Migration to V2 - Hurdles and Best Practices

Support’s new article on their recommended migration steps:

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Wow I was hoping to run the 2 hubs side by side and do a gradual migration. I’m hoping this is their ideal way and I can still do a slow migration.

No way I can do this in one day. Took months get things setup to this point, I’ve tweaked devices, device type and smart apps code though IDE to suit my personal needs… UGH If it has to be done all at once I may just have to stick with the V1 hub and sell the V2. We will see.

Also what about devices we can’t delete. My Ubi’s are terrible about leaving go of devices so I have orphaned devices I just can’t delete and the Ubi’s are tied to almost all my devices it means they will not be able to be deleted. Only way around this would be to delete both Ubis, which means I will have to rebuild all those rules also which is another days work.

Add in Amazon Echo, smart tiles and IFTTT and well it just keeps adding up.

There should be a better way, I can’t imagine the time it will take someone with a larger system I only have 48 devices.

If it has to be done all at once I may just have to stick with the V1 hub and sell the V2. We will see.

My plan is to basically duplicate my config but using virtual devices. Plan to take all my smart apps and modify the devices they interact with to their virtual counterpart. That should free up each real device to be removed and included into the new hub. Then I can setup each app in the new hub as a mirror of the corresponding app controlling the virtual devices in the old hub… May be overkill to duplicate all of my config but I know without doing it I’ll miss some smart app or something because I got in a hurry to get the device moved over :slight_smile:

Yes, you can. You will have to create a new location for V2 and you can move your devices from V1 to V2 one by one. Both hubs will work, each in its own location.

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Thanks geko :grinning:

In order to avoid missing SmartApps, their settings, and configurations, another way around is to log in to your account; go to “My locations”, click “Installed SmartApps”. You will find all of your installed SmartApps and their configurations including devices being used by those apps. You can then do screen capture, web crawler, or whatever to get those metadata for your hub V2 setup. Personally, i found this is the easiest way for me to migrate all of my installed SmartApps.

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Oh thank god. I’m estimating I’ll have time and patience to migrate 5 devices per day = 25 days!

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So it looks like my hub 2 is on its way (says shipment status: ready) is there a certain way or order we should remove stuff from our old hub to go to the new hub?

You can edit virtual devices from the “Device List”. By changing “Location” and “Hub”, a copy of your virtual device will appear in another hub (which is also another location).

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Presumably only possible if the Virtual Device Instances are not in use by any installed SmartApps, right?

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This is downright painful for someone like me who has 90+things, integration with various vendors, etc. since I won’t be taking advantage of video streaming until RTSP is released to community and I have a standby generator for my house, the two biggest reasons to upgrade aren’t as critical to me. With many people starting to migrate, the cloud should perform better and become more stable. For once, I will be patient, let all the bugs and kinks get worked out and for ST to release a migration tool…

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PM me buddy! Here’s an offer for v2. 45$. :wink:

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In a comment on the SmartThings Blog, CEO @Alex writes that it took himself 3 hours for 200 devices and “was nice”. Really?

That’s incredibly fast, but he is an expert in the product, I presume.

Alex Hawkinson to Teeter Von Schnauzen
2 days ago
We feel your pain on that one. I went through the migration with 200+ devices in my own home. It took about 3 hours and was nice to have a fresh setup once I got into a rhythm with it, but we know it would be better to have as much of the device migration as possible be automated. We plan to have a migration tool by the end of the year. In the meantime you can use the new app fully as the only things missing without the V2 Hub will be offline functions and video support.

Anyone else have such a relatively reasonable migration time for a similarly large home? I have 60 devices, so I should expect to be done in well under an hour, right (200 per 3 hours = 66 devices per hour).

If experiences like that of the CEO are common with the ST staff, then I’m not surprised that there is no migration tool, as they can’t be genuinely empathetic to the real effort required…

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I can totally see that. Exclude/ include, no apps to migrate.

So you’re inferring that the CEO of SmartThings, @Alex, had and has no SmartApps installed, despite having 200+ Devices? In other words, zero “smarts” (automations, alerts) in his mega smart home?!? That’s unlikely, don’t you think?

“200+ devices…”

I want to see the video.

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Well, let’s face it, I am willing to bet it was 3 hours. But it wasn’t Alex alone doing the work.

How many people hours did it take?

With 10 people, I could easily see 200 devices and smartapps migrated in 3 hours. :smile:

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I don’t believe this for a second. I migrated 120 devices and all of their smart apps from one hub to another, and it took a full day to do it. And, I knew what I was doing also. Every motion sensor has to be taken down, opened, reset, included into the new hub, and then put back up wherever it was mounted. That is not a quick process, and no amount of familiarity with the system can speed it up. Likewise with z-wave devices. I have buried Aeon microswitches, buried in electrical boxes. Got to open the box, obtain access to the Aeon device, exclude it; come back later and include it, restore the box, etc. etc.

200 devices in 3 hours is not credible.

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I have over 180 devices (only a handful are virtual), and I recently had the need to move all of them. I can tell you that it took me way longer than 3 hours.

My wall switches (all GE but 1) were super easy to exclude and reinclude back to the hub without having to drag the hub around. I never moved it from its location, and I only had to tap the switch once and waited a few seconds for the hub to find it. I started with switches closest to the hub and moved outwards from the hub to to opposite side of the house, even under the house and in the attic. I had zero problems adding back over 75 GE switches, outlets, and fan controllers.

I also have a ton of Ecolink zwave door/window sensors that were moved. As with my GE switches, they were relatively easy to exclude and reinclude. Some caused me to yell four letter words at them while trying to reinclude, but they all got added back without having to drag the hub around.

I also had a handful of Everspring contact sensors and motion sensors, and Utilitech devices, First Alert smokes, and Philio devices, all added back easily without having to drag the hub around.

I also have a good number of zigbee sensors - PEQ/ST motion sensors, leak sensors, and humidity sensors. Guess what? I added them all back without having to drag the hub around.

The ONLY device I had where I needed to drag the hub within a foot or so of the device was my Vizia RF VRCS2-MRZ Z-Wave 2-Button Scene/Load Controller. That PITA would not pair without the hub right next to it, and it was a PITA to pair as well.

So, 3 hours? No way, how about more like 3++ hours every day for a week, and then time for SmartApps.

If I had to do it over again, I would add back any repeaters first, then sensors next, then switches starting closest to the hub and working out. Switches are dependent on sensors to help with automation. If sensors are there first you’ll save yourself a ton of time setting up switches and automation, instead of having to go back and redo stuff after sensors get added. Trust me on this one. That was a huge lesson learned early in the process.

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So 200 devices in 3hrs. Lets do the math thats 1.11 device per minute. He must run super fast to cover that much ground excluding and including devices yet alone deleting, adding, configuring, smart apps, and everything else. Maybe he can do house calls for us. :smiley:

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