None of this has anything to do with the ability or inability of SmartThings to associate a replacement Device to SmartApps and Groups / Rooms.
I propose (and have always proposed) that the network protocol specific steps (i.e., remove and add Devices to the hub / network) should be a distinct step from adding / removing the Device from SmartThings’s cascaded relationships to the Device Object Record.
Anyway … this is not an appropriate forum for this type of discussion. Sorry.
I am with you on that @alex. But for those of us with small kids at our hip all the time…That is an impossible scenario and we Really do need that migration app; not to leave out other people like @JDRoberts who are just not capable of a 3 hour migration sprint and do need that extra bit of help. My father is also handicapped and can’t walk from light switch to light switch to migrate; and I am currently setting up his place with ST devices. Help all of us out.
But Terry you are completely ignoring the key exchange and security layer in zigbee (and a few zwave devices) This is why a simple change to the database isn’t good enough to migrate the mesh.
Even spoofing the mac of the hub isn’t allowed. Short of re-pairing things or writing something non-standard based is the only real ways to migrate devices, especially zigbee.
Grrr…!!! Yes, I agree with that – My outline / proposal does not include “mesh migration” in its scope. I have never offered a mesh migration solution.
This is apparently extremely difficult for me to express properly in a forum here, which is why I said:
Regardless … I’ll try to explain yet again…
I completely acknowledge that physical / network / mesh layer migration is a difficult problem for various reasons. Perhaps I underestimate that it is only 30% of the total migration effort – it seems that unpairing and pairing can actually be 60% or 70% of the effort.
The only portion of the problem that I feel is easily solved is to eliminate the need to manually deconfigure Devices from their Groups and SmartApps, and then manually reinstall and reconfigure those SmartApps with the exact same Devices on the new Hub. That is the entire portion of the migration scope that is independent of the physical networking issues, and yet is a non-trivial portion.
I believe that the complexity of a “well automated SmartThings home” is mostly in the task of choosing and configuring SmartApps (with their many lists of devices, schedules, options, etc), not in the adding / removing of devices.
Where SmartThings fails us worst, at this time, is that you cannot remove a device if it is associated with any installed SmartApp.
A significant fact here is that this “inability to remove / replace / migrate a device that is attached to a SmartApp” affects multiple use cases that are not migration related.
Devices (“Things”) will fail from time to time, and there is always a chance that you have a “dozen” SmartApps associated with that Thing (e.g., a Motion sensor that is used in Alarm, Several Automatic Lighting Modes, Child Activity Monitoring, …). We need to be able to swap out a failed physical device for its replacement without having to manually edit those “dozen” SmartApps!
Since this seems to be the go-to thread for moving from v1 to v2, could someone please review the below plan and point out where I may be stumbling?
Document existing SmartApps, their settings (if necessary) and backup any custom device types (clipboard I guess?)
Remove all SmartApps
Un-pair all ZigBee devices
Un-pair all Z-Wave Devices
Remove all location devices/people.
Remove Hue hubs and IFTTT pairings (not sure if this is required)
Remove Amazon Echo connect (needed?)
Remove “home” location from v1 Hub
Reset v1 hub (needed?) to factory
Plug in and begin setup of new hub - pair devices, setup smartapps, etc. etc.
Does that about sum it up?
Danke!
This should not be required, thankfully!
Custom Device Types, and the source for any custom SmartApps pasted into the IDE, belong to your “Account”, not “Location” or “Hub”.
An Account can have many Locations, but there is very little that can be done across Locations right now. Sharing of custom Device Types is one. You can likely even move some Devices from one Account to the other using the IDE My Devices screen… probably only works for Virtual Devices, since you can’t move installed controller SmartApps.
BTW: Currently a Location can have at most 1 Hub.
Good to know! I do have some virtual switched that I’ll try to move over then, thanks!
I believe you will need to re-link IFTTT and Echo to the new hub since presently only one hub per SmartThings Account can interact with 3rd party integrations.
And Ubi, etc.
For these reconnects to work you have to completely unistall the SmartApp from any and all your Locations first.
Can I have both hubs connected at the same time? For instance, what if I miss something in this process and only realize it when try to connect to a service or a device, can I connect to the old hub and disconnect said service/device later?
I’ve given authorization to several services, more than I listed and not all I can remember.
You can only have one hub per “location,” so you would have to set each one up as a separate location with separate devices in your account. They cannot control the devices of the other one.
I was able to get my 35 or so devices done in about two hours. I now need to go back and setup all the automation.
The only thing I couldn’t get re-joined is my aeotec home energy monitor v1. I need to get that one figure out.
Great, got one of those too! Lemme know what you come up with?
I am going to install my v2 hub at a new location and keep the old location as is minus some sensors. Will it be possible to have an Amazon Echo at each location? Maybe I need to put each of them on a separate amazon accounts? Or do I just need to make sure not to duplicate device names and each Alexa will be able to control all of the devices at both locations?
The way smartthings authorizes third-party services like Amazon echo, or IFTTT, it appears that no matter how many different third-party accounts you set up, you will only be able to authorize access to one of your smartthings locations per smartthings account.
So each echo will only be able to work with one of your locations.
And even if you set up two Amazon accounts, you still can only get to the one smartthings location.
I think if you set it up as two different smart things accounts then you could certainly assign each echo to a different Amazon account and assign one echo per smartthings location.
The problem comes when you only have one smartthings account.
If I can figure it out I’ll post back. I’ll also ping support after I get the hub if I can’t get it to work.
See the following thread
I’ve got two v1 hubs at two locations and have worked this issue with support for awhile. Currently its just not possible without having 1 location per SmartThings Account. Now what I will probably end up doing is have one location utilize native echo integration, and another use a hue emulator method. I suspect that should work fine since there are two distinct OAUTH smart apps involved there (1. echo and 2. Custom REST endpoint) but I’ve yet to reconfigure the emulator solution I had setup prior to native echo integration. keep in mind this will (should) work for echo but not for other integrations like IFTTT, SharpTools, etc… For those I simply have to pick a hub whose devices I want to interact with at any given time.
As far as v2 goes, if having any of these services for both of your hubs right now is important and worth the hassle of having two smartthings accounts then I suggest you combine the creation of the new account with the migration of devices to v2. Like the v2 migration, the implementation of getting a new account requires a device tear down/re-setup. Piggy backing that process onto the migration’s tear down would be best. If you can wait then hopefully enough people getting v2s will become multi-hub accounts and it will drive prioritization of a resolution to this unanticipated limitation.
Thanks that saves me quite a bit of testing and head scratching.
The other one I have that caused me a few minutes of trouble was the Nyce window / door sensor. Push the inside button 10 times fairly rapidly and wait until the lights flash 3-4 times. Then take out the battery and put it back in about 10 seconds later. It will come right up in the discovery.
You forgot beer for step 11 after every xx devices (you pick the value). I did over 180, devices not beer. Not fun, but I was stumbling afterwards. Surprisingly everything worked when I was done!