Should I try Smarthings again - 2018 hubs with mesh? (Asia)

I live in Asia where the walls used in housing are think with rebar. I had major issues with z-wave and zigbee sensors not being stable. If I move the hub closer, sensor was fine.

The issue is that I have 2 floors of my house and despite trying repeaters and such I could never get the system stable so I gave up. Some of the ecolink sensors are still on the windows.

Enter 2018…

Can the new 2018 hubs be paired? meaning can an alert from one hub and an alert from another hub be joined to turn on a light?
Can I get a motion alert from floor 1 on hub 1 and turn on light 2 on floor 2 hub?

I started testing out ESP8266 boards on my own, even had a few going on MQTT but the battery life wasn’t great and the build time wasn’t worth it.

Anyone with some advise with a similar setup?

That isn’t really a Hub question, but rather a SmartThings architecture question - i.e., can multiple SmartThings Hubs be put into a single SmartThings Location Object, so that they can be seamlessly integrated for control and automations.

This was possible a very long time ago, and then ability to multi-join hubs to a Location was removed from the App. Some flaky hacks have been successful for a few people.

But…

I hear it is possible once again with the new SmartThings App, but have not personally confirmed it. This is encouraging news if it works well.

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Thanks Tgauchat!.

Could someone from Samsung Smartthings team advise on this. I don’t mind buying multiple hubs (read: I’ll spend) to make this system work. Last time I bought wall sockets/plugs to try and create a mesh network but that we nowhere as the signal strength didn’t seem to permeate the walls here and with kids and a helper, I couldn’t guarantee that a critical hop in the network wouldn’t be unplugged.

If the new system worked, especially over wireless (I have that covered across my whole house) then I’d buy 2-3 hubs and bring them all together.
Note: I’m looking at a group of 5 sensors per hub. A sensor on hub 1 to turn on a light on hub two.
ALso, would like these visable in the app as a single location without regard to the hub

Hoping for promising news.

You have to contact support. This is a community based forum and not an official support channel.

But from what I understand, you cannot join multiple 2018 hubs. You can use the Samsung Wifi with Zigbee and Z-wave radios as a mesh network.

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This reference may be old and is certainly missing details, and it may continue to only represent theory, not reality, but it may be helpful to pass along with your request to Support@SmartThings.com

Keep in mind that running “a lot” of Hubs in one physical household is not ideal. Each Hub that is joined with be a controller and thus not “mesh” with the other Hubs … instead, they will create RF interference.

There are plenty of situations where having a couple Hubs in one large house or estate makes sense, or, perhaps, multiple Hubs in one “SmartThings Location”, but in actual different places like home and office.


This feature is easy to confirm or disprove. Just buy 2 Hubs and use the new SmartThings App to attempt to add them to the same “Location”.

Also search support.SmartThings.com for more recent articles about multiple Hubs. Maybe there’s a better FAQ for new App and 2018 Hub…?

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I’ve asked the support email alias. Will see what information I get back.

I was so pumped to get these devices set up in my home but the range was abysmal so I ended up creating my own ESP8266 wifi sensors and using them in critical areas but the battery performance is not great and I would like a more “out of the box” solution

Still awaiting a email reply from the ST team.

I’m hoping for good news otherwise it looks like I may have to look at another system.

I’m surprised to hear that I am alone in running into major distance barriers, like withing 30 feet (through a wall of concrete)

and still waiting a reply from my email to the ST team…

I have received a reply from Smart Things…

Here are the snippets of information relevant to this post
" you can have multiple hubs on one location but only using the New App"
“you can certainly set up the two hubs using one location and then pair the devices to the hubs they are closest to. On the device page, it will just list everything as normal to the point where you can have a device on one hub trigger a device on another hub because they are on the same location.”

So it seems very promissing. I’m about to buy a few new hubs and see how we go

A few new hubs?!?!? Why not just buy repeaters? they’re a HECK of a lot cheaper. You do realize that if you have multiple hubs the automations will be separate, right? I don’t think the classic app will see those on the same location so you’ll be stuck using only the new app which doesn’t support custom DTHs. I would really think this through before you go spending hundreds of dollars on hubs.

We’re hoping the new App remedies this.

But I agree having “lots” of Hubs in one geographic location really shouldn’t be necessary because even a weak device should be able to mesh to some simple repeater.

Use multiple Hubs if you have a detached guest house or other impenetrable gaps in coverage.

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LMAO…hope in one hand and crap in the other and see which one fills up first. :stuck_out_tongue:

Hi Guys,

A few things to reply to so doing a reply than a quote.

Here I thought the answer from SmartThings support solved my issues. I have tried to put repeaters everywhere I could and ended up with things plugged into the walls that really didn’t do much. If they are unplugged for any reason disturb my entire setup.

So, i’m left with what I thought was the multi-hub option.

Let me try and break it down
New Hub -

  1. $60 a pop, but I can do multiple hubs in a location and automations work (if this sensor triggers, turn ona light, for example) - THis is what Smartthings as told me.
    @Ryan780 - Are you saying this automation doesn’t work with multiple hubs?

  2. Regarding customer DTH (I had to look this acronym up) – How can I know if I have customer DTH’s? Is there a list? When I check my dashboard, the only one there is the Aeon 6 device handler. I would like to integrate eventually with Alexa, Jriver or other things but right now just AEON/EcoLink and those type of devices.

Lastly, back to point 1. I’ve had a terrible experience with my V1 (and V2) hub that my network was disjointed and many sensors couldn’t pair only 20 feet away. Maybe the thick concrete walls and rebar where i live.

Here are the reponses I received

  1. If I had 2 hubs, can a thing (say, a door open) on Hub 1 trigger a thing (a light) on Hub 2 if they are in the same location?
  • Yes, however, this will only work when using the new SmartThings App. This will not work when using SmartThings (Classic) App. But yes, you can have 2 separate Hubs on the same Location within the new SmartThings App, and yes, you can trip a sensor on the 1st Hub, to have it trigger a device connected to the 2nd Hub, so long as the automation was configured to do so.
  1. Is there any situations that I may have to add devices with the classic app but use them in the new app?
  • Possibly. Unlike the old SmartThings (Classic) App, the new SmartThings App is not capable of connecting or controlling devices that are not supported. Therefore, if you have any devices you want to use that are not officially supported, and you have to add a custom device handler, or custom Smart APp to make them work on SmartThings, then these are the types of devices that would require the use of the SmartThings (Classic) App. Although, from what I know, Samsung is determined to bring “openness” to the new SmartThings App. When will that happen, and What does that look like…is still up in the air, and I have no other information in this regard.
  1. If yes, will automations still work as in my question #1?
  • Not sure, but most likely no. So if you are in a situation where you have to use the Classic App to control an unsupported device, but then have to use the new App for using multiple Hubs in the same Location, and you want a tripped (supported) sensor connected to Hub 1, to trigger an UNsupported device on Hub 2…this may not work. However, to be honest, I have not tested this, and I am unable to say one way or the other.