I have a C7 HE hub, with a UZB-7 Z Wave stick paired as a secondary controller which I use with Home Assistant (HA). HE is the primary controller.
It works pretty well - both HE and HA can control devices on the Z Wave network, and some of them report back to both (although most report only to one). I have automations set up on each system that work.
I want to switch the HA Z Wave stick to become the primary controller, without building a whole new network. I have the Z Wave PC Controller software running, which works with the UZB-7 stick, and has all the functions needed on that end.
I have thought of a few ways to do this move, and I'm looking for advice on which is possible.
Option 1. Put the UZB-7 stick into Learn Mode (using the PC Controller software), and put the Hubitat Z-Wave chip into Switch Controller mode. This seems to be the best option. Is there a hidden or undocumented way to do this in HE? I see buttons to put HE into Learn, but not Switch Controller. Maybe there's an API I can call in a script to do this?
Option 2. Download the NVM from the HE Z Wave chip, and flash it to the UZB-7 stick. I can't find a way to extract the NVM from HE. It seems the local backup doesn't do this, although the cloud backup seems to save it remotely. Is there a way to extract the NVM to a file I can use in the PC Controller software?
Option 3. Turn off HE and somehow force the UZB-7 to upgrade from secondary controller to primary. I don't know if this is possible.
If the HE ZWave controller was on its own USB stick it would be easy (just use two instances of PC Controller).
The hub will not function properly as a secondary.. The SDK that was required for certification of 700 series hubs, at the time, provides very little functionality as a secondary. With Z-Wave LR coming, there is actually no such thing as a secondary for that.
Joined a third controller (old Aeotec one I had) as a secondary controller to the HE
Turned off the HE
Reset the UZB-7
Used PC Controller (one instance for each stick) to replace the "failed" node 1 with the freshly reset UZB-7
So now the UZB-7 is node 1 on the network, and can control everything as before.
The only issue is that it's marked as Secondary, and doesn't seem able to include new nodes.
I tried setting it as SIS, which seemed to work, but didn't change the issue with new node inclusion.
Is there any other way to have the HE pass on the primary controller role? From my reading the "Shift Controller" method seems like the official way to do it. Some other hubs support this directly.
Or anyone know how to force secondary controller to become primary?
Ok, so I figured out a method which works, although it requires two USB controllers. Controller A will become the primary controller in the end, and controller B will be used as an intermediary.
Plug both USB controllers into a PC, run two instances of the PC Controller software, and configure one for each of the corresponding virtual serial ports.
Join each USB controller to the Hubitat Z-Wave Mesh (Put hub into inclusion mode, press Learn on PC Controller). They will both be Inclusion controllers (secondary) at this point.
Press Shift on controller A, and Learn on controller B. This will make controller B the RealPrimary at it's current node ID (i.e. not node 1).
Turn off the Hubitat
Press Reset on controller A
Using controller B, select node 1 and press IsFailed, then press Replace Failed
Press Learn on controller A. Now controller A will be node 1, and will be joined as a secondary Controller
Press Learn again on controller A, and press Shift on controller B. Controller A will now become the RealPrimary, and controller B will go back to being secondary.
Now you have a static controller (A) at node 1 with the full Z-Wave network copied over from Hubitat. To get it to function properly in another system (e.g. HA) you just copy over the security keys, and everything works.
