Migrating to a new hub

I was unfortunately hit with a bad firmware update that fried my zigbee functionality. SmartThings tried to repair it but is not able to bring back my existing hub to 100% functionality. They sent me a replacement hub - yippee! - and now I am forced to undertake a very laborious manual migration to the new hub. I have about 100 devices and lots of automation and I leverage home monitoring. Any thoughts on the best place to start and any migration tricks I should be aware of?

I was just looking for the same advice! Was wondering if I could have both hubs up at the same location while I’m migrating.

I don’t think that is possible as sensors and devices can only be paired to one hub at a time. But at least if you do it that way you can start with the Zigbee devices first while the old hub is still working for some devices. Then slowly remove a few devices at at time and transfer to new hub. Just in the IDE create new location.

I was thinking I could unpair the devices from one and re-pair to the other immediately, or no? I’m concerned about the ST open/close sensors, those are a pain.

You should be able to do that, but you have to name the new hub something other than you have the old hub.

Yes absolutely! That was my first thought as well :slight_smile:

I did notice the new hub I got was Z-Wave Plus!

I think all V2 hubs are Z-Wave plus.

I pre-ordered my first hub right after V2 was announced. Maybe it was z-wave plus, but it has no indication stickers or anything. I’m attached two pics showing the difference. Also, my first hub says “SmartThings” the new one has the “Samsung SmartThings” designation.

Just noticing the differences :slight_smile:

<img src="//cdck-file-uploads-global.s3.dualstack.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/smartthings/original/3X/2/c/2c46d508e633f5bf9571fdef28723886a94d22a8.jpeg" width=“281” height="500>

I remember reading a post that they change manufacturing vendors a few months back.

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Get an Aeon Labs/Aeotec Minimote and use it to exclude and include your Z-Wave devices. I read about this somewhere else in the community. You simply press exclude on the minimote (after the minimote is included in your hub) and then trigger the exclude mode on your device. This is much quicker than doing so in the app and allows you to exclude devices that may not be able to communicate with the hub without moving the device closer to the hub - no fun for hardwired devices. After including the devices with the minimote (the minimote must be paired with the new hub to include), then click add devices in the app and they show up all at once.

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About to embark on a manual migration of about 60 devices. What is the agreed upon best approach? Best to unpair one at a time? Is there something I can do to unpair in bulk?

Alexa is my biggest external integration. Small webcore/IFTTT usage.

Thanks

Not sure if things have changed significantly since this thread, but I just started migrating and although not automatic, it does not appear to be too difficult.

I added my new v3 hub to my location.
I logged in to the IDE at https://graph.api.smartthings.com/
I edited each device and changed the associated hub.
So far, so good. No gotchas yet.

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This won’t work for Zigbee and Z-Wave devices as they won’t be paired to the new hub.

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Is everything still working properly after your migration? I’m thinking about upgrading and have a ton of devices that will need to migrate. Your method is enticing me to seriously think about it.

After you added the v3 hub, you simply just changed the hub name in the settings in the IDE to the v3 hub name?
Thanks!

The specified method will not work for ZigBee and Z-Wave devices. Any implication otherwise is inaccurate or incomplete.

Well, there goes that thought! Thanks for the response. :+1:t2:

If you move the devices as mentioned there and re-pair them to the new hub would Smartthings assign/pair them correctly?

I am just playing with the idea. I think it was just incomplete. (I am absolutely aware what you wrote before, but thinking how the system would handle it.)

It might … but certainly might not. The use of the IDE is not intended for consumers - only developers.

Use of the IDE to manipulate your hub and device data in undocumented ways may have completely unpredictable or unstable results.

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Hi Neil,

No, it is not. They appeared to move over, but the all ended up dropping offline and I had to remove and re-add them. On top of that, the automations using IFTTT that used simulated sensors, just disappeared and I had to recreate
those simulated devices by hand (the handlers remained, but the devices did not). I have 43 physical devices and a handful of virtual.

Some devices were resistant to switching and I had to find factory resets for several. I have one power outlet (GE like some of my others) that will not give a status back to the SmartThings app, however Google Assistant
can still control it.

All-in-all it’s a cluster.

The hubs will work in conjunction in the same Location, so my recommendation is stand both up, then migrate one device at a time at your leisure.

Sorry it’s not better news,

Mark

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