Reasons for a second hub?

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1

Many people seem to have more than one hub.
What are the reasons for that?

  1. I was a Hubitat user and just meshed my old hub when I upgraded to HE7 because I could and didn't want to put the old one in the parts box.

  2. I am very knowledgeable and I needed two HE7's to resolve specific device characteristic issues.

  3. I am very knowledgeable and needed two HE7's to accommodate speed issues related to smart home complexity.

  4. I am very knowledgeable and needed two HE7's to increase geographic coverage issues.

  5. I am not an expert but I now have a bunch of devices and HE apps and things seem to be bogging down so maybe two HE7's would help.

  6. Other

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2

Might do this as a poll so that you can get numbers i.e.:

  • Had one and kept it when I upgraded
  • Needed 2+ to resolve specific device related issues
  • Used the additional hub(s) to resolve speed related issues
  • Automation Complexity
  • Increase coverage area
  • Needed one for development/testing
  • Sounded like a good idea at the time
  • Other
  • I only have one hub but wanted to vote

0 voters

Note to self don’t edit spelling, etc in poll after voting is open as it wipes out the votes

3

Sure!

Thanks.

4

Also maybe add to the voting... "I have a bunch of shitty zigbee bulbs I wanted to keep out of my zigbee mesh but still wanted to use" :grin:

5 Likes
5

also should add have multiple locations (homes)

6

This was my reason. I wanted to move away from the Hue Bridge and also upgrade my Z-Wave to S2.
Since I got the C7 as main hub and my C5 as ZigBee bulb hub, my smart home have been working almost flawless.

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7

Unintended benefit of having two hubs, when one hub became completely unreachable (error 500), having the other one available to get into my account and pull down/initiate restore was very easy. Wasn't the main reason I had one tho. I voted above.

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8

I use two, one to manage multi zone heating for my home all zwave.

The other is all zigbee, duplicating zwave temp sensors for fault tolerance.

The zigbee one provides oversight of the heating HE and can perform an orderly reboot of the Heating HE if an issue occurs.

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9

All the other kids had multiple hubs.

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10

If all the other kids threw their smartthings hubs off a cliff, would you do the same thing?

Wait never mind, that’s a bad example.

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11

Yes I would.

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12

I had a Wink hub so I had to buy 2 Hubitat's just to get the stank out. Almost bought 3 but that would have made everything smell "too" rosy

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14

I have only voted, not posted, so far on this thread... I think my (tongue in cheek) response to the question would be... The question should be "What are the reasons for a third or fourth hub?" :slight_smile:

I voted for automation complexity, for the reason that I chose to move all my Hue lights onto a new HE hub to enable me to do more complex automations that were becoming more and more difficult on the Hue bridge. This, along with Hub Mesh, allowed me to introduce contacts sensors and other devices into my lighting rules.

Anyway, the reason my tongue is inserted in my cheek is that I feel like the overwhelming reason for me to purchase an additional hub, beyond the immediate reason for separation of lighting from other more intensive processing, is to have a third+ hub for development or testing of new ideas, apps or drivers, without the impact on hubs that you need to deliver a reliable outcome day to day, such as lighting and, in my case, other controls and visuals through my original C-4 hub. I currently experience this an have been tempted a couple of times to expand my setup.

Simon

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15

Aaaaaaand

There's a sale!

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16

My original reason was to reduce overhead on the hubs, first by splitting by location even though one hub could probably cover the whole house then by device type to isolate devices/processes - Cloud&Network/Zigbee/Z-Wave.

edit: have 3 hubs in operation - (2) C-5s and a C-7... also have several still in their boxes.

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17

I thought it might be lonely.

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