I am totally agree that it is totally confusing. I can tell you what I did.
I had my z-wave devices connected to the my controller through the original hass z-wave integration. with the following instructions:
To migrate to the new beta integration:
- delete old z-wave config/ integrations. (keep a note of the network-key that you used).
- Install the new beta openzwave addon.
- In the configuration, use the same old network-key and add the correct usb path for the controller, then start the addon.
- If you don’t have a MQTT broker/integration, you need to setup one. The easiest one is Mosquitto broker addons
a. install Mosquitto broker addons.
b. Configure username and password with your own.
c. In the integrations section, add new integration for MQTT broker (I remember it will actually show up in the discovery) - Add the new " OpenZWave (beta)" integration from the integration section.
- it will take some seconds/minutes, then you will see the controller as a device in the new integration.
- Then, The controller will start to build the network again, and you will see old connected sensors showing too in the integration as connected devices.
One thing that I like about the new integration, it won’t affect the z-wave network with hass reboot. At the same time, I was able to use the USB path based on the id of the controller, rather than /dev/xxx[01] , which may change depend on which controller connected to my raspberry pi detected first. The latest pros wasn’t possible with z-wave-to-mqtt addons.