Hello all. I am coming to you from the land of Homeseer. I have had my Homeseer setup working well for 8 or 9 years now, but I am getting frustrated by some limitations and integrations with other Smarthome things.
I originally had a Mi Casa Verde Vera 3, in 2013 or so, as my first entry into the Z-wave world. I migrated this to Homeseer in 2016/2017 and kinda have this patchwork quilt of plugins to have Homeseer control everything.
I have an old Chromebox from a failed Kodi project (CN60) that I got flashed with HAOS over the weekend, and just yesterday was able to turn one of my LIFX lights on, which was super exciting.
My question is whether I should just do a scratch install of my Zwave stuff or try to import it? I kinda want to gradually move things over from Homeseer, before completely committing to HAOS. I ordered a new Zwave dongle, so right now it’s just my non-Zwave stuff. I don’t want to have to manually exclude each device if at all possible.
It seems like a bit of a learning curve, but I think I can figure it out. I’m excited for some integrations that Homeseer couldn’t do, Roborock for starters!
zwave and zigbee devices are tied to the radio they are paired to. So by default, yes to move them over you will have the exclude the device from the old radio and include it to the new radio. Some stubborn devices may need to be factory reset.
There is a homeseer integration that allows for automatic device and entity discovery so you “could” leave your old zwave devices on homeseer and automate them on HA. As you replace old devices or get new ones you can add them to HA directly.
As an ex-HS member myself i can say welcome and enjoy this new environment.
The tip I can give you is to make screenshots of your present setup so you wil not forget any devices and alsoprint out your automations. Yes, you know that one device that you placed 8 years ago behind the cupboard. That one too. After doing this just start completly from scratch. It will look like a lot of work but it will pay of in a much more tiddy system and you learn where to look for things and how to do it.
The printout of the automations is just as a reminder how to rebuild things but on the way doing it you will find out that things will go a lot easier in HA then with HS.
Thanks guys. I think I’ve come to terms with a reset/new install for this. I want to prove to myself that I like it, so I’ve doing some of the LIFX bulbs and maybe a few Zwave modules first to see how it goes.
My current setup is a Windows 11 Intel NUC, but I assume my old Chromebox will be fine for this? I have other things that my NUC can do, I think.
Yes, it will be more than enough performance vice …
EDIT: just saw CN60, so maybe not, you need 4 GB Ram, 2 CPU and best with 64GB disk, but maybe you already have upgraded your CN60, with Ram and Disk
Welcome to the light side! You’re on the right path. Run parallel systems for a while, as you learn the HA terminology and way of doing things. Move things over a chunk at a time as you gain confidence. Enjoy the ride!
Personally I wouldn’t recommend building from scratch if your Z-wave Network is performing OK as of today. Other factors would be how many battery powered devices you have in the network, and if your Home Assistant server will physically put your Z-wave controller near the same spot. If you move the network en-mass to Home Assistant you will need to wake and re-interview battery devices. Re-interviewing mains powered devices isn’t an issue. This is much easier than exclusion/inclusion of the entire network.
Also, you need to ensure all your Z-wave devices are supported by Z-wave-JS. Check the database. I had to ditch my Go Control irrigation controller that was supported by Homeseer, but not by Home Assistant. That device was an outlier, however.
You can also move the network back and forth between the 2 software products without issue. Naturally you have to disable the Homeseer Z-wave plugin when the network is connected to Home Assistant, and disable the Home Assistant integration and App (Add-on) when connected to Homeseer.
So you can test the entire network move before deciding if you need to rebuild completely.
I agree with the advice above to document everything prior to migrating. Great advice.
That’s a fair point. My network is pretty good, but some delays in there in some far-flung areas of the house. I need to have a heart-to-heart with myself about how many devices I’m talking about. It’s probably around 40 Z-wave, maybe less. Not too many battery ones honestly.
I had a bit of a setback, where the install was installed on my flash drive, not the internal SSD. Two SSD to USB adapters later, I now have working HA on my Chromebox, with no usb in.
I also got most my non Z-wave items included now, and one test Z-wave dimmer module working as of last night.
Getting everything set up as been much more difficult than it should have been, some of it was my fault. Also, getting the Z-wave controller set up was pretty tough.
But the automations and everything in HA is more intuitive than I thought. I am looking forward to some dashboards, as this was the biggest shortcoming with Homeseer.
i have switched my exterior LIFX lights to HA, and have been happy. I think I’m going to migrate my z-wave stuff over, room by room, starting this weekend. I do need to get my Caseta Pico remotes working before I do that.