Replacing devices - thoughts and suggestions?

💬 Lounge
1

I am now in the process of gradually (as my checkbook is able to handle the load) replacing my Z-Wave switches with Lutron Caseta switches or dimmers. Some of these switches (most of them) are involved in various rules. What's the "best" way to take out one device and replace it with another while minimizing the impact on the existing rules?

Now that I have done two, I am thinking it might be a good idea to rename the existing switch to "Name-old", the rules will pick up this name, then install the new switch or dimmer and give it the original name, then change the rules to use the original name. Then I could delete the "Name-old" device without screwing up the rules.

Is there a better approach?

2

This is exactly what I did with 30+ switches. Just make sure you exclude the zwave switch AFTER you get the rules configured. I cut an extension cord so the positive and negative wires are exposed and put them into the zwave switch terminals - be sure not to touch the side screws. Then once the switch was powered up I confirmed that I could control it via HE in browser, then scrolled to bottom and clicked Remove and toggled the switch and it would be excluded. If you don't do this your zwave network will suffer.

Another alternative that others are using is to create virtual devices for all the ones you intend to replace and replace your zwave switches in your automations with them. Then exclude the device in place, remove it, put in new one. Then once setup in HE, switch the virtual to the Caseta and delete the virtual switch. I personally found this more steps but it would work too.

3

You mentioned my other concern. I was thinking it wouldn't be good to abandon the old Z-Wave device without excluding it.

4

Why not just force remove and then rebuild your mesh?

5

We would never recommend ‘force remove’ unless a last resort.
Always exclude your z-wave devices if possible.

Andy

1 Like
6

Explain that please. I’ve had numerous devices that I could not get hubitat to exclude and I had to force remove.

As an aside, this is why I’m switching to Lutron and Zigbee as much as possible. Zwave is a PITA.

7

Although not quite so critical as previously, it is still not advisable to ‘force remove’ unless you really have no option.
Using ‘force remove’ will remove the device from your hub’s database but will leave it in the usb stick database.
The stick regularly ‘pings’ the devices in it’s database.
Eventually, (up to a couple of days later) the stick will realise that the device doesn’t exist any more and should remove it from it’s database.
We have seen instances where the device is not removed from the stick successfully and can cause errors.
Therefore, it is always better to ‘exclude’ devices correctly rather then force remove them.

Andy

8

It seemed like the right thing to do but I didn't know why. Thanks!

9

This is exactly how I've been doing my transitions from Z-Wave to Lutron.