I'm trying to exclude a device (Fibaro) Using the Z Wave pressing exclude in HE, within 30 secs triple pressing the button on Fibaro. Nothing - the device remains connected. I've tried this on several devices. Where am I going wrong?
So many problems with Hubitat. Since starting to move devices across from SmartThings, I've got devices that are still in SmartThings activating without any input.
Remove power to the device. From the settings menu shutdown the hub. Unplug the HE (from the wall not from the hub) Wait 5 mins, power back up. Go to z-wave details page. You should see the remove button on the device line. If you do not, simply hit refresh button a few times and it will show. Remove. Check your devices page and make sure it's removed from there as well. After shutdown hub again, pull power (at wall) and wait 5 mins and power back up. Power up devices and reset to factory defaults
I feel your pain, as much as I genuinely disliked ST for all their frequent cloud failures, new UI with horrible performance and missing attributes, it did seem to keep my Z-Wave devices connected without much effort. But, I wouldn't go back to ST for all the tea in China, UK and Iceland as HE provides heads and shoulders better local execution, great user apps, and frequent OS updates!
So, when I migrated a few weeks ago, many of the Z-Wave devices were acting up, losing network mesh routes, ghosting, etc... I left some of my Zooz and Fibaro motion sensors on the C5 which is rock solid and using HE's Hub Mesh, they show up on the C7.
I ended up purchasing an Aeotec Z-Stick Gen5 Plus, Z-wave Plus USB/UZB and installed PC Controller software via VMWare Fusion/Win 10 on my trusty Mac to get these few Z-Wave devices to easily pair with no security (preferred) and perform excludes on those non responsive devices...
This extra step isn't ideal or at first easy to learn and certainly takes a few times to get the hang of it, but after a few hours you can clean up ghost devices, perform HE and device exclusions using the UZB stick. You can add devices with no security to reduce the extra security chatter in motion sensors and switches, etc...
Hopefully others can provide tips for you!
Wow that's a lot of hassle to remove a device. I ended up just excluding it using the smartthings app and then removing it in devices. The remaining 1 device is still showing everything thats excluded as neighbour nodes however.
Most of my Z-Wave devices exclude very easily from the HE app and my C5/C7. It is only infrequently that a stubborn Z-Wave device that has become unresponsive and has to be forced into exclusion and/or will not exclude normally that I find that the UZB is a handy item to have in your Home Automation tool kit....
Again way too much hassle. I'm prepared for Home Automation to be a hobby but not a full time job. My single SmartThings Hub version 2 tucked in the far corner of my house has no issues connecting to all of the devices I have so the thought of Hubitat needing additional hubs to get things working reliably bothers me.
Again, with all the growing issues going on with ST (e.g. new UI, Samsung killing off legacy functionality, engineering & developers departing, cloud outages/dysfunction, dropping ST branded devices, no Echo Speaks, etc), it's only a matter of time, IMHO, that their users with more than basic devices will have to leave them to maintain high home automation needs.
I was an early adopter of a ST V1 hub when they first came out, survived the migration to V2, and long time app developer. I really liked their platform offering and robust devices... but over the last year, they have disappointed so many of their long time users, I painfully removed over 70+ devices from ST and migrated to C7. I got to tell you, it was not easy but either was converting from a Blackberry to an iPhone and Windows to a Mac that I never looked back after a few weeks... I only have an older C5 hub as as a ST/HE developer, its really not needed for my home layout, but is nice to have redundancy as they say.
I also have tested Home Assistant (HA) on a RPi/4 and UZB and it does not come close to what I need in a hub like HE's C7. The HA platform might work for others wanting to go in that direction, just not for me.
So in summary, if ST works for your situation and home layout, stick with that strategy as long as you can. If all you have is mostly switches and motion devices, HE is lightening fast with local processing of events once the Z-Wave network mesh has established itself with redundant routes. My migration is getting better everyday...
I'd read a lot of similar comments regarding ST changes/outages and became concerned. As obvious as it was I'd never really worried about cloud vs local processing as I'd never experienced any ST outages, my internet tends to be rock solid and my setup has been very basic with only a few timing rules, and a few devices. ST supported that along with integrations for Harmony and Honeywell Evohome heating. Now I'm expanding my setup and want to add the rest of the lights, curtains, blinds and add some actual automation as opposed to remote control. I then realised that you can't back up your SmartThings either and the decision was made to find an alternative. I hope my migration gets better too....it just needs to work!
You sound like me a few years ago, it is exciting to get more automation devices integrated, like my Zebra (Grabber) shades, Ambient weather station, Harmony Remote(s), LG appliances, Amazon Echo's, Liftmaster MQ Garage doors, Honeywell Alarm, Evisalink, Ecobee, Kwikset, Sleep Number Bed, LIFX Color bulbs, etc...
I had every expectation of staying with ST for years to come, but each year the impact on Samsung on SmartThings is starting to show huge holes in their planned course. I really do not see them being the platform for advanced Home Automation, more than basic switch and motion sensors. Anything more than this will be kicked off their cloud servers and you will be faced with trying to host these on a local or fee based platform. This is too much for me to handle, so the HE C7 platform offers a means for me to incorporate my devices and many applications.
I am not a happy camper with the recent C7 Z-Wave radio which is flaky in its implementation of security inclusion. Reminds me of what I go through each time a vendor makes a significant upgrade to their 'transparent layer' and all my stuff goes flaky... Ugh!
But with time, all my marbles for home automation is based on HE as having a leg in ST and a leg in HE does not make sense in my implementation. I am days away from removing the ST hub, just have one vendor (SmartDry) that will not share code for their device which monitors my old drier's humidity and rotational spin. But we needed new washer and drier and we opted to purchase Wi-Fi enabled LG and their is an excellent robust real-time integration for HE. So, I will remove the SmartDry sensor and trash it since the vendor does not see the value is having an HE interface...
I hear what @johnwill1 is saying and I empathize with his install frustrations. I am a few weeks into my HE use and the initial setup is not an easy task. I switched from ST for many reasons, and ultimately I am happy that I did, but I never encountered any issues with ST. It was always the easiest automation product I owned.
When researching HE, the general consensus of most reviews is that if you are not tech savvy, it is not for you. Since I code, have experience with groovy, know my way around networks, and love to tinker with all tech gadgets, I put myself in the tech savvy category. I have less than 20 devices and all are mainstream z-wave products, but there were many times during the first week that I doubted my ability to even get HE up and running successfully. Let's face it, the process of adding/removing devices and getting your z-wave network stable is challenging and frustrating.
Thankfully, I was able to add all of my devices once I purchased UZB-7 stick and got PC Controller up and running. But it is strange that I was required to purchase a product to fix deficiencies in my new product. This can't be what Hubitat wants as a first customer experience.
Again, I am happy with my decision to migrate. But I can't yet say confidently that this is because of the functionality I gained with the new system, or because I am happy that I finally got it all to work. I agree that the community is amazing and generous with their time; they were essential to getting my devices setup. But this doesn't remove the frustrations that new users deal with when switching from a product they used for years without any difficulty.
This topic was automatically closed 365 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.
Download the Hubitat app
