So, I’m probably going to be building a brand new home next year. The new house will have z-wave switches, sockets, locks, etc. wired throughout the entire house by contractors. Has anyone attempted this? How does one go about adding all these new things to ST, not knowing what they actually are? How do you add pre-installed devices to the hub all the way on the other side of the house that may be out of range? Is this even possible?
Any sort of best practices or advice for adding a plethora of devices at one time?
Oh, rest assured, there will be drops everywhere, but I’m talking as far as adding the many different things… how do you name them short of giving them temporary names at the time of adding them, finding out what they control then renaming them to what they are/control?
I think you’re over-complicating this. Take your time; add them as you need them brought into the HA fold.
No point in setting it all up in one fell swoop to only have to go back and edit things later. SmartThings is lousy when you have to remove/replace a device, forcing you to uninstall or disassociate every app that references it.
I’ve had good luck over a spread-out house with Z-Wave repeaters and Zigbee repeaters as well (SmartPower outlet). I have Zigbee motion sensors, Z-Wave dimmers, outlets, switches and fan controls all over, and it all works pretty well. My hub is where it had to be, which isn’t ideal; but it doesn’t matter because it all works.
But if contractors are installing the hardware, then I would need to go back and exclude everything then include them one by one? Maybe I’m overcomplicating things like you said, but if I’m not the one installing components, what would be the easiest way to add them? We could be talking a hundred different things to attempt to manage.
There is no need to have them pair the devices. You can do this after they install them as you get time. You’ll find yourself including devices most important to you first. You may have to make a point of pairing those closest to the hub first to make sure the mesh fills out correctly. Out of my 135 devices, I have never had to move a device close to the hub to pair, though I understand some locks require it. I think you will have fewer problems if you do it this way.
Seems like you could also pair “the right ones” by turning off the breakers in the entire house and going through each section one at a time. Not the most ideal, but would get the job done ahead of time, if possible.