Unable to pair a Zwave GE Dimmer

I am on day 1 of the hubitat hub, and I am having some teething trouble. Like a few people here, I have been on Smartthings for a while, and all my devices are paired with that hub.
I decided to take two devices and migrate those over to HE.
The first one a z-wave motion sensor from monoprice. I had no problems removing it from the old hub and adding it to HE.
The second one is the GE Zwave Dimmer (not Zwave plus). I am not able to pair this device at all. I was also having issues removing it from Smartthings using the app. Even Force Remove wasn't working. I then went into the IDE, and was able to delete the dimmer from there.
Followed that up by factory resetting the dimmer (turned the switch to the off position, cut power to the switch using the tab and followed by inserting that back in and pressing UP ten times in quick succession)
Now I try to pair this with HE, and no luck. Steps I followed after the reset to pair with HE

  1. Start discovery on HE
  2. Press the UP button on the dimmer

I then tried to re-pair it with Smartthings, and that hub was able to find the dimmer. I have now tried the factory reset and re-pair thing twice and on both occasions, HE has not been able to find the dimmer, but Smartthings finds it

Any pointers on what I may be doing wrong? Ideally, the exclusion from Smartthings should have been clean, but that isn't the case either.

Thanks

Most of the non Z-wave plus GE switches and dimmers do not have a reset procedure. Therefore, the only way to reset them is to use Exclusion. I suggest using the ST Hub to perform general exclusion. You may need to move the hub near the physical switch. You can also use the Hubitat hub for general exclusion, but I have had more luck using the ST hub...

I had trouble with a few of mine when i jumped. I put smartthings back into exclusion mode (even though the device was not listed) and pressed up-down-up on my ge switch. Then I did the reset (the one pulling the air gap and pressing up a bunch of times. Llike 10. It was in a youtube video.) Then I was able to pair it to HE. I can't say that this is THE way to do it but it worked for me.

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If you have a Minimote or can get your hands on one, they work great to do device exclusions. Just put it next to the switch, open the cover, push the minus/exclude button, and turn the switch on or off. This is how I did all of my GE switches, no issues pairing them to HE.

Wow!! Thank you!! That worked to exclude the device. HE even discovered the dimmer. It then was stuck on 'Initializing for about 10 minutes, but eventually came through.
Now on to my first Rule Machine rule :slight_smile:

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Great Idea. I will get those out as I pick up speed on my conversion from Smartthings to HE

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Good ol' rule machine. It's different thinking, but Bruce is never far away. If you need help with a rule, please post it in the rule machine topic. I've had lots of help in that neck of the woods. Once you get the thinking straight, you'll be ok. Start simple. There's also an entire write-up in the documentation section of the community that explains the features. Use that to refer to. Good luck!

One more question..now that I am starting tinkering with rules again, I may also be needing some new switches. Are GE zwave plus switches better than the Zwave ones in terms of reliability, or are there other brands that are considered better than GE? I have alway bought all GE switches and dimmers

Subjective Alert!

Everything is better than GE, but there's only one bad thing about GE... They don't implement the air gap "properly" in my opinion. I have heard their latest latest (not known that those have made it to a shelf near you yet) are implemented correctly.

Leviton are very good, Innovelli is (was) great, but they are out of stock as they change manufacturing. Zooz is very good, HomeSeer is very good, some love the lights along the edge.

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I have all GE switches in my house and they're working just fine. I HAD an inovelli and it went crazy. I ended up removing it. But it had scenes. Something I really didn't need. Zwave plus is the "new" protocol. What you like IS subjective. You'll find that some look better than others. Some look cheap and thin. I went all GE because I Like everything to match. The paddles match the dumb switches in my house. Not to mention the price is ok on them. I can't speak for the others, because I only have GE, but I've had good luck with them.

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