Temporary devices

I have some temporary devices that I use during the holidays like outdoor plugs. When I remove them from the z wave mesh for the off season, will they mess up my mesh? Is there something I can do to disable the devices so hubitat isn't looking for the devices I unplugged? Any thoughts?

Best to exclude them at the end of the season and then include them again next year. If you want to. Keep the rules in place, you substitute virtual devices in your rules for the Z-Wave devices before you exclude the device. Then after including the devices again next year, swap them in place for the virtual devices.

If the rules would react to time or other triggers and cause a problem throughout the year, you can also disable them.

https://docs.hubitat.com/index.php?title=Apps

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The rules won't run cause the are conditional on a virtual switch being thrown.

Maybe I should just keep them plugged in in the basement. Excluding and reincluding would be a pain

You can disable devices with the disable checkbox. If you don't have the checkboxes on your display. cllick on the little gizmos on the right arrow.

While it's true you can disable the device driver, you can't unplug a Z-Wave device and leave it in the drawer without your Z-Wave mesh suffering. Mains powered Z-Wave devices participate in the repeating of the mesh, Just removing them will cause issues and you'll have to rebuild.

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That won't stop them from participating--or at least wanting to--in your Z-Wave (or Zigbee) network. It just disables the Hubitat driver from running. Repeating is handled at a lower, protocol level. Most devices will eventually figure this out (at least with Z-Wave Plus or Zigbee), but I'd second the advice to politely remove them.

But if you can leave them plugged in at the same location: great!

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What about plugging them in in a different location and doing a z wave repairs after I move them?

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That will work. As long as you don't add stuff after the temporary devices are in place and then move them. That could make things behave badly. A rebuild is a must. Z-Wave plus should eventually rebuild the neighbor tables, but don't count on that always working correctly. Do a manual rebuild and give it time afterward.

That is a good second option, but if I'm moving it and not using it, I'm not sure I'd brother--the effort is about the same either way, and I definitely have enough Z-Wave repeaters on my network (I went all-in on Z-Wave Plus plugs once). But your needs may vary.

But if you do need a repeater in the "other" location, devices in its range may not like it when you move it to its seasonal location, so that's a problem you should solve. :slight_smile:

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I don t think I need the temporary devices to act as repeaters. I have plenty of repeaters throughout the house. Just wondering if better to unplug then it live to new location and plug in so they are still on the mesh. Alot of these are outdoor devices and devices in the house that turn on and off the Christmas tree and such

I should add: my plan for how to handle seasonal devices from an automation perspective is to use virtual "proxy" switches (e.g., "Christmas Tree") and then bind them to "real" devices, like whatever smart plug I happen to have free that year. This could be done with a rule or an app like Switch Bindings. That should eliminate the need to switch out devices in a bunch of apps/rules (especially with Z-Wave devices that will create new Hubitat devices if re-included).

This plan has yet to actually work in action. Last year was my (and most of our) first holiday season with Hubitat, and I've totally totally reset my hub and started from new since then because I decided it was easier to do that than fix things I set up when I was new and no longer liked. I'm hoping I won't decide to do that again in the next year, but no guarantees. :slight_smile:

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What about using another hubitat hub and just put seasonal devices on it. Could connect with hubconnect when I need it. Then I think hubconnect allows me to disconnect from a hub. Thoughts?

Seems excessive to do for just a month or two a year, but it would definitely avoid mesh issues in your "main" hub (most of which shouldn't really be a problem if you have enough repeaters and politely exclude/remove devices).

But not all of us.are known for not doing things others would consider excessive. :laughing:

After the holidays I unplug my 2 outdoor Z-Wave plugs and put them in the cabinet. I do not exclude them. Never any problems with my other devices. If you have issues with your mesh, then do a Z-Wave repair, maybe even schedule it for after the holidays.