I need to replace my ConBee II with another ConBee II without re-pairing all Zigbee devices. Why? I want a backup solution where a Raspberry Pi is on standby to take over if my Home Assistant stops working (holiday home far, far away).
As a first step, I just wanted to see if it is possible to replace the ConBee II stick in-place. What I have tested does not work and I do not know how to proceed.
I use ZHA
Welcome!
I had a discussion with someone on another thread, link below, ZHA looks like it is able to back up and restore for everything but your hardware… You might reach out to @walt and see if they might have some ideas. Seems like it should be possible based on these tools. Any help from the Deconz folks?
https://github.com/zigpy/zigpy/wiki/Coordinator-Backup-and-Migration
https://community.home-assistant.io/t/some-lightbulbs-drop-off-tradfri/273237/10?u=dproffer
Hi there,
I know this is ZHA but as a piece of info I was able to make backup systems actually in two locations with raspbee → conbee and conbee II in deconz environment. I can switch to backup remotely when needed. So my best bet is that it can be done in ZHA also???
as far as I understand that should just work. Your network is not on your stick, it should be on the host, just as if you connect a wifi dongle to a computer, this is a zigbee dongle connected to your host.
I want to hope you are right, but why are the detailed instructions being generated along with this ominous warning? Granted not specifically for ConBee, however for the other two platforms.
https://github.com/zigpy/zigpy/wiki/Coordinator-Backup-and-Migration
This is ommiting the --i-understand-i-can-update-eui64-only-once-and-i-still-want-to-do-it and adding -f flag bellows info`
I’m interested in this procedure too (just in case of USB stick hardware failure or so …)
Did you try it ?
PhosCon has a backup function, which I have used and works when using the same stick.
As far as I know, ZigBee is not stored on the stick. All the network ID’s and everything are stored in a DataBase.
Z-Wave is not like that. Z-Wave has all the network nodes stored on the stick.
I am slowly moving all my Z-Wave stuff to ZigBee for this reason. I don’t like having a single point of failure that cannot be easily backed up. That said, I did notice a backup option in ZWave JS to MQTT, so maybe it will be possible in the future.
I am going to test swapping a DeConz stick today as I have two Conbee II sticks that both function.
I’ll let you know how it goes.
Edit: Checked the second ConBee stick. Once I set it up in deCONZ to point to the USB device correctly, it all worked without a hitch. Just needed to setup deCONZ to point to the right USB device again. Just be aware Conbee’s are very sensitive to external interference, so make sure they are a little distance from external hard drives and the like that may interfere.
Nice to have the backup option, but admittedly in almost 7 years using Home Assistant, I actually have never had a hardware failure. Failure has been more software related (or my dodgy YAML skills).
FYI, see the thread about a future related feature in ZHA:
Until this happens will need to backup and restore ConBee/RaspBee NVRAM with Phoscon/deCONZ:
https://github.com/dresden-elektronik/deconz-rest-plugin/wiki/Backup-%26-Restore
https://flemmingss.com/how-to-backup-and-restore-deconz-from-a-defective-installation/