It's been some time since I was this excited for the arrival of a new piece of tech, and I have that oh so sweet 'out for delivery' tracking notification pinned in a tab on my screen for my new C-8 Pro. Maybe I'm more excited at seeing the beginning of the end for my Vera Plus.
I've already documented my automations and my device list. Once I get it unboxed, registered and updated, I can't decide if I'm better to poke at it gently with one or two devices and actions, or just rip off the bandaid, unplug the Vera and dive right into exclusion mode.
When I moved from Smartthings I ran both hubs and transitioned as made sense. Keep in mind that building your mesh out from the hub is the best practice.
In general, migrating from one Hub to another is tedious, not hard. You'll have to exclude each device and then Include it. That can all be done on your new C-8 Pro, which suggests that turning off your Vera to reduce interference is a good idea.
Follow good mesh building practices, build outward from the Hub and powered devices before battery devices. As you start building out, your Vera mesh will dissolve. If you have one or two devices that route for a number of devices, obviously migrating that one device kills routing for all the devices that used it. Again, this suggests turning off Vera and proceed as if ripping-off-the-bandaid is the plan. Do not proceed if any Exclusion fails. You should expect to see "Unknown Device Excluded" messages with each and every device. Besides it being mandatory for a manual migration, it remains a good way to avoid Ghosts.
I also agree with @csteele, would be best to just power off the Vera and then do everything on the C8. For Z-wave first run exclusion to reset the device, then inclusion. You can also optionally factory reset the device before the exclusion if you want. Some devices factory reset themselves when you exclude, some do not. Work from hub outward and do battery devices last so you have a solid mesh of repeaters before adding battery devices.
If you have Zigbee at all, those you just factory reset and then include, there is no exclusion.
If you have 300 series Z-Wave devices you should look to replace them. Some get them to work, but all keeping them does is add opportunities for frustration/failure.
Mesh concerns aside, I'm going to pick a room and use that to first wrap my head around the UI and this modular app-based architecture. The laundry room is at the far end of things, doesn't interact with any other automation, has no repeating devices and gives me 1 zwave door contact and 1 zigbee bulb to experiment with. Once I've had a chance to poke and prod, I can factory reset the hub and do things properly with some basic familiarity under my belt.
All the same, walking in after work today and just yanking the power out of the Vera is still pretty tempting. I just can't see myself spending a few days having to turn lights on and off manually like some sort of caveman.
Factory Reset is not normally needed, but that's because it has a (perhaps) more specific definition around here. There is a hidden menu click that will do a factory reset, perfect for when you want to sell your C-8 Pro for the C-12 in 4-5 years. But you would just reset the ZWave Radio and probably the Zigbee Radio followed by a Soft Reset. The difference is that any Registration and Subscriptions don't get reset too.
Hi,
I had two Vera's and two Hubitat's running nicely together for a couple of months, different z-wave home networks should not interfere. I first added some new device to Hubitat to get familiar with it. Then added Multi System Reactor(MSR) and moved nearly all my logic to that. Then I could unpair a device from Vera and pair on Hubitat, updated the rule(s) in MRS with no impact to the WAF factor. The last ten or so devices I did in two days.
It is never smart to add a large number of z-wave devices to a hub in a very short time. Take it slow, let things settle between changes. Taking it slow also increases the changes to have things still running when it is bed time.
Now I have my rules that are Hubitat only in Rule Manager. Rules that are very complex, or need what I still have on openLuup and now on HASS, are using MSR that talks to all three platforms (and more).
This was my migration approach. You mileage may vary.
Thanks for the heads up. I'll watch for that when the time comes.
Either way, sometimes the best way to learn a new device, software or solution really well is to start by breaking it. I was the child who like to take apart his toys instead of play with them.
When I switched hubs, I slowly moved everything over over the course of a week or so. During that time, I just had a regular, dumb house. It gave my mesh time to settle and it's very solid. It also helped me prioritize which automations were the most important to me.
Give some thought to the overall structure you want. There were a few instances where I was too excited and set something up fast. Now, a year later, some things are a bit slap-dash and I'd like to fix them, but it would be almost like starting over to redo it the right way. I'd rather have a few weeks of a dumb house that is built in a way that will be flexible for years to come, then have a smart house that works, but adding to it takes extra thought later.
I migrated from Vera plus in a few hours. I YANKED the plug on my Vera plus. Do your AC powered devices first. Rebuild your zwave network then do your battery devices. I was able to use my iPad when excluding/including while keeping the hub near the PC which is 8 ft from its final resting position. I’ve got a contact sensor outside and 75ft away that was able to communicate just fine during in/exclusion. It will take some time and trial and error to get Rule Machine under your control as you want. RM will do most everything automation wise you want. Group your devices accordingly. I use “Rule:” as a prefix for rules in RM, “Group:” for groups, and “Routine” for things that have actions called from rules. Just my preference. Hub variables are global and can be useful for lots of rules to reference such as variables that change based on modes. Local RM variables are not capable of being global. You’ll want to define your modes, day, night, midnight, predawn, morning, before you get too deep into rules.
The folks on here are a great help if you hit a wall.
Just my nickel based on my particular experience in the migration from Vera and reactor
But you would just reset the ZWave Radio and probably the Zigbee Radio followed by a Soft Reset. The difference is that any Registration and Subscriptions don't get reset too.
