Introduction
This guide describes how to switch from the Z-Wave JS official add-on to the Z-Wave JS UI HA Community add-on, without losing any downtime caused by the re-interviewing of nodes.
In this guide, Z-Wave JS UI will henceforth be abbreviated as ZUI.
Who is this guide for?
This guide is for HAOS add-on users who have already installed the official Z-Wave JS add-on and the companion Z-Wave integration, and desire extra functionality that isn’t provided by HA, such as:
- Adding and removing node associations
- Network health diagnostics (testing and route map)
- Testing device config firmware files
- An alternate configuration UI
- Advanced driver code execution
7-Days of downloadable debug logsFrom add-on v0.4.0 you can save log files!- etc.
If you are not using HAOS, this guide is not for you.
When to use this guide?
The official instructions for switching add-ons are available in the integration documentation and are good enough for most people. This is a step-by-step version of those with the additional benefit of preserving the network information to avoid re-interviewing devices.
This guide is helpful when your network is very large, or you have many battery devices. If your network is small or you have very few battery devices, you can probably skip this and avoid all the hassle.
It helps to know a little bit about how the Z-Wave JS driver works. When you add a device to your network, the driver interviews the device for its identity and functionality. This information is permanently stored in a multiple cache files that are loaded each time the driver restarts. Without these cache files, the identity and functionality of the devices are lost after a restart until they are re-interviewed, and during that time HA is unable to control or observe the devices.
If you uninstall the official add-on those cache files are lost. In most cases this isn’t a big deal, re-interviewing can be painless. Mains-powered devices are always interviewed automatically, but battery devices are only interviewed when they wake up. That could be hours or days depending on their configuration. You might have a battery device in the attic that is difficult to access. Or your lock might be unreliable and fail interviews if the distance is too far. Etc.
The official add-ons does not provide a convenient way to export or import only the cache files, so this guide exists to cover that gap. As of v0.4.0 of the official add-on, the driver cache files are exposed to users, which makes it simpler than ever to migrate! If you don’t want to re-interview the devices when switching add-ons, this guide is for you. When completed, from the perspective of HA there will be no difference.
Prerequisites
- Home Assistant OS 12.3
- Home Assistant Core 2024.6.4
- Z-Wave JS add-on v0.6.2
- File editor add-on
- Terminal & SSH add-on
- You have read the How do I switch between the Official Z-Wave JS add-on and the Z-Wave JS UI add-on? instructions in the official docs
- You have read the ZUI add-on installation instructions
The guide should work roughly the same on earlier or later versions of HAOS and HA Core, however screenshots and the locations of things may change. The versions are noted here simply to mark when this guide was written.
There are no requirement outside of HAOS, but the above indicated add-ons are needed.
If you do not understand the difference between integration and add-on, please refer to their definitions in the HA glossary.
Guide
Step 0.1: Install File editor add-on
Install the File editor add-on (see installation instructions for details).
The File editor add-on is used to download the Z-Wave JS cache files to your local PC.
Step 0.2: Install Terminal & SSH add-on
Install the Terminal & SSH add-on (see installation instructions)
The Terminal & SSH add-on is used to copy the Z-Wave JS cache files from the official add-on.
In order to see this add-on in the Store to manually install you’ll need to enable Advanced mode in your user profile first. Clicking the link above will take you there regardless of the profile setting.
You can also use the Community Add-on: Advanced SSH & Web Terminal (see docs) instead if you already have it installed, but these examples will show the official SSH add-on. The same commands can be used.
Step 0.3: Make a backup
Make a full backup of your installation, or a partial backup of the Z-Wave JS add-on, just in case.
Step 1: Save important Z-Wave JS configuration settings
Go to Link to Add-on: dashboard – My Home Assistant
Or manually go to: Settings → Add-ons → Z-Wave JS
Select the Configuration tab.
Copy the USB device path (1) and all security keys (can ignore network_key as it is a duplicate of s0_legacy_key) (2) somewhere safe, like a text file. These settings are required when installing ZUI.
In the Options card select the ... and Edit in YAML to see this view for easy copy and paste:
Step 2: Disable the Z-Wave JS Integration
Go to Link to Integration – My Home Assistant
Or manually go to: Settings → Devices & services → Z-Wave
Select ... → Disable, then select DISABLE on the next prompt.
The Z-Wave JS add-on is automatically stopped as a result. Confirm this by going back to the add-on page and make sure it’s stopped, as indicated by the red dot. If it’s still running, click STOP. You may need to refresh the page to see the correct status.
Step 3: Copy the Z-Wave JS cache files
Go to Link to Add-on: ingress URL – My Home Assistant.
Or manually go to: Settings → Add-ons → Terminal & SSH, and select OPEN WEB-UI.
You will enter a terminal prompt. Enter the following command (copy text and try using middle-mouse button to paste):
apk add zip && zip -j /homeassistant/zjs.zip /addon_configs/core_zwave_js/cache/*.jsonl
This will create a zjs.zip zip file in your HA config directory which contains the Z-Wave JS cache files.
The name of the *.jsonl files are unique for every Z-Wave network.
Step 4: Download the Z-Wave JS cache zip file
We need to download the zip file created above to restore to ZUI later. We can use the File editor add-on to do this.
Go to Link to Add-on: ingress URL – My Home Assistant
Or manually go to Settings → Add-ons → File editor and select OPEN WEB-UI.
Select the folder icon in the upper left (1) to show the files in your HA config directory.
Scroll down the directory listing and find the zjs.zip file we created previously. Select the ... next to the filename and Download.
Make note of where you saved the download as you will need it later.
Step 5: Install ZUI add-on
Install the Z-Wave JS UI add-on but do not configure it yet. The current version of the add-on used here is v3.8.1.
Go to Link to Add-on: dashboard – My Home Assistant
Or manually go to: Settings → Add-ons → ADD-ON STORE, search for Z-Wave JS UI and select it.
- Select INSTALL to install it, and wait some time.
- Select START. You might need to refresh the add-on page to see it started.
- Select OPEN WEB UI to open the ZUI web UI.
Do not configure any settings yet!
Step 6: Import cache files into ZUI
We will import the Z-Wave JS cache files we downloaded in step 4. This is the crucial step that restores the Z-Wave network information in order to avoid re-interviewing devices. Make sure you are still in the ZUI web UI from step 5.
- Select the “hamburger button” at the top to the left of Control Panel
- Select the Store tab (folder icon) to go to Store browser. It will look like a file browser.
- Select the large blue gear button at the bottom of the page
- Select the green Restore button
- Select the Zip file field and pick the
zjs.zipfile downloaded earlier. - Select the RESTORE button.
After the restore, you should immediately see all three of the .jsonl cache files in the Store browser.
Make sure this is the case before proceeding. If you want, you can click on a file to inspect its contents.
Step 7: Configure ZUI
Make sure you are still in the ZUI web UI from steps 5 and 6.
Go to the Z-Wave settings:
- Click the hamburger button at the top to the left of Store
- Click the Settings tab (Gear icon)
- Expand the Z-Wave panel
Configure the Z-Wave settings:
- Set Serial Port by using the same device path from step 1. In most cases should be auto-detected and displayed in the pull-down menu. Tip: you should always use a
/dev/device/by-idpath to avoid issues with path changes. - Set all the S0 and S2 keys via copy and paste from step 1. Be sure to match the keys exactly (S2 Authenticated to S2 Authenticated, etc.).
Optional settings:
- Set Log Level to Debug
- Set Log to file to On
The log settings are recommended for future troubleshooting of issues. If your storage is write-sensitive, such as an SD card, you may want to leave them disabled.
If you are using a VM and a 500-series controller, you may need to disable the “Soft Reset” setting. A Soft Reset of a 500-series will cause a USB reset, and the VM will lose connection. If pass-through is not configured for hot-plugging, the USB stick will never re-connect and Z-Wave JS will fail to start. Do not disable Soft Reset for 700/800-series controllers, they do not have this issue.
Don’t forget to scroll to the bottom of the web UI and click SAVE. Saving will restart ZUI and it may take up to a minute or longer to load depending on the size of your Z-Wave network.
Step 8: Verify configuration
Navigate to the Control Panel via the same hamburger menu. Eventually the node table rows will start filling up with all of the nodes.
A correct migration will show all of the nodes with valid manufacturer, product, and product code fields (1), and there should be no “Unknown” ones. The interview status should also be “Complete” (2).
Note that ZUI will switch to a compact mode if the window width is too narrow. Expand the window width to see the table view as shown above.
If you have some devices that are unknown or not Complete, then they would have been in that state before the migration. To fix that, you’ll need to wake up battery devices to complete the interviews, or try manually re-interviewing. While not required, it’s best if you have all the nodes in the Complete interview state before proceeding to the next step, as this is the main point of the guide.
Step 9: Reconfigure the Z-Wave JS Integration
This process is done exactly as described in the official docs.
- Go to Settings → Devices & services
- Select + ADD INTEGRATION
- Search for Z-Wave and choose Z-Wave. Avoid “Add Z-Wave device” and choose Z-Wave if prompted a second time.
UNCHECK “Use the Z-Wave JS Supervisor add-on” (!!!CRITICAL!!!)
- Select SUBMIT
Enter ws://a0d7b954-zwavejs2mqtt:3000 as the URL (copy and paste the exact URL listed here, do not include any whitespace!) and select SUBMIT.
If successful the dialog will say “Device is already configured”. This is not an error, it means the existing Z-Wave network has successfully been found. Select CLOSE.
The integration is still disabled though, so we need to turn it back on.
- Select SHOW at the top right to show the disabled Z-Wave integration.
- Select ENABLE within the Z-Wave card to re-enable it.
Wait for the integration to load, but it should be nearly instant. If not, try reloading the page.
Go to Link to Z-Wave JS configuration – My Home Assistant or manually select Z-Wave, then CONFIGURE in the Hubs card. Check for “Z-Wave Network Connected” (1) and the ensure the Server URL (2) is set to the above ZUI URL.
If you view your devices and entities, you’ll notice nothing has changed (e.g. device and entity names), as expected.
Step 10: Uninstall the Z-Wave JS add-on
The final step is to remove the official add-on. Both add-ons cannot be running and using the same Z-Wave controller at the same time.
Go to Link to Add-on: dashboard – My Home Assistant
Or manually go to: Settings → Add-ons → Z-Wave JS
Select UNINSTALL and UNINSTALL again in the popup dialog
The official add-on is now completely removed.
The End
Congratulations for making it to the end of this guide! You should now have a fully functioning ZUI add-on, with the ability to perform all the extra things you wanted to do, and nothing should have changed in HA.
If you notice any errors in this guide, please let me know with a comment.
, now with your tutorial I have been able to migrate successfully to Z-Wave JS to MQTT 
, although it is a bit preliminary to say that it goes better, I have noticed that with the example of the lights, it takes only 3 to 5 seconds to turn on all the lights, another issue that happened to me with ZwaveJS is that when I gave orders to the curtains and wanted to turn on the light of a room, there was also a lag in execution times that reached up to 2 minutes in some opportunities… now that doesn’t happen, everything goes in a matter of seconds… 
but as I mentioned I have just been using Z-Wave JS to MQTT for a couple of hours. 
