Switching platforms without rebuying everything
Migration is a sequencing problem, not a shopping problem. Get the order right and almost nothing has to be thrown away.
What actually has to be replaced#
Before you price a migration, separate the hardware from the work. The hardware bill is usually small. The work is the whole cost.
| What you own | Does it move? | What it takes |
|---|---|---|
| Matter devices | Yes | Unpair from the old fabric, re-commission with the setup code. Keep the code. |
| Zigbee devices | Yes | Factory reset and re-pair to the new coordinator. Bindings and groups are rebuilt. |
| Z-Wave devices | Usually | Exclude then include, or migrate the controller. S2 devices need the DSK again. |
| Wi-Fi devices with an open API | Yes | Add the integration, sign in. |
| Wi-Fi devices with a closed cloud | Only if the new platform has an integration | Check first. This is where money gets spent. |
| Thread devices | Yes, they are Matter devices | Same as Matter, plus a border router on the new platform. |
| Proprietary radio devices (Lutron, Hue, some blinds) | Through their own bridge | Keep the bridge, add its integration. See proprietary radios. |
| Automations and scenes | No | Rebuilt by hand, every time, on every platform. |
| Camera recordings | Usually not | Export before you cancel anything. |
The order of operations#
Inventory before you touch anything
List every device with its room, its radio, and its pairing code or DSK if you still have it. Photograph the QR code label on anything you can reach, because a Matter device you cannot re-commission is a device you have to factory reset and hope. Note which devices are shared with housemates and which are load-bearing (locks, garage, thermostat).
Confirm the destination supports each device
Work through the inventory against the new platform. Zigbee and Z-Wave need the new hub to carry those radios, which rules out Apple Home, Google Home and most Alexa hardware. Matter device types need the new controller to implement them: Google Home's documented device types top out at Matter 1.3, so a device class added in 1.4 or later may pair and then do nothing useful. Use the compatibility checker for the awkward ones.
Buy the radios, not the platform
Get the hub and any dongles in place first. Home Assistant Green has no radios at all, so a realistic build is $199 plus $49 for a Connect ZBT-2 and $69 for a ZWA-2 if you have Z-Wave. Remember the ZBT-2 does Zigbee or Thread and not both, so a house with Zigbee and Thread needs two of them. Hubitat's Thread Special Edition swaps out the Zigbee radio rather than adding to it, so choose the model that matches the radios you actually own.
Set up the new platform alongside the old one
Do not remove anything yet. Install the new controller, get it on the network, set up its accounts and its Thread border router if it has one, and confirm you can reach it from a phone. Both systems now coexist, which is the state you want for the next two to three weeks. The rules for running two platforms at once are in running two platforms on purpose.
Fix the network first
Migrations expose network problems that were invisible before. Split your Wi-Fi so there is a 2.4 GHz SSID that IoT devices can join, disable client isolation on it, and make sure mDNS crosses any VLAN boundary you have. Matter, Thread and border router discovery all depend on multicast reaching your controller. The network setup a smart home wants covers the settings.
Plan the 802.15.4 channels
If the new hub runs Zigbee or Thread, choose the channel deliberately instead of accepting the default, and keep it clear of your Wi-Fi channels and of the old hub's network during the overlap. The channel planner gives you the arithmetic.
Migrate one non-critical room first
Pick a room nobody depends on. A spare bedroom or a hallway. Move every device in it, rebuild its automations, and live with it for a few days. You will discover the platform's quirks on devices that do not matter, which is the entire point of this step.
Move mains-powered devices before battery ones
Both Zigbee and Thread meshes are built by mains-powered relays. If you pair battery sensors first they have nothing to route through and will look unreliable in a way that has nothing to do with the platform. Plugs, bulbs and switches first, sensors and buttons last. The reasoning is in designing a mesh that holds up.
Remove from the old platform only after the new one works
For each device: confirm the new platform controls it and reads its state, then unpair it from the old one. Doing this in reverse produces ghost devices and orphaned Matter fabrics that need a factory reset to clear. The exact sequence per radio is in removing and re-pairing devices cleanly.
Rebuild automations by behavior, not by copying
Do not port rules one for one. Write down what each automation is supposed to achieve, then build that on the new platform using its idioms. Expect to find that some of them were compensating for a limitation that no longer applies, and others had quietly stopped being used. Automations that people do not turn off covers the patterns worth keeping.
Move the locks, thermostat and garage last
These are the devices that produce a bad evening when they go wrong. Do them when the rest of the house is stable, in daylight, with the old platform still installed. Keep physical keys accessible and know how to operate the thermostat by hand before you unpair it.
Decommission deliberately
Once nothing depends on the old platform, export anything you want to keep, cancel subscriptions, remove shared users, and factory reset the old hub. If you are selling or passing on hardware, reset it before it leaves the house so it is not still attached to your account. Moving out and moving in has the same checklist from the other direction.
Timing, realistically#
For a house with 20 to 40 devices, budget an evening for setup, a weekend for the bulk of the moves, and two to three weeks of parallel running while the automations settle. Households where more than one person uses the system should expect the naming and habit changes to take longer than the technical work.
The migrations people actually do#
Alexa or Google Home to Home Assistant or Hubitat. Usually driven by wanting automations that survive an outage. The hardware moves easily because Alexa and Google own very little at the radio level. The work is rebuilding routines. See Home Assistant vs SmartThings for the local-control reasoning.
SmartThings to Home Assistant. Common, and worth watching in late 2026: Samsung ends free SmartThings API access in October 2026, moving individual developers onto a $4.99 a month Personal Plan, and Home Assistant's SmartThings integration falls under that plan. As of September 2026 Home Assistant has not said how it will handle it. If your plan was to keep SmartThings as the radio layer and Home Assistant as the brain, treat that as unsettled and prefer moving the radios properly.
Anything to Apple Home. Straightforward for Matter and Thread devices, impossible for Zigbee and Z-Wave, which Apple has no radio for. The usual answer is to keep a hub for those radios and bridge them in, accepting the losses described in Matter bridges and what you lose through one.
Consolidating onto one platform after a shutdown. Belkin Wemo shut down on 31 January 2026, and only devices already paired to Apple HomeKit before that date kept working. That is the pattern to plan against: a vendor's cloud going away takes the integration with it. When a smart home company shuts down covers the warning signs.
Will I have to rebuy my smart home to switch platforms?
Rarely. Matter, Zigbee, Z-Wave and Thread devices all move to a new hub with a reset and a re-pair. The devices that do not move are cloud-locked Wi-Fi products with no integration on the target platform, and anything on a proprietary radio without a bridge. Check those specifically before you buy a new hub, because they are the whole risk.
Do I have to factory reset every device?
Matter devices need to be unpaired from the old fabric and re-commissioned, which is not quite a factory reset if done in the right order. Zigbee devices generally need a reset before joining a new coordinator. Z-Wave devices need exclusion from the old controller then inclusion on the new one. Wi-Fi devices usually just need a new account.
Can I run two platforms during the migration?
Yes, and you should. Two to three weeks of parallel running lets you verify each device on the new platform before removing it from the old one. The rule is that automations live on exactly one platform at a time, otherwise both will act on the same lights and produce behavior nobody can explain.
What order should I migrate rooms in?
Least important first, most important last. A spare room or hallway teaches you the platform's quirks safely. Locks, garage doors, thermostats and anything a housemate depends on go at the end, in daylight, with the old system still available as a fallback.
Do my automations transfer?
No. No platform imports another platform's automations, and the ones that offer partial conversion tools produce rules you will end up rewriting. Treat it as an opportunity: write down what each automation is meant to do, then rebuild it. A useful share of old rules turn out to be workarounds you no longer need.
Will switching break my Thread devices?
Only until the new platform has a border router. Thread devices are Matter devices, so they re-commission normally, but they need a border router on the new fabric to be reachable from your LAN. Check that your new hardware includes one, and remember that a Homey Pro 2026 forms its own Thread network rather than joining an existing one.
How long does a migration take?
For 20 to 40 devices, plan a weekend for the moves and two to three weeks of running both systems while automations settle. The technical work is faster than that. The delay comes from discovering the automations you forgot you had, usually at the moment they fail to fire.
Should I keep the old hub?
Keep it powered until the new platform has run for two clean weeks, then reset it. Do not sell or give away a hub that is still attached to your account or still holds a Z-Wave network, because the next owner inherits a controller they cannot fully claim and you keep a device on your account you cannot see.
Primary sources
Specification and vendor documentation we checked while writing this page. Where a claim depends on firmware behaviour rather than a published spec, the page says so inline.