I was trying to learn how this works. I read this.
“You can validate if your current hub supports the feature by selecting the hub and choosing (⋮) More Options. If the “Replace Hub” option is not available then your hub does not currently support the feature.”
For some reason, I found my Hub in a certain “Room”, not sure why it’s there. Anyway, When I try to do the above procedure on my iPhone app, I tap (⋮), but “More Options” is NOT there. Only Edit device, Remove device, Driver, Settings,Information.
Do SOLELY to the lack of backup capabilities. I’ve been looking at migrating out of SmartThings. If this issue has been fixed, I will happily remain.
I don’t understand this. I have a V2 Hub, Firmware 055.00005. I thought this firmware supported backups? What determines whether you have backup capabilities or not? It seems so random and disorganized.
I have about 60 items connected to my SmartThings Hub. If it were to fail and there’s no backup capabilities, what is my incentive for remaining with SmartThings? It would be just as easy for me to switch to another manufacturer.
If my iPhone or my Mac breaks. I can immediately restore from a back up and in an hour everything is exactly how it was. Why does Apple do this? Because they want me to stay with their products in the event of a failure.
Reading the link below, they don’t mention that the V2 is covered. Please understand, I know that things break. If my V2 were to fail, I would go out and get the current version “V3”.
There’s something I’m not understanding here. Is it your opinion that V2 is covered by backups. Are you saying that if it were to fail, I could go purchase the latest SmartThings Hub and restore everything to the new Hub?
Well, that’s good to hear. I have a 2 month trip coming up and I don’t want mess with things a couple of weeks before I leave town. When I return, I will muster up my courage, and buy a V3, and do a Hub Replace.
If I thought it would really work, I wouldn’t wait, but I’m very nervous.
Can’t find the posts right now, but I’ve read several where folks replaced a v2 with a v3. The only thing that is not brought over to the new hub are the driver channel subscriptions.
I was umming and ahing over my choice of words. I think at this point the app just checks the settings in the hub and if they say hub replace is supported it goes with it.
It is on the next page the app overreaches itself. It explicitly claims that a replacement can be done regardless of whether a hub is online or not. Then where it explains why it isn’t being offered it says both hubs have to be online. Also it says which hubs it can’t do a replace to, but makes no comment on what it can’t do a replace from.
I have three V2 hubs, all without any devices on them, in the same Location on the same network. It shows ‘Replace hub’ but doesn’t actually let me initiate a replacement for any of them. Perhaps this is because there is nothing to replace.
The app really needs to expose what it is doing. It should start with the ‘old’ hub and explain why it thinks it can, or cannot, do a replace on that hub. Then it should list all the other hubs in the Location and explain why it thinks it can or cannot do a replace to that hub.
If the app said today is Thursday I’d check. It has to do more.
Those pertain to the 3rd party drivers you are using. For example, if you are using an Acme dimmer, the stock ST driver only provides certain features. To use the extra features on the Acme dimmer, you need Acme’s driver. So you subscribe to their channel by clicking a link. That gives you access to their drivers and you pick the one for your dimmer.
I just spent 3 days working with Aeotec to install a driver, so their water leak sensor would work. Even though I’ve been with SmartThings since the introduction of V2 it’s the first time I’ve ever needed to install a driver. I found the process moderately difficult, I’m sure to those who are familiar. It’s easy. I thought the driver resided on my hub! I guess what you’re saying is if I am able to migrate from V2 to V3 I’ll have to to put these drivers back in again ?
I’m surprised that if a device needs a certain driver it just doesn’t “go get it”. I had to go through multiple links from. Aeotec to accomplish the installation. Also, when you install the driver, there isn’t any feedback that lets you know that you did anything. Maybe your gadget will work, maybe it won’t. When I purchased an unusual printer for my Mac the other day, the Mac just went and got the necessary Driver, I didn’t do anything, other than click “OK”.
Knowing what I know now, I’m anxious to go from V2 to V3 because it seems like if I can manage to get to V3, I will have a system that could be restored, even if it were to fail. Do I have this right?
The drivers do reside on your hub and will get migrated as part of the hub replace. The channels are subscriptions that allow drivers to be installed and then updated when driver updates are published by the developer.
Stock drivers are installed without any intervention on your part. However, ST may not have implemented vendor specific capabilities and so custom drivers from vendors or community developers are needed to access those capabilities. Would it have been nice to have an automated way for vendors/developers to publish drivers and have them auto-retrieved and installed? Yes, it would, but that’s not the way ST chose to implement 3rd party drivers.
Hub Replace works for going from v2 to v2, v2 to v3, v3 to v3, v2 to Aeotec etc. You don’t have to be on v3 to use Hub Replace if you have a v2 and it works if both hubs are active and when the old hub has died.
When I have time, I will migrate from V2 to V3. My fear is that the hub could completely break, turn into a brick, etc. If I have V3, it seems like I can restore everything even if the hub completely fails. I cannot do that with V2. That’s incentive enough for me to change.
Thank you for your help on this issue. In addition to being a good and patient explainer. You are an asset to all of humanity.
Thank you for this “reassurance”. I’m on a V2 hub and have a spare (new) V2 hub stashed somewhere so is it a case of plugging that onto my LAN to make it visible to replace the old one when required?
I posted this same question in another thread also! If someone can clarify it would be very helpful.
Do both hubs (old v2 and new V3) have to be active in my smartthings account just to make sure that in the future I can replace the V2 with V3 if the V2 dies.
Thanks
When your current hub dies, you unpack and set up a new hub and use the hub replace feature in the app. Just make sure to not delete the old, dead hub in the app.
Are you sure? My reading of this discussion says that your statement is only true IF you have V3. Someone with V2 has to have a working hub in order to keep all of your programming.
It is certainly meant to be true that you can use Hub Replace on V2 hubs whether the hub is online or not, but it doesn’t help when the app contradicts itself as can be seen in an earlier post.
Hub Groups are not supported on the V2 hubs which is a crying shame. They allow for switching the primary hub function to one of the secondary hubs. This can be performed manually because you just want to do it, or semi-automatically/automatically if the primary seems to be down (and optionally if the preferred primary hub recovers). This feature didn’t really need a name but it got one anyway and has been branded as Hub Backup, much to the bemusement and general despair of those who have ever backed up anything. This adds to the confusion.
Hub Replace and Hub Backup both exploit ‘backups’ that are made automatically, but they are basically ‘restore’ processes. Hub Replace should work fully on the V2. Hub Backup is not relevant to the V2.
