Migrating to Home Assistant Without Losing Your Automations

Moving from a manufacturer app (SmartThings, a specific hub, or a handful of disconnected apps) to Home Assistant is one of those projects that’s easy to keep putting off because it sounds like it means starting over. Done in the right order, it doesn’t - you can keep your existing automations running throughout, and switch over gradually rather than all at once.

Why People Actually Make This Switch

The most common reasons aren’t abstract - they’re specific frustrations: a favourite manufacturer app got slower or buggier after an update, a company discontinued a product line (see our future-proofing guide for why this happens more than it should), or simply wanting automations across brands that a single manufacturer app can’t do. Knowing your actual reason helps you prioritise what to migrate first.

What Actually Transfers From Common Ecosystems (and What Doesn’t)

How much manual rebuilding you’re in for depends heavily on where you’re migrating from - it’s worth knowing this before you start, since it changes how much time to budget.

Coming From	What Transfers Easily	What Needs Rebuilding
Samsung SmartThings	Zigbee/Z-Wave devices re-pair directly to a new coordinator; device names and rooms don’t carry over automatically	SmartThings’ own automations (Rules/Scenes) need full manual recreation - there’s no import path
Google Home / Nest	Matter-enabled devices can often be added to Home Assistant without leaving Google Home entirely, so both can coexist longer than most ecosystems	Google’s own routines and Nest-specific features (some camera AI features, Nest Aware clips) don’t transfer and may require keeping a Google Home connection for that device specifically
Amazon Alexa	Devices with a direct Home Assistant integration (most major brands) reconnect independently of Alexa entirely	Alexa Routines need full manual recreation; anything relying on Alexa’s own voice recognition for multi-user households needs a rethink, since Home Assistant’s voice handling works differently
Apple Home	HomeKit-native accessories can often be exposed back into Apple Home from Home Assistant via its own HomeKit bridge, so you don’t have to give up Siri/widgets entirely	Apple’s own Home app automations still need recreating in Home Assistant if you want them to run independently of an Apple device being present

Step 1: Map What You Actually Have Before Touching Anything

Before installing Home Assistant, write down (a simple spreadsheet is fine) every device you own, which app currently controls it, and which automations currently depend on it. This sounds tedious, but skipping it is the single most common reason people end up with automations that quietly stop working mid-migration and take ages to notice - it’s much easier to check things off a list than to remember them from memory once devices start moving between systems.

Step 2: Install Home Assistant Without Removing Anything

Set up Home Assistant (see our beginner’s guide if you haven’t yet) while leaving your existing hub and app fully in place and working. Home Assistant can run alongside almost any existing system during a transition - the goal at this stage is just to have it running, not to have moved anything to it yet.

Step 3: Migrate One Device Category at a Time

Rather than migrating everything simultaneously, move one category at a time - lighting first is usually the easiest starting point, since most integrations for popular bulb brands are mature and well-documented in Home Assistant. Add the integration for that brand under Settings → Devices & Services, confirm it controls the devices correctly, then move to the next category (plugs, then sensors, then anything more complex like cameras or locks last).

Step 4: Recreate Automations as You Go, Not All at Once

For each device category you migrate, rebuild the automations that depended on it before moving to the next category - using the list from Step 1 as your checklist. Rebuilding automations gradually, category by category, is far less error-prone than trying to recreate a dozen automations from memory in one sitting after everything’s already moved.

Step 5: Run Both Systems in Parallel Until You’re Confident

Don’t uninstall your old app or disconnect your old hub the moment Home Assistant seems to be working - keep both running for at least a week or two per category, specifically so you have a fallback if something in Home Assistant isn’t behaving as expected. Only fully decommission the old system once you’ve genuinely stopped opening its app out of habit.

Before You Decommission the Old System: A Final Checklist

• Check no Home Assistant automation still references the old app for anything - a surprisingly common gap is a single automation left calling out to the old ecosystem (via a webhook or notification service) that everything else has already moved away from
• Confirm every household member has the Home Assistant Companion App set up and working, not just yourself - decommissioning the old system is a bad surprise for anyone who didn’t know it was happening
• Check for any external service still linked to the old ecosystem - IFTTT applets, a smart speaker routine, or a third-party service that authenticated against the old platform will silently stop working once it’s gone, and these are easy to forget since they’re not visible from either app’s main device list
• Export or screenshot anything genuinely irreplaceable - some ecosystems’ historical data (energy usage graphs, camera clip libraries) doesn’t transfer at all; decide before decommissioning whether that history is worth keeping a read-only account around for

What Usually Goes Wrong

• Migrating everything in one weekend - almost always leads to something being forgotten; spreading it over a few weeks by category is slower but much more reliable
• Not checking for a specific Home Assistant integration before starting - a handful of devices, particularly older or more obscure brands, genuinely don’t have good Home Assistant support; check this before committing to migrating a whole category
• Forgetting shared/family access - if other household members used the old app, they’ll need the Home Assistant Companion App set up too, ideally before you switch rather than as an afterthought

Frequently Asked Questions

Will I lose my automation history or scheduling when I migrate?

Automations themselves need to be manually recreated in Home Assistant, since they don’t transfer automatically from a different platform - but this is exactly why Step 1’s device/automation inventory matters, so nothing gets missed in the rebuild.

How long does a full migration typically take?

For a moderately-sized smart home (20-40 devices), spreading the migration across 3-4 weekends by device category is a realistic, low-stress pace - trying to do it all in a single day is where most of the common mistakes above tend to happen.

Once you’re settled into Home Assistant, our backup and restore guide is worth setting up immediately rather than waiting until you actually need it.