigbee channel from 26 to 17 my ThingShield paired. That apparently was the issue.

Thanks.

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