Time to Upgrade? HS4

[hiken]

Good morning. Even though I had purchased HS4 when it came out, I did not want to suffer through an upgrade. Is it the general consensus that HS4 is now ready for primetime? In the upgrade process, will my system preserve all existing devices and plugins? I am most concerned with the DSC alarm interface, the MyQ plugin, Weather plugin, and Sonos plugin. Thanks

[ewkearns]

I waited until yesterday. I had some issues. I couldn't automatically install V 4.2.0.5. No systemic problems except losing some Jon00Alexa triggers. UI 4.2.0.0 is a mess, but somewhat usable. If I can find 4.2.0.5, that may help. I don't think you will break your system, but the UI is a bitter pill.

I am wrong. If you move from HS3 to HS4 and use HSTouch you run the risk of your screens becoming broken and uneditable.

[Wade]

I can comment on two of the plugins. I had no issues with Spud's Envisalink DSC plugin across the upgrade (if that's the DSC plugin you're referring to). I switched from Kingfetty's MyQ plugin to the HS MyQ plugin immediately after upgrade. You may want to consider this as well since Kingfetty has now officially stopped supporting his plugins.

[hiken]

Thank you. Does anyone know if the native DSC plugin that came with HS3 Pro will work properly on HS4?

[randy]

I switched to HS4 in February. All Events, Devices and plug-ins remained as they were in HS3. Sonos and Spuds DSC Envisalink plug-in worked fine. The HS3 MyQ plug-in initially worked, but Chamberlain changed the API and the plug-in ceased working last month. HomeSeer has a free MYQ plug-in that was corrected for the new API and is working fine. I did a by the book in place upgrade, leaving HS4 in the HS3 directory structure. The procedure:

1. Shutdown HS3
2. Using task manager, kill the HSSentry.exe if it is running
3. Backup the entire HS3 directory structure
4. Uninstall HS3 IMPORTANT: Do not remove files and settings. Click 'No' when the uninstaller asks you if you want to remove these files.
5. Install HS4 using the HS3 directory
6. Change autostart of HS3 to HS4 (I use and recommend the free R2 Studios Startup Delayer)
7. Start HS4 and register
8. Change the registered system in MyHS

[langenet]

I haven't reached the point yet to upgrade. My system runs swimmingly and I have yet come across a situation where I need to upgrade. I know I will likely at some point, just haven't figured out when nor do I have a requirement to do so. I'm usually late to the upgrade game, but it doesn't bother me in the lease.

[BobSpen]

I switched to HS4 in February. All Events, Devices and plug-ins remained as they were in HS3. Sonos and Spuds DSC Envisalink plug-in worked fine. The HS3 MyQ plug-in initially worked, but Chamberlain changed the API and the plug-in ceased working last month. HomeSeer has a free MYQ plug-in that was corrected for the new API and is working fine. I did a by the book in place upgrade, leaving HS4 in the HS3 directory structure. The procedure:

1. Shutdown HS3
2. Using task manager, kill the HSSentry.exe if it is running
3. Backup the entire HS3 directory structure
4. Uninstall HS3 IMPORTANT: Do not remove files and settings. Click 'No' when the uninstaller asks you if you want to remove these files.
5. Install HS4 using the HS3 directory
6. Change autostart of HS3 to HS4 (I use and recommend the free R2 Studios Startup Delayer)
7. Start HS4 and register
8. Change the registered system in MyHS

It bothers me to have HS4 in an "HS3" directory? With the "upgrade' license, is there a way to have both HS3 and HS4 installed, with HS3 as a backup incase I run into trouble with HS4?

[paul]

I just updated today, after waiting for a long time as yourself, especially as I have a number of no-longer available plugins and quite a few oddball customizations in my HS3 instance. I carefully followed the upgrade procedure posted online with the exception that at the end of the procedure it talks about hitting an "Import HS3 Config" thing which didn't exist for me - the HS3 config was automatically imported.

I'm happy to say that after playing around with everything for the last couple of hours it all seems to have been seamless, all my plugins still work (including the no longer available plugins) and my customizations are all intact. Looks like I'm off to the races....

Paul

[ksum]

It bothers me to have HS4 in an "HS3" directory? With the "upgrade' license, is there a way to have both HS3 and HS4 installed, with HS3 as a backup incase I run into trouble with HS4?

I initially copied the HS3 installation folders and installed HS4 over one of those. I forget but want to say I installed HS4 over the copy after making a couple changes to point to the proper folder. structure. I MAY have just renamed the top level folder in order to open the version I wanted to, though.

Because of a couple issues I had with HS3 Events and the fact that the issue followed me to HS4, I ended up deleting the install and installing HS4 fresh. I then recreated the z-wave devices from the controller and recreated the other devices as well. Then recreated the Events which I wanted to keep. It was a good housecleaning exercise as well as a way to move some of my scripts to Node Red. Reimporting the devices did change their ID's and therefore make my HSTouch stuff not work, but we don't currently use that so it was a non issue. I may create new HSTouch screens later for a possible dedicated tablet interface we are thinking about here. It took a while because I did not do it all in one push, but I felt it was worth the effort. Of course, if I did not have the event issue follow me to HS4, I probably would not have done this.

[Dweber85rc]

I upgraded mine in place and had no issues with the upgrade, everything worked smoothly. A few minor problems over the last year, but nothing that didn't have a work around or good development support by plugin authors.

[randy]

It bothers me to have HS4 in an "HS3" directory? With the "upgrade' license, is there a way to have both HS3 and HS4 installed, with HS3 as a backup incase I run into trouble with HS4?

You can do steps 1-4, then rename the HS3 directory or copy the contents to a new HS4 directory, then do steps 5-8 installing HS4 to the new directory. It didn’t bother me as far as the name is concerned, it wouldn’t matter if HomeSeer was in a directory named Freds Garage. I kept it in the same directory so that I wouldn’t have to reconfigure backup routines.

[Dweber85rc]

It bothers me to have HS4 in an "HS3" directory? With the "upgrade' license, is there a way to have both HS3 and HS4 installed, with HS3 as a backup incase I run into trouble with HS4?

I guess I don't understand the problem with this. You are not the first person to say something about it either but it has zero impact on how HS performs and unless you spend a lot of time in the installation directory, which you would with several popular plugins that require installation manually, you'd never know by how homeseer runs that the folder name is still hs3 instead of hs4. And even if you do spend time in the installation folder, again it doesn't change anything about how HS operates.

[langenet]

I'll probably just take the simplest route and install over the hs3 folder. Ideally, it would be nice to have it in the HS4 folder, then again... As long as HST manages it when HS5 comes to the stage.

[smcwilliams]

Can I go back to what BobSpen asked? I am a long-time HS user...very hands on with HS2, HS3 but in last year very content to use Alexa and HSTouch to work with what has been a 100% stable system with massive WAF. That said, I did download and install 4.2 yesterday on a separate computer. I was not sure and could not easily find whether I should use my HS3 registration and then the HS4 upgrade registration, or whether even registering MyHS would remote access for my HS3 system running on the separate computer, so for now requested and used a Guest 30-day registration.

So: if I shutdown my HS3 system, copy over the Config and Data files to the HS4 on the other system, shutdown HS3, start up HS4 and use my HS3 registration info with HS4 upgrade registration instead of my Guest registration, then register with MyHS as "in addition to" and not "replacement for", then choose my .hsd file that came over, then install the HS3 plugins I use....I'd in theory have a working system yes? And if problems arise (Alexa?), I could shutdown HS4, and fall back to HS3 with no confusion for the Znet interface and Alexa voice usage?

And if all ok and I commit to HS4, then I could shutdown HS3, copy over all the info from the HS4 system on the one computer to the HS3 system, and restart HS4 on the original HomeSeer computer?

Does that sound good? Do I misunderstand something or am I missing something?

Thanks,

BTW, as to motivation for finally moving to HS4, the Tuya feature allowing me to access appliances and other WiFi plugins got me moving...

[hiken]

It looks like I am going to take the plunge. Thank you for all the great comments. I decided to get a clone of the original HS3 S6 hardware, but with much more powerful specs. I am going to copy over all my HS3 files to the new pc and then go through the upgrade. I hope to eventually have two hubs with identical files (copied at intervals) and have a semi-hot backup in place.