I’ve searched the forums and for some reason i can’t find a specific thread for what i’m looking for. I’m currently using a Veralite system and want to move to Smartthings. Every device i have is Zwave. Is there a way to move all the info over to smartthings so that i don’t have to go to every single device and add it individually?
No, you have to do it one by one.
wait, i finally found instructions in another thread. are you saying these are false?
you can use the SmartThings Dashboard to simply clone your existing Z-Wave network and switch controllers. Note this is a z-wave standard function and you can do the same to go from SmartThings to Vera or other.
To do so from the Dashboard
Click the 3 bars (top left)
Click the Gear icon
Scroll to where it says Hubs, and select the right arrow
Select Z-wave Utilities
Select Join or Leave Existing Z-Wave Network
Select Join
Note it may not always work the first time and you should ensure you are fully committed to the swap before proceeding. I’d also backup your existing VERA config prior to swapping.
I was able to do this before Christmas with no issues, but you will probably also have to run a Repair Z-Wave Network function.
If you could give the link to the post, that would be helpful, but that looks like a situation where the person is joining their smartthings as a secondary to the Vera primary. Not replacing the vera primary with the SmartThings primary.
SmartThings is certified as a Z wave controller at the basic level, but it does not support all advanced functions. In particular, it does not support “controller replication” which would be the usual way of handing off from one primary to another. That would be “cloning the controller and switch controllers” and SmartThings just doesn’t support that particular function. (Vera does, which may be why the original poster was confused.)
Here is the official conformance statement posted on the Z wave alliance website for the vera hub. Note that it supports “controller replication”
http://products.z-wavealliance.org/products/1005/embedpics
And here’s the one for smartthings. Note that it does not.
And here’s the official SmartThings support article on adding the SmartThings hub as a secondary to another primary. It looks to me like this is what the post that you found was discussing.
So you’re going to end up with two possibilities.
A) you add the SmartThings hub as a secondary to vera, vera copies over all the information, some magic occurs, The role of primary gets transferred, and everything works just fine.
That’s what you want, I just don’t know if it’s going to happen.
B) you add the SmartThings hub as a secondary to vera, vera copies over all the information, But it doesn’t transfer the role of primary to SmartThings. That means you would not be able to add new Z wave devices to SmartThings once this transfer had occurred. Because vera would still own the network.
The interesting thing is that you could even unplug the vera and all your stuff would work fine, you just wouldn’t be able to make new network changes like adding or removing devices.
So it’s possible that some people put themselves in situation B, thought they were in situation A, and just didn’t know it because they hadn’t tried to add or remove any devices.
You can certainly try it and see what happens. But before you decide that it worked, make sure you try adding yet another zwave device via SmartThings and see if that works.
appreciate the help. this was the thread:
it sounds like this person did this successfully to me but i’m not completely sure. i can try it like you said.
one thing though - if i do have to add all my zwave devices one by one, can i just unplug my vera so i have it as a backup just in case i want to go back? i don’t think merely adding a device to ST will delete it from vera unless i clear settings on each device
If you have to do it one at a time it will be clearing the old network information from each individual device in order to prepare it to be added to SmartThings. So you can certainly keep your vera but in order to use the devices with the vera they would have to be re-added to its network. Each individual Z wave device can have only one primary controller but a primary controller can have additional secondary controllers on its network.
That thread is quite old, about 18 months, and I see that someone asked in post 22 how to change the SmartThings controller from secondary to primary. So it does look like the method described is adding SmartThings as the secondary to the vera primary.
The original poster was @mmlabelle , so perhaps there’s another step involved.
You are correct that this is an old thread.
While you can setup the SmartThings hub as a secondary, you really need to be all in on one or the other. I had some specific programs on the Vera that I could not live without at the time, but have since fully transitioned, and transitioned a 2nd time to the Hub 2.
The easiest answer is simply z-wave exclude your existing z-wave devices and then re-pair them to the new Hub. This is the simplest and easiest way.
You can put the Vera in exclude mode then simply go to each switch and flic it, press the appropriate button etc until they are all off the Vera, then start including on your Smartthings Hub.
There is a bug in the iOS client that may not show a device as paired one the interface unless you do it from the Marketplace screen.
It is annoying to have to unpair and re-pair but it is the fast and safest way.
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