Moving from Smartthings

1

I am getting increasingly worried about the up an coming shutting down of Smartthings Groovy IDE, and am thinking of moving over to Home Assistant.

I have a couple of questions if anyone can answer. At the moment my system is based on 3 Smartthings hubs across what is a big 4 floor building, with over 200 devices.

  1. Will I need to set up 3 HA’s or will one do to cover the whole house?
  2. Will HA handle 200 (and growing) devices?
  3. Will I still be able to integrate and use the dozen or so Google Speakers / Displays?
  4. Can it be done in chunks e.g. Do a couple of rooms at a time?

Thanks in advance.

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2
  1. One,
  2. Yes,
  3. Yes,
  4. Yes.
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3

Thank you Tom, very concise, I will order one up today.

4

The SmartThings integration for HA is pretty good. If you want to set up HA and spend some time learning it and seeing what it can do, you can just set it up and integrate with SmartThings. This won’t impact your existing SmartThings hubs but you’ll have access to all your devices.

I’ve been using the integration for a couple years now and it’s rock solid (as long as SmartThings doesn’t have an outage). I’ll eventually buy zigbee and zwave sticks and finish the migration to HA, but there’s been little reason for me to do so at this time.

There’s a number of other SmartThings users who have made the switch and have some good posts on this forum.

5

I left ST 3 weeks ago and what made “my” transition easier was to move all LAN based devices first and intergrate them into HA. I used those devices to start learning HA automations setup better, while I held off on the zwave and 2 hue bridges (68 lights) until I had time to do a full house exclusion and inclusion fest into HA for zwave.

Since TV"s, HEOS, Bond Bridge, and etc… we’re all setup then just did some basic light switch setups on priority switches (now complete).

3 weeks in, I have 100% of ST “routines” recreated, but will now go back (at my leisure) and start making much more intense versions of those since the ability is there.

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6

Thank you so much, you have put my mind at rest, I am ordering the PI now, here we go…

7

Agree with @tom_l
1 HA instance, +Zigbee and Zwave dongles on a short USB extension.
2 - Yes no problem.
3 - Yes.
4 -

Yes, but. Don’t if you can help it.

Yes teh ST integration works. But its cloud <> cloud so every activity between HA and ST then generates a cloud ping. You can imagine how noisty thats going to get and yes it introduces lag. The bigger your setup is the worse it’ll get.

Also when you start moving things, either ZWave or Zigbee you’ll want to start with the core powered devices nearest your HA setup. Guess what’s going to happen to ST when you move those repeating devices. (Hint your mesh will collapse on the ST side)

You could do a LOT of planning and very carefully, surgically move chunks of your network at a time. For me it was easier to just dedicate a weekend and move all 200 of my devices. I wouldn’t want to have to peacemeal that move and deal with stuff breaking because of it. It was easier to rip off the band-aid, tell the household stuff would be broken for a few weeks and just get the move done.

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8

Fair comment and thank you, now the problem is finding a Pi, I assume the 8gig is better?

9

That’s what I go with for each home, personally, but the 4GB is fine as well. Now, this is a rabbit hole that you could go down forever, but other upgrades to make your life easier and prevent possible headaches:

  • USB Extension cable for your Z-Stick to prevent interference
  • SSD Drive for faster response and better storage
  • Powered USB hub for the above Z-Stick and SSD
10

THIS. GO SSD. It will be the single biggest decision for you performance wise if running on a PI. My Pi enclosure has a spot for an M.2 so I don’t have it on a USB hub, but I HIGHLY recommend a small USB2 powered hub though for your dongles to prevent USB3 interference.

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11

Especially with 200+ devices. My network is even larger than that and I can tell you the SSD made a night-and-day difference in performance - plus you don’t have the persnickety SD cards to deal with. The single best decision I made in regards to HomeAssistant.

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If you have an old PC you arent using, you can use that also. Just go the bare metal route and dont bother with a VM.

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13

Thank you everyone for all your suggestions, I have ordered an 8gig Pi, and an SSD, next challage is to get it all working. Thanks again everyone.

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14

ive recently made the switch from cloud based with numerous apps (running on a very old version of HA), to mostly local based, on a new Pi, and SSD, and the difference is lightning

i followed a tutorial on youtube to get the Pi booting from SSD and home assistant installed on it, it was a LOT easier than i thought it was going to be

the one thing i did get stuck on, was with my zigbee dongle, but, as stated above, a short USB extension sorted that out

15

Morning all, Pi is en route, do you advise any particular SSD and Z-stick? Cheers.

16

Umm, might be a little late asking that question.

As far as the Z-Wave goes I’m using the zooZ ZST10 700…no issues too report.

17

Sorry I meant to say and the SD is next…

18

I also had Smarthings and made a gradual move to HA. Original plan was to move everything (ZigBee, Wifi, Z-wave) to HA, but I have kept most of the Z-wave devices in ST. Integration works well and Z-wave in ST has been solid, whereas in HA there is always some issues especially when upgrading to new version.

19

I converted everything over to zigbee and unplugged ST… I liked keeping everyting in house…

Went with an old intel NUC… works like a champ!

20

Well, it is set up and running, I would like to thank you all for all the excellent help and advice, now it’s time to move everything.