Now I'm curious on how to best start the setup process...
I have loads of rules. Loads of variables.. Many rules in legacy, and many in rule machine 5... All running on a c5.
They are a little bit of a mess, but they work..
Was thinking I start from scratch setting things up to clear it all up but now realising there's some rules that qhite complex, have any integrations setup (like home assistant, tuya etc) that I'd need to setup again if I start from scratch. I don't see where to export all rules and variables as a simple text file that I coukd refer to..
So now thinking I transfer all over from the c5 to the c8 seeing I believe that's a straight forward reliable way.. Then maybe tidy things up (maybe as in I may never be bothered).
I bought it as it was on special, I liked the longer range of zigbee and got sucked in by the matter support even though I don't have a matter device yet or know if I will soon...
and you know that your Zigbee will migrate fully but not your ZWave. After migration the C-8 will know you once had ZWave devices, what they were called, etc. They will appear in any Automation as well. The just won't be pared to the C-8 because the old 500 series SOC DB (ZWave Radio Chip) doesn't allow reading the DB.
The solution is of course to re-Join each ZWave device. It isn't easy, but it is repetitive if you have a house full like I do. The C-8 will have all your ZWave devices showing on the Devices page, but the ZWave Info page will be empty. What you want to do is Join a ZWave device then swap those Apps that use the Old device to the New Device.
The trick is to edit both the name and the DNI for each of your ZWave devices to add some extra letters. In this example:
the DNI is 48 and you'd click the edit button and make it "48old" or something memorable, edit the name adding old and clicking Save Device.
After completing the Edit DNI step, you can begin re-Joining the physical devices. The hard part is finding the Manufacturer's manuals for the Exclude/Include clicks. I suggest using the Exclude-Before-Include technique to minimize Ghosts.
Once a Z-Device is successfully Joined, and tested, use the Swap Apps Device tool in Settings. This is made easy by that edit the name step you did. Swap Apps Device tool is amazingly easy, because you just select a Device with OLD in the name on the left, and the matching Device that doesn't have OLD. Click the button and you're done. The physical device is now functional in all your Apps and Automations. One exception and that's the children of a device, you'll have to manually migrate those, Swap Apps Device tool doesn't touch child devices. Joining one of those devices will usually create the children, but you have to use the In use by field to identify the Apps then go into each app and correct the use.
The final step is to clean up.. you'll delete all the Devices with OLD in the name.
It's up to you, and I expect the link @csteele provided should explain things, but essentially there are two options (I think), migrate an existing hub setup in full (with the Z-Wave exception*, see @Ken_Fraleigh 's comments as well... ), or setup your C-8 from the start as a fresh install. If you have a big and/or complex setup, then it may be easier to either cleanup things on the C-5 and then migrate, or migrate and cleanup on the C-8, like you are thinking about doing...
If you do still want this for any reason, I would do two things... Take screenshot(s), so you get the visual of how the rule is laid out and what sits where, but also click on the cog icon to open the background settings / data that is kept about the app, from there you will see an Export/Import/Clone button at the top of the screen. You can use this to export your rules. The text file that comes out is JSON format, with the primary purpose being to be interpreted by Hubitat when importing back into the hub, so it's not the easiest to translate as a human back into constructing a rule, but you can either use it to have a text-based record of any lengthy or complex text like URLs etc, or even use them to import a rule into a fresh C-8 setup.
For the variables, I'm not sure, have a look to see if there is a similar export option, otherwise screenshots and/ore copy and paste the text.... Depends on the variable I guess, if they change often or not...
Wow @csteele thanks for that. I realised there was a migration thread and did read it before purchase. However I skim read and seeing your detailed post about zwave devices has made me think I may need hours of time to transfer things over.. I do however only have a handful of zwave so maybe not so bad when I put it down on the page. Just a few aotech and fibaro dimmers (maybe 6x in total). Loads of zigbee and some cloud based wifi.
Ill need to read if it breaks any other manually added integrations or via HPM. Like cloud based integrations or home assistant etc.
Your post was very helpful thanks. I prematurely posted and hadn't done the detailed reading. Was excited about the new hub... Then realised I won't be able to look at it for a few days potentially. So jumped in here to get feedback.. = me bad.
@sburke781 as usual.. Very valuable insight. I'm leaning towards migration option I think, as the json option to export individual rules for record to start writing from scratch would take ages for all my rules.
Yeah, if it ain't broke, just migrate You can always chip away at them if you find some reason or benefit from re-writing them or transferring them to a tailored app.
I migrated my lighting C-7 to my C-8 shortly after it came out. I kept the C-7 powered down for a short period as a fallback if anything didn't work the way I needed it, but thankfully it was all fine. Admittedly I don't have a whole lot of Zigbee devices connected directly to HE nowadays (hue bridge mostly + Z2M), and no Z-Wave, so I avoided some of the pairing issues a small number of people experienced.
That reminds me, and I think it's pointed out in the notes, but a small amount of prep would be advisable, at least by me, to assess links you may have to the hub, so external systems that talk to HE. Plan how you will manage that when migrating to the C-8, e.g. find any configuration in those systems you may need to update.
As long as @peterbrown77.pb ’s C-5 has the internal z-wave radio it will migrate. It’s the same for Zigbee; it has to be the internal radio in order to migrate.
Z-Wave migration is supported to and from any hub model using internal radios, as long as it is the same or newer model as the hub being migrated from. This includes migration from:
any hub C-7 or newer
any C-5 hub if using the internal radio (the default configuration for North America)
certain C-5 or older hubs if the external Z-Wave adapter in use us the Z-Wave.meadapter (other adapters are not supported)
When I migrated, everything worked straight away, including Homebridge and Alexa. I did change the IP address assigned to the new hub to match the old hub (via the router) prior to applying the database and radio restore. I gave the new hub's IP address to the old hub in case I wanted to use it later (which I did).
Just gotta love the community here. I'll be migrating over for sure now... Rather than starting from scratch. I'll go read the forum topic again on details but there has been some great feedback on that here.
Ah ok. I'm in Australia so I have the external radio on my c5. So seems I'll need a little more work?
Thanks I'll do this.
I'll do this as well, just in case it makes one less headache.
Question... Would it be an option to use both hubs? I'm thinking no and it will only make things less seemless... So really this was a crazy thought and talking myself out of it as I type.
Where the Crazy thought was coming from was then the zwave stays on the c5, potentially keeping repeaters for the xiaomi stuff as well on it.. However it seems even them the transfer over to the c8 wouldn't allow all but the zwave stuff... Then the rules that include zwave and zigbee and common variables....
Yep scrap this idea.... But it may lead to someone saying keep the second hub for....
I have 4 hubs that are the major components of my total home automation system.
I chose to split my devices by area. One hub handles downstairs, one hub handles upstairs. Others suggest you split by ZWave and Zigbee. In other words, there's enough choice available to handle your needs.
The 'secret sauce' for running multiple hubs is HubMesh, the builtin mechanism to mirror devices between hubs. You tell the hubs about one another, and then select the real devices to share. In your example, you'd tell your Zigbee hub about some or all of the ZWave devices and the ZWave hub could get told about some or all of the Zigbee.
That's it. From then on, each hub appears to have their own devices as well as any that have been shared/mirrored. Automations running on either hub just select devices by name and have no care as to the actual hub, HubMesh takes care of that part.
You can always chip away at them if you find some reason or benefit from re-writing them or transferring them to a tailored app.
