SmartThings Migration - Hardware?

Hardware
1

Hi,

I’ve been playing around with the idea of migrating to Home Assistant for some time. I had a SmartThings v1 Hub when released - then migrated to the v2 hub several years ago when it was released. My v2 hub finally died - stopped booting. I thought no problem - I’ll just plug in another hub and keep going. Well it all has to be rebuilt from scratch - more than 125 devices and various automations - so I’m going to migrate.

I’m looking at hardware for Zwave / Zigbee - with more than 125 devices.

For a PC I was thinking about using this mini PC, seems like the RPI experience is ok, but everyone seems to be happier with a more powerful system.

AlieExpress Mini PC

For Zwave I was going to use the Aeotec z-stick gen5. I’ve read that backups are possible, so in the event of another failure I’m not running all around the house putting devices into exclusion/inclusion mode - trying to figure out which button on which device is exclusion…ugh…

I can’t seem to find a zigbee USB stick. I’ve looked all over for the HUSBZB-1 but it’s not in stock anywhere I can find…is there another recommendation for Zigbee? I see some recommendations for Dresden and another for TI device…

Any other suggestions for what I need?

Thanks in advance.

2

I did the same thing as you - except came over from SmartThings. Couldn’t be happier! My setup is running HA in docker on an Intel NUC (which also runs about half a dozen other things like Plex, UniFi contorller, etc.). I use the z-wave/zigbee combo HUSBZB-1 (guess I was lucky in picking that up). I never tried it on a Pi, so I can’t comment on that speed.

I don’t know how many of your devices are zigbee, but zigbee support is anemic and development of it seems to be very slow. I think newer stuff might work better, but I’m guessing it’s just because z-wave seems to be vastly more popular. The GUI has no interface to zigbee, so you have to add devices with manual service calls.

I have about 4 zigbee devices I brought over from SmartThings and none of the “fully” work. Basic things like motion and open/close work, but I don’t get battery status on any of them.