Secondary Hub Questions

I asked a similar question a few weeks back but decided to dive into secondary hub integration before I received any response…but it did not go well. I had to reset all Zwave devices and both my ST hub and other (Staples Connect) hub which took way too long.

So…now I simply want to better understand the steps involved. I have a Staples Connect which does Zwave and Lutron Pico…this is great as a Pico remote can control any Zwave device. However, the SC platform is limited and no longer supported and I’d prefer to use my ST for everything but it does not support Lutron devices.

Step 1) I have read to remove/delete all Zwave devices from my SC hub (I did not do this the first time and resulted in major problems).

Step 2) Put my ST hub into Zwave learn mode and add my SC hub.

Now I’m not sure what to do. Do I add Zwave devices to SC or ST? Will these devices just “appear” on the other hub? Will I be able to take advantage of both hubs capabilities (SC Pico remote control of Zwave and ST for all of it’s capabilites) or only the lowest common denominator?

Any help would be appreciated.

Smartthings is really intended as a multiprotocol platform, and although it does operate as a primary Z wave controller, it only has the minimum commands required for that. It doesn’t do controller shift or controller replicate. So it just doesn’t work great with secondaries, although you can try.

As far as Lutron, we may be getting official smartthings/Lutron cloud to cloud integration this month. You will need to lutron smartbridge for this. The integration was announced at CES 2017, no specific timeline, but it’s up with a “coming soon” note on the lutron site.

Specifically with regard to using staples connect and smartthings, see the following project report from @KingPumpkin

As far as the order of devices if you want to try this:

One) add all the Z wave devices to smart things.

Two) add the Staples connect hub to SmartThings. At this point it should know all of the zwave devices that smartthings has.

After that, you will only be able to add new zwave devices to smartthings hub, but they probably will not show up on the staples hub unless you start all over again. Again, @KingPumpkin should know. :sunglasses:

Thanks @JDRoberts - That is helpful.
If I later have more Zwave devices to add to my ST, will removing the SC and then re-adding it allow it to see all of the new devices?

Should do. Every time you add a new zwave secondary controller to the SmartThings network it should get the list of current zwave devices.

I had a lot of Lutron Pico remotes when I switched over to SmartThings from Staples Connect, and using the Staples Connect as a secondary hub using this method worked great for me for use of the Picos. I have now changed over to Cooper RF9500 switches (remotes) and no longer need my Staples hub connected to my system, but I can’t seem to remove it from the SmartThings hub. I went into ST and selected the Staples hub in My Home list of things, and selected the red button to remove the item. Nothing happened, then it asked if I wanted to force the removal, so I selected that. It then told me the device had been successfully removed from SmartThings, When I go back to My Home, however, it is still there. Anyone know how to get it to go away?

OOPS…never-mind. After removing power from my Staples Hub and completely closing out my Smarthings App and logging back in, the Staples Hub is now gone.