How To Migrate From HOOBS To Homebridge

The Homebridge Raspberry Pi Image allows you to easily migrate your existing HOOBS system to Homebridge.

This migration will allow you to retain all your existing plugins, config, accessories, automations and HomeKit pairings.

💡 You can migrate a HOOBS instance on running on any platform (HOOBS Box, macOS, Docker, Linux etc.) to Homebridge on the platform of your choice.

⚠️ Restoring backups from HOOBS v4 is not supported.

Prerequisites

Before getting started, make sure you have the following:

• A HOOBS instance running HOOBS v3. This does not necessarily have to be HOOBS running on a Raspberry Pi, any supported platform is fine.

Step 1: Create HOOBS Backup

1. Login to HOOBS and from the upper-right-corner dropdown menu select Configuration.
2. From the sidebar select Backup.
3. Select the option to perform a System Backup.
4. The backup process may take a long time depending on your Raspberry Pi model and the number of plugins you have installed.

Step 2: Prepare Homebridge Image

Now that you have created a backup of your system, you can flash the Homebridge Raspberry Pi Image to your SD card. You can safely flash this to the same SD card you currently have HOOBS installed on, you won't need that again.

Follow our Getting Started guide for instructions on how to flash the image and connect the Pi to your local network.

Alternatively, you can setup Homebridge on any supported platform manually, just make sure you have stopped and removed any existing HOOBS services.

Once you have logged into the Homebridge UI, proceed to the next step below, there is no need to pair the fresh Homebridge instance with HomeKit as we are about to replace this with your setup from the HOOBS backup.

Step 3: Restore HOOBS Backup to Homebridge

1. If you're migrating your HOOBS setup to a new device, and HOOBS is still online, you should stop the HOOBS service now before restoring the backup file.
2. Create a new user account using the Homebridge UI Setup Wizard, do not choose the Restore Backup option on the initial setup screen, this will only work with Homebridge backup archives. Proceed to the Homebridge dashboard.
3. From the upper-right-corner use the dropdown menu to select the Backup/Restore option.
4. From the Restore selection click Browse and choose the backup file you created earlier. This file is probably in your Downloads directory and named something like backup-12345678912333.hbfx.
5. Click the Restore Backup button.
6. Your backup file will now be uploaded and extracted, depending on the size of the backup file this may take some time to complete, please be patient and keep web browser tab open.
7. Once the backup completes click Restart Homebridge.

Complete

Check the Homebridge logs to ensure all your plugins are operating correctly. You should now be able to control all your devices from HomeKit.

Connection Issues After Restoring

In some rare cases, after doing a restore, you may need to Reset Homebridge and re-add the bridge in the Home app.