My scenario above wasn't well thought out, so let's go with something simpler.
If I simply want to replace my existing hub with the next gen hub (just because), would it be possible to use a backup from my existing hub to migrate rules, installed apps, etc to the new hub? I understand the devices themselves would likely need to be paired to the new hub because of the radio change. While that's somewhat annoying, I'm less worried about pairing compared to rebuilding the logic in the rules themselves and installing apps/drivers again.
I suppose I'm also curious how this currently works for a basic backup scenario with two identical hubs.
My plan with my 2 hubs is keep everything as local to each as possible. So the backups would also be local for each.
I don't know if you can link to more than one hub at a time - I'm not quite ready to start linking yet so haven't gotten into it.
I will say the larger number of devices you have the more painful re-including becomes. So not just rules etc. If you have multiple hubs then you can do it hub by hub instead of all at once.
I wish there was a better way to manage migrations etc. Even ST struggled with their efforts.
I shortened your query to be able to answer twice...
If your current Hub dies, you'd unplug the USB Radio Stick, and put it into the new one. Then you'd copy a saved backup to the new hub. You'd be running equal to what was... at the moment of backup.
Not as easily because, as you note, the DB that resides out on the Radio stick can't be plugged in, we presume I'd like to think that Hubitat thought of this scenario and has at least ONE USB slot in the new hub.
The current hub can have at least 2 ZWave Radios. The one inside the Nortek USB stick and something else. If you boot with 2, it uses the something else first and ignores the ZWave radio in the Nortek stick.
I can't see Hubitat discarding that code by not having a USB. But it's ALL speculation by me.
Since we can easily assume they are as smart as me... if not 10x smarter.. then they will have a process.
ZWave does support Controller Shift, and although their ZWave tools are lacking, it's theoretically possible they will code that up in time for the new hub.
Just keep in mind if you are thinking of a second hub for load balancing, you can't transfer ALL device types from hub to hub using the HubLink / Link to Hub... It is mainly geared around physical zigbee and zwave devices, not cloud integrated devices (even if using a HE built-in cloud sync app like Ecobee integration).
For instance, you can't transfer an Ecobee thermostat from one hub to another hub... I mean you can transfer the temperature, but not things like thermostatoperatingstate, coolingsetpoint, etc.
@erktrek, @csteele, @JasonJoelOld, @Cobra
Thank you all for your responses. I just ordered another hub...couldn't resist. Not sure how/if I'll use it yet, but very comfortable knowing I'll have a backup hub at the very least.
If you were able to move the stick over from the old hub to the new hub and you had a backup to restore, you would have to do no other work inside HE to get everything up and running again? I thought some of assignments in the DB couldn't be restored that way and would have to be rebuilt?
Is there any chance in the future that we can have a linked garage door opener driver for the Link to Hub App for connecting 2 Hubitat Hubs and a better Omni driver where I can pick what attributes the device supports or have proper virtual drivers instead? The Omni driver works but odd seeing all of the other values and options there that the device doesn't support. Thanks
I bought a second job when I saw this sale and the Link To Hub works great to have a second hub for custom apps and testing.
Just resurrecting this as I'm thinking of ordering another hub as a backup.
My current hub was ordered in April 18 when they were first released to the UK.
My current hub has 2 external sticks, zigbee and zwave, and I believe the latest hub uses an internal zigbee radio but still uses an external zwave stick in the UK version.
So my questions are if I leave things on my original hub taking regular backups to my PC how easy would it be to power up the spare and get things working.
I'm assuming I can transfer the zwave stick to the new hub, restore the latest backup and that would cover my zwave devices. I'm wondering about zigbee. How would that work. Would I just have to pair the zigbee devices to the new hub and that's it. As I've restored the latest backup I'm there.
Just want to get things clear in my mind.
TIA.
Bob
There's so much more available to us today vs 7 months ago.
I think the greatest improvement is HubConnect. You can have both hubs on, and working together as one larger hub. Should one hub die, the entire house isn't dead. Maybe the bigger half depending on how you "balance" the devices.
If I were starting where you are starting, knowing what I know now... (vs 7 months ago) is I'd get that new Hub setup as a HubConnect Server (coordinator) and move all your Cloud services to it. Amazon Alexa, Google, Chromecast, Weather apps. You will use HubConnect to distribute devices between the two hubs. Look at each individual app and what devices it's currently using. "mirror" those devices to 'coordinator' and use them in the moved App. (Just disable the App on the original hub til you're confident.)
What this will have done is dedicated your original hub to be a ZStuff Radio centric hub. It will spend all of it's power on getting radio packets in and out. You'll find it's probably faster without all the apps eating CPU power at the expense of Radio traffic. (A radio packet arrives from a Door Sensor, the hub has to send the event to all the subscribed Apps and then the apps eat CPU doing what they do with the event. In the dual hub scenario, the Door Sensor is 'mirrored' to the Apps Hub and all the App work, tiny as it might be, isn't using cycles on the original hub.. it's already back working on the radio queues and the next packet(s)... )
I know this is not answering your migration question, but that answer didn't change over the 7 months except we know that an External ZWave USB gets attached via a special cable and works the same otherwise. Zigbee is still the same as 7 months ago. You re-pair them and they should land right back into their "slots" on the new hub's old DB.
Thanks for the reply.
My setup is working very well at the moment, I shouldn't have said that , and the only thing that is giving me issues is Chromecast so your comments make sense on that front.
I may just get one register it and run minimal things so in the event of the original failing I can transfer everything to it and only lose the minor stuff it was running.
Food for thought.
Thanks again.
I have a single Chromecast device (Google Home Mini) defined on 'coordinator' with Chromecast app there too. I then "mirror" that device to my other two hubs so that they can make announcements too. That's all I use it for and even then, not many times a year.
Well I ordered my second hub and I'm using hubconnect to link the two hubs.
I've decided to have all my devices on hub1 and the majority of my rules on hub2 to spread the load.
How I have done it is by replicating all my rules on to hub2 and disabling them on hub1.
So in theory I have 2 identical hubs.
My thinking is if Hub#1 dies, I can just load hub#1 backup on to hub#2 and just re-enable my rules, and re-pair my devices and we are back in working again.
If hub#2 dies I just re-enable all my rules on hub#1.
This means if either of the hub dies I can get my home automations back up and running relatively quickly on the one hub. No waiting for a new hub to turn up. (Well in theory anyway).
I'd like to think that Hubitat thought of this scenario and has at least ONE USB slot in the new hub.
depending on how you "balance" the devices.
