When it comes to home automation, having a responsive, rock-solid and efficient system is key. For years, ioBroker served as the backbone of my smart home setup in Germanys (probably) most advanced SmartHome. However, as my setup grew—with now over 600 sensors to manage across various connection-types from classic WiFi over Zigbee, over LoRaWAN, I started encountering limitations (sadly mostly due to extremely stubborn developers who refused to keep up thepace of a modern IoT-World) that prompted me to consider alternatives. Enter Home Assistant (HA), a platform known for its robust capabilities, thriving community, and efficient resource management. In this guide, I’ll walk you through the steps of migrating from ioBroker to Home Assistant, covering everything from initial planning to final implementation.

Step 1) Preparing for the Migration

Before you dive into the migration, it’s critical to evaluate your current setup. Make a comprehensive list of all the adapters and devices you’re using in ioBroker. Check Home Assistant’s integrations to ensure compatibility for each device. This step is crucial for avoiding surprises during the migration process. You might find, that HA actually offers WAY more so called “Integrations” compared to ioBroker and that you no longer have to hassle with Blockly-Scripts or Javascript because everything in HA comes in a nice and fancy GUI-Editor. Although to be fair this also has some limitations where you end up in yaml-files – which is still better than Javascript – change my mind 😉

Next you decide whether you want to run Home Assistant on physical hardware (HA green, HA Yellow, Raspberry Pi and so on) or in a virtualized environment. I opted for a virtual machine on Proxmox (snatched a cheap Lenovo Mini-PC with an i5 CPU, 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD on eBay), as it offers unparalleled ease of backup and recovery. Virtual environments also allow for more flexible resource allocation and testing without impacting your main system. SInce ProxMox is a Tier1-Hypervisor the loss you experience can be completely ignored in this scenario. Ultimately that only brings benefits for me – haven’t found a single reason against it – which is so extremely rare in IT… One of the primary reasons I chose a virtual environment was the simplicity of backups. Proxmox allows you to take full snapshots of the virtual machine, making it easy to roll back changes or recover from catastrophic failures.

A stable network connection is essential, especially for devices like Zigbee hubs, Wi-Fi-enabled lights, and other IoT peripherals. I use Juniper MIST for my WiFi for both 2.4G and 5G,use the SLZB Stick (connected via Ethernet) for my ZigBee Environment and use Ubiquiti for my Outdoor WiFi as this was a cheap and reliable option to ensure WiFi-coverage for outdoors. For my LoRaWAN-Setup I use a custom ESP32-based Gateway.

Step 2) Installing Home Assistant

1. Install Proxmox: If you haven’t already, set up Proxmox on your HomeServer.
   There are plenty of guides available, but the process is straightforward.
2. Create a VM: Allocate resources like CPU, RAM, and storage to your new virtual machine. For Home Assistant, 2 cores, 4GB of RAM, and 32GB of storage are sufficient for most setups. I gave my VM 2vCPU’s, 8G of RAM and 100G of Harddisk (as I also use InfluxDB with a retention period of unlimited to track Data over the years)
3. Install Home Assistant OS: Download the Home Assistant OS image and attach it to the VM. Boot up the VM, and follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation. There are also guides on how to simply add HA to Proxmox.

Step 3) Device Discovery and Migration

Migration requires patience, as each device needs to be carefully removed from ioBroker and added to Home Assistant so you don’t accidentially leave a device on the old platform. Start with devices that are critical to your setup. For instance, I began with my Shelly-Devices. Removing them from ioBroker was straightforward, and adding them to HA was even easier (for Gen1 Devices, just enable CoIOT and present it the IP of your HA Server, for gen2 and 3 just give HA your password for the webui – done). No more reliance on “ping” adapters or error messages about “unknown IDs” which gives my mind so much less stress 😉 The integration of shelly into ioBroker really needa a complete re-write as the Adapter is not useable anymore in such large environments – even with a 12-Core-Xeon-CPU and 64G RAM – which is ridiculous!

For Zigbee, I transitioned my Zigbee2MQTT setup to HA. Home Assistant’s native Zigbee integration worked seamlessly. After pairing the devices, they were instantly recognized and configured without a hitch. Because I use the external stick as a Gateway I just had to connect it to HA and remove the connection from the ioBroker – the topology resides on the Stick and it was a really smooth and instant migration 🙂

WLED controllers and Tuya devices were next. Home Assistant’s integrations for these platforms were straightforward. Adding them was as simple as logging in with my existing credentials and letting the system handle the rest. Twinkly lights, used heavily during holidays, were also a breeze thanks to HA’s dedicated integration.

Migrating my SMA solar inverter was another win for Home Assistant. The SMA Energy integration provided detailed insights into my photovoltaic system without needing any additional adapters or workarounds. I don’t even need to create a modbus-integration anymore which will be hard on your CPU if not implemented carefully – again a huge win for the HA!

Step 4) Post-Migration Observations

One of the first things I noticed was the responsiveness of Home Assistant. Unlike ioBroker, which often felt sluggish with my large setup, HA handled everything smoothly. Resource usage was significantly lower, leaving more headroom for future expansions. I cannot believe how “poor” ioBroker handley resources… Seeing this live when migrating from a Xeon 12-Core System with 64GB RAM into a Lenovo Mini-PC with 2-Core-i5 and 8GB of RAM and still be way faster AND have resources on spare was MINDBLOWING! I wouldn’t have believed it if I haven’t experienced it live – tipping my Fedora to the HA-Team – GREAT JOB!

The Home Assistant interface is intuitive and user-friendly. Discovering and configuring devices was a joy compared to ioBroker’s sometimes convoluted process. Automations, dashboards, and integrations felt more streamlined, making daily interactions with my smart home far more enjoyable. There is a “Community” HA-Store which is probably the same as the GitHub ioBroker addons that you can use – however as this is community based there might be some caviats so better only stick to the official Stores – they are called “official” for a reason and the dev’s look at the official store addons when creating updates (where a community based one can probably break anytime an update gets introduced). It’s extremely positive to see that everything running in a modern smarthome can be integrated with the proper standard tools and integrations without relying on a single dev somewhere and his personal “grace and mercy” to implement new features even MONTHS after a vendor releases a new device… Totally unacceptable! You either maintain your software or you are no longer a maintainer – just my 2ct. Don’t leave people hanging!

Migrating from ioBroker to Home Assistant was an extremely straightforward process. By carefully planning each step and leveraging the power of Proxmox, I was able to transition over 600 devices without major disruptions in roughly 2 hours (okay – maybe my python-skills and shelly-python scripts that i developed helped a lot). The result is a system that’s faster, more efficient, and easier to manage.

If you’re considering making the switch, I highly recommend it. Home Assistant’s active development and vibrant community ensure that your smart home will remain future-proof. The time invested in migrating will pay dividends in improved performance and a more satisfying WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor). I really hope that the ioBroker-Team will get rid of some “fowl” devs and get back to former glory – one can only hope. Until some major things have been fixed I will stay on HA.

What system do you run at home? Did you have a similar Experience? Let me know in the comments 🙂