Moving to Home Assistant Yellow

Hardware
1

I’ve both Z Wave and Zigbee setup with my current HASS setup (using raspberry Pi).
Can I simply restore from backup on Yellow?
I’m assuming Zigbee (ZHA) at least won’t work just by restoring (since Zigbee controllers are different), or will it?
As for Z Wave I’m using Aoetec 5 stick, Will it work just with restore if I’m using same stick with Yellow?
As for other devices (Wi-Fi) I think they should work without any issue with restore

Is that correct?

1 Like
2

I am in the same boat. Changing radios for Zigbee but my Aoetec is moving over. I have seen some info that it is best to connect AC power devices first. Then pair battery devices after all of the AC Zigbee devices are paired and in their final location. So I might redo it anyway.

3

I am in the process of migrating to Yellow, my experience is that if you are running the latest version of HA there is the ability to backup ZHA and restore to the yellow. The issues I have experienced with this are the devices / entities are renamed to a standard format so if you use custom naming conventions for your devices/entities they may not survive the migration, this in turn breaks automations. I am also having issues with Aqara battery operated devices like leak / magnet switch / motion sensors which have not connected and then when reconnected drop off again.

Note Yellow does not have a ZWave capability built in, only Zigbee.

A little more on the issues can be found here HASS Yellow migration - points to watch for (MQTT, Zigbee, restore)

4

Yes planning to continue to use Z Wave stick that I already have.
I wouldn’t mind GPIO hat for Z Wave so everything is tidy but not so sure about too many radios close to each other.
If someone has experience with GPIO hat on Yellow I would like to hear the experience.

As for re-adding the Zigbee devices, that seems possible but can’t I restore full then remove devices which were added by restore and re-add them?

5

I’m going to be migrating to a Yellow when it arrives late March I’m told. I have been running a Docker version for a couple of months now and hope to do a backup and restore it to the new Yellow. Fortunately I will be able to have both HA instances running at the same time on different ports just need to watch out automation conflicts and I’m not sure how devices / entities will deal with dual integrations. The main reason for adding here is I also have what was once a large Z-Wave running under a Vera controller. I have migrated as much as possible off the Vera and over to HA but for a few various reasons a small number of devices will need to stay on the Vera and Z-Wave envirnoment. Thankfully there is a decent integration for Vera in HA and once I have this Vera down to bare bones it should be a less painful integration.

6

Hi,

I’m also in a Zwave + Zigbee configuration on my current HA (Raspberry Pi 3) and moving to a Yellow.
I’ve currently got an Aoetec 5 stick and a RaspBee board plugged on my RPi.

It was quite easy to do so !

  1. Do a full backup of your current HA and download it locally on your computer
  2. Enter the ZHA configuration on your current HA and download a backup (JSON file)
  3. Shutdown you current HA
  4. Start your Yellow, and set it up with a default account
  5. Restore your backup
  6. Plug your Zwave key on the yellow, and reboot (nothing to do more, it worked like a charm
  7. Enter the ZHA configuration and use the “Migrate Radio” option
  8. Choose the reconfigure current radio, select your Zigbee Yellow controller, and choose to restore manually a backup (the JSON in step 2). Confirm the replacement of the IEEE.

That’s all, no need to reboot a second time, ZHA is immediately working

6 Likes
7

Thanks misterbenj34 - was reading up and down prior this migration, saw allot of people with problems.
Followed step-by-step without issues, everything seems to work.

1 Like
8

same experience here: therefore also from my side: thanks @misterbenj34 - followed your posting step-by-step without issues, everything seems to work.

1 Like
9

edit: It turns out that I was definitely wrong, this did mostly work; the light in my office that I was trying first, naturally, was the only device that seems to have not worked, for some reason, and rejoining it to the network was easy enough. Weird.

This question is still relevant:
Out of curiosity: does anyone happen to know if it’s possible to use my old radio at all? Since the new one took over its IEEE ID, is it possible to use my old one ever again?

10

If it is a TI-based adapter, you can generate a new IEEE id when flashing new firmware (either router or coordinator) For a silabs probably too, since migrating radio flashes a new IEEE id to the new coordinator. I just don’t know how to do it.

11

+1 thanks @misterbenj34 followed your steps yesterday, worked like a charm.

Cheers,

Dunc

1 Like
12

I got around moving to Yellow, and your instructions worked perfectly

13

Thanks for these instructions. Worked perfectly!