+5 votes
by (15k points)
I have maxed out my hub in terms of number of devices but I still want to add more so I am considering getting another hub (Hubitat or Home Assistant most likely) and moving some devices over to that and using both hubs together. Can anyone who is doing this provide any guidance on potential pitfalls, why they chose whatever secondary hub they did, etc?  
I have maxed out my hub in terms of number of devices but I still want to add more so I am consideri

3 Answers

+5 votes
by (7.4k points)
I was going that route with HE. for whatever reason the first few devices i tried to add (sylvanis br30 bulbs) wouldnt pair, no matter what i tried. i had a 2nd smartthings hub i bought on a whim (im around 310 devices, so was moving some off of the first hub to SOMETHING else), and they paired in no time at all with the ST v3 hub. for now i think most of the new devices will go to the ST v3 hub. it still seems to be really fast (sensor on v2 turns light on v3 hub on REALLY quickly), and its what i know and am comfortable with. i would still like to get more stuff moved to HE (i still use it with harmony and fully kiosk controller, which is awesome), but for the time being im going to be mostly ST, just spread across 2 hubs. im going to move a bunch of virtual devices over to see if that helps any. once i get my new switches installed (on the v3) and my old switches installed in the new house, ill see how it all performs, then might move some hardware to the new hub if its struggling with performance.  
by (15k points)
Hey Mike, thanks for the info. Dumb question but what's HE? Also, I was under the impression that having a second ST didn't matter because the device limitation was on the IDE side of things and was independent of the hub - is that not the case?  
by (7.4k points)
Hubitat Elevation. It seems like it doesnt matter, ive added 10 or 12 bulbs and i think 6 contact sensors to the v3 hub and rebuilt a bunch of automations with smartlighting and it all seems to be going well. in the IDE itll tell you how many devices are connected to each hub, so i dont know if that limit is per hub or if it doesnt matter that much. So far it seems to be going well. I guess the real test will be this weekend. I have 14 switches, at least 4 more bulbs, a smartthings button and 2 motion sensors that id like to get installed, all on the new hub. Im also going to clean up the virtual devices as much as i can to try and get the number down on the v2 hub. Harmony alone is something like 50 devices (activities). Since harmony works faster with HE, i can build a sharptools panel to manage activities and still control ST devices, then just have a couple of harmony activities in ST for the ones i use the most. There is also a great smartapp you can use with ST and HE. I use it to bring ST devices into HE (as virtual devices in HE), so i can build automations off of HE that are controlling devices that are connected to either ST hub.  
by (15k points)
Okay thanks. Is HE the same as Hubitat or is it a more specific flavor version?  
by (7.4k points)
@hague it's the same thing. Hubitat Elevation is just the full name I guess.  
by (15k points)
Okay thanks - what made you choose that over other hubs? Integration with ST?  
by (7.4k points)
I think former ST developers are who created it. So theres still some familiarity (interface is still different, though). Plus a lot of ST apps can be ported over to HE because they are written in groovy. also the local control is a draw for me and theres some good support in the facebook group and the community forum. i also got a deal on my hub, it was like 50 bucks so i figured it was worth a shot. im still interested in HA, that seems to be more powerful than either ST or HE, but i dont really have a lot of spare time to put into learning a new environment and to move stuff over right now. im pretty happy with the majority of my devices being on ST and a few third party connections (like harmony and hue) working with hubitat.  
by (15k points)
@imperturbation91375 - thanks - this is really helpful. I may go the same route depending on what Samsung tells me about maxing out. Does HE have a backup feature of some kind that ST so sorely lacks?  
by (7.4k points)
Happy to help! hubitat lets you take a backup, but i dont know if that helps in the event of a hardware failure. i think it might be config details (smart apps, automations, cloud to cloud connections, etc. ) but ive never looked into more detail than that
by (15k points)
@imperturbation91375 so funny thing happened today - I went to get set up to call support and get all my ducks in a row when I find that the devices that were previously missing in the app are now showing up. Now I'm not sure I have actually maxed out but I'm a little nervous to add any new devices.  
by (7.4k points)
Maybe something on the back end was fixed? I had trouble with devices not showing up in SmartLighting a while back and it was because i had so many devices. I think they fixed something on the back end and my problem went away. Ive added devices since then, and even a second hub and so far it seems like i can find everything. im down to 290 devices on my first hub and i have 18 on the second one.  
+3 votes
by (1.8k points)
How many devices is maxed?  
by (15k points)
Technically according to Samsung it is like 200 but I'm over 300.  
+5 votes
by (5.2k points)
If you are already using a ST Hub, get a second one to do a mesh network.  
by (7.4k points)
@sporades70699 you mean meshing the hubs together? How does that work? I have 2 hubs and they communicate but I thought each generated it's own networks and the connected devices would build a mesh for that specific hub
by (15.3k points)
@sporades70699 wont work in Toms use case. The limit he's encountering is in the UI of the app. If I remember correctly he can add devices, but they fail to appear in the lists in the app. So adding another hub wont help that case.  
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