The Nov 8th email that I received from Chris Cheng, Field Application Engineer for Aeotec stated that the SmartThings Team took a deep dive and made a number of suggestions which included the recommendation to “…remove the community virtual edge driver device (as it uses the most memory in terms of resources) which should be enough for the hub to successfully use the replace hub feature.”
So it was the SmartThings Team, not Chris who made this suggestion.
You gota feel for the developers, there getting blamed for things not working but have no way… as Tod mentioned, of knowing how much impact there drivers are having, if anything, because there is no proof.
ST have made the problem, ST should supply the tools to combat the issue or another way to combat the issue, release a proper new ST hub that does not have the same restrictions, which i have been calling for … forever it seems
Just so you’re aware, you can remove the vEdge creator device without affecting any virtual devices you’ve created. It will be reinstalled if you scan for new devices.
Right, Tod @TAustin ?
Not clear how much memory that will save but it’s worth a try if you’re pressing on with migrating.
Assuming that the various device-based hubs can participate in a hub replace action, does anyone know how much memory they have relative to the V2 hub?
Thanks for the suggestion HalD. I was aware of that, but I had not considered doing that to as a measure to reduce the v2 hub’s memory in order to perform the Hub Replace Feature. I wonder if I would need to reboot the v2 hub in order to register the reduction in RAM? I am also concerned about my ability to reinstall the vEdge creator device on the other side, assuming that I have a successful transfer to the Aeotec hub.
One thing that Todd was pondering about was making individual driver channels for the different types of virtual devices rather than include all virtual devices in a single app. He did this in part when he made his test driver channel for the “Alexa Multi-Trigger v0.1”. He recommended that I install this channel and replace my virtual contact devices with the Alexa multi trigger device since virtual contact switches represent the bulk of my virtual devices. He reasoned that I could then reduce memory by eliminating the “vEdge Creator v2.94” app.
Unfortunately, I also have need for two vEdge Presence switches and two vEdge Momentary switches. These switches are essential to my security automations related to the Ring Keypad and the STHM routines. I would need to source these virtual devices from another channel to be able to eliminate my need for Todd’s vEdge Creator app. If Todd where to create separate channels for the virtual presence and the virtual momentary switches, this may resolve the memory issue.
So I just changed all 20 of my vEdge devices from TAustin’s vEdge Creator app devices to the “Alexa Multi-Trigger v0.1” from Todd’s test driver channel. I then deleted and unenrolled from the vEdge Creator app.
I am now down to 94 Devices, 35 Edge Drivers and 12 Driver Channels. I went into both hubs and I deleted the forced “bose, Harmon Luxury, JBL, Philips Hue, Samsung Audio, Sonos, and Wemo” drivers. I rebooted both hubs and then tried the “Hub Replace”. The “Not enough memory…” message still presents. AUGH! 
Can anyone tell me why the device name is not correctly reflecting the driver change for all of my vEdge devices pictured below? All of these should display as " vedgealexasw.v2 ".
My “Live Demo of the SmartThings Hub Replace Feature” which documents my failed attempts to transfer data from my v2 hub to the v3 Aeotec hub is now live on YouTube, assuming anyone wishes to experience my pain. 
The video is a little lengthy at just over 21 minutes long.
My understanding is that the device name is assigned when the device is first created and doesn’t change after that. Is that not the case?
Maybe there’s still not enough memory because the size of the proposed backup from cloud hasn’t changed yet, im thinking it may be based on e n The drivers and devices before you made the changes. Maybe you need to wait a period of time for the new setup to be backed up and the try the migration again ?
In my humble opinion this feature is simply not going to work for anyone above the “15 device typical customer” unless you’re lucky. It’s obviously fraught with restrictions. I hope I’m wrong but I’m not hanging my hat on this one based on what I’m reading.
Yes, that’s right.
But what is it that really occupies the memory (what the Hub Replace seems to choke on), the vEdge Creator driver or the switches?
I moved nearly all of my Alexa virtual switches (50+) to the Multi Trigger. That must occupy a lot less presumably?
Seem rather basic and simple questions but I haven’t seen a clear answer anywhere, so I’ll ask you @TAustin.
…and as always greatly appreciated your work.
The driver has about 68 device profiles included to cover all the device types and variations. Each one of these device profiles brings in multiple device capabilities (supported attributes & commands). Some of those capabilities are custom defined, but I’ve strived to keep that to a minimum with this driver. The driver code itself (Lua script) has to include logic to process all those different device types and capabilities.
All of this - the device profiles, capabilities, and the driver logic, is loaded into memory on the hub - whether you are using it all or not. There is no concept of dynamically loading elements as they are needed, as in more sophisticated computing operating environments. Edge drivers were really meant to be smallish things, supporting only a handful of device types and capabilities, so the vEdge driver really pushes things.
As you add new vEdge devices, there is some incremental storage required for each one, but I’m guessing that’s probably not a lot relative to the driver itself.
So if you have the driver installed, it’s going to be taking up space whether or not you are using it, and regardless of how many devices you have defined.
Hopefully that makes sense.
SmartThings App prompted me with this Info Graphic this morning. Might come in handy in the future 
note: click it to view larger.
They missed this note out
Subject: Update from SmartThings Support ~ Hub Replace Feature
The following is the reply which I received from ST this morning. I consider this the final word on the subject.
The gist of the message is that there is not enough memory in the newest hubs to accommodate the the 95 devices that are on my v2 hub, which includes a few custom edge drivers and some virtual devices. My final device tally after eliminating all unnecessary devices and drivers is 95 devices, 20 which are virtual switches and a total of only 11 device drivers.
This is the outcome that I suspect we all anticipated. I will now post the response from ST Support followed my my reply to ST with a copy of the reply to Aeotec Support as well:
Thank you for your time and patience.
We have an update from our team I would like to inform you that the older V2 hub models support a higher level of memory resources than the Aeotec V3 models. If you have many different drivers, custom community built drivers, or virtual drivers these can cause an excess of memory resources being consumed on the source hub during a migration. When you attempt to start a hub replace migration you will see the error you are referring to.
We recommend cleaning out any unused drivers, and evaluating which custom/virtual drivers need to come over to the new hub. Once these have been removed to a sufficient level the migration will complete successfully.
If you still face any challenges please let us know.
The following is my reply:
Again, I am grateful to you and the SmartThings team for the research and assistance provided to me. I suspected this outcome because I am fully aware of the memory and processor downgrades that occurred in the v3 2018 SmartThings hub and the Aeotec hub, which is essentially a rebranded v3 ST hub.
I know that Samsung sold the equipment rights to Aeotec and that there is no intent on Samsung’s part to change the current hardware in the Aeotec hub. What confounds me, however, is why SmartThings made the decision to downgrade the hardware in the v3 hub. This makes no sense, particularly when memory continues to get less expensive and the advances in technology are getting increasingly complex, requiring more data resources.
I realize that it is now the responsibility of Aeotec to upgrade the hardware, which I think is critical to keep the SmartThings platform viable for the foreseeable future. As an influencer, I have maintained a strong loyalty to the SmartThings brand insisting that it is the sole smart home automation solution with the power and flexibility to seamlessly integrate all devices, eliminating the necessity for additional apps for non-native devices. However, considering the age of my 2015 v2 hub, the depreciation of the newest hardware, and the apparent lack of interest in developing a more capable hub, it may be time for me to consider other home automation solutions.
My Regards,
Bud ~ Bud’s Smart Home
For me, the most interesting thing in terms of future trajectory is the decision by Samsung to drop zwave from all the Samsung branded hubs, both the ones built into Samsung devices like soundbars and televisions, and in the standalone smartthings station hub.
I think they clearly foresee a future in which Home Automation becomes simpler and more commoditized. I’m not saying they’re right, but it looks like that’s their expectation, and they are making business decisions based on that.
Sadly it does currently appear that Smartthings is pushing users away that require stand alone hubs
I think the lack of Z-Wave and the fact that Thread and Zigbee share the same frequency suggests that ST may be betting on Matter in the long term.
Question about the 95 devices. Does that include ‘Linked Services’ cloud to SmartThings devices (like Ring, Arlo, TP-Link/Kasa, etc.), and geolocation smartphones, or is it just the Zigbee and virtual devices?
