Hi all …I’ve been a Smartthings user for a few years now…I have about 120 devices. Over the last year I have suffered with the degrading lag to a point where home automation becomes more frustrating than convenient. I wish Smartthings offered a local operation mode.
My question: has anyone found an easy way to migrate devices to HomeSeer hub or do I have to deactive each then reactive each one on the new hub?
Helpful ideas welcome!
Thank you,
Paul
Check out the Hubitat Elevation hub in place of Homeseer, if you want local control. Others have done the migration so may be an easier route. I’m a happy Hubitat owner.
Regardless of the new hub you may choose, you will have to remove your devices (zigbee & z-wave) from the ST hub and add them to your new hub.
I don’t have 120 devices but I have transitioned what I have to ST from Wink and then I from ST to a new ST account. First, use the information in ST to document everything that you have going on now. I used an sortable excel spreadsheet to document all my units, unit types, unit names, associated smart apps and scenes. That will make it much easier to make everything operate the same way on whatever new platform that you migrate to. I would exclude all your Z-wave and reset all your Zigbee units prior to getting started. It will make it much easier than doing them one at a time while you’re trying to set everything up. If new your controller is wired, get a very long network cable. While the Z-wave mesh works extremely well once it’s established, pairing always works better when the hub and switch are in the same room. Most of this is common sense but I figured that I’d post it anyway.
If you do it all at once, my last bit of advice is to send your family on a weekend vacation during the transition. You can also do what I did and do it bit by bit. I did all my Z-wave stuff and left all the Zigbee on the old hub for a while. I had no problem using both hubs. Everything still worked with my voice assistants which is how my wife interfaces with most of the home automation.
I was beta tester on the original Homeseer program back in the 90s. It has grown a lot since then but it’s a little pricy for me now. I’m thinking about trying Hubitat.
Whereever you choose to go, take it from me, don’t try to do it piecemeal. Take a long weekend (or week) and just rip the band-aid off and move over everything, starting closest to your hub and moving outward to build a strong mesh. If you try to migrate slowly over time you’re going to find that your old mesh starts to get holes in it and the new mesh will have trouble establishing itself. Also, if you just go into “manual mode” for a few days, you’ll save yourself a lot of time and aggravation than trying to move some automations or pieces of things while keeping things going. Trust me, I don’t envy you the task. My system was a lot smaller when I moved to Hubitat last year, but just digging in and getting it done will make you a lot happier in the long run.