How to back up and restore a Z-Wave network

Backups are a critical part of a reliable local-first smart home. With a Z-Wave network, the pairing information — which devices belong to the network and their security keys — lives in your controller’s memory. Lose that and you have to factory-reset and re-pair every device by hand. This guide covers how to back up and restore a Z-Wave network in Home Assistant, with notes for Hubitat, and clears up some common misconceptions. If you also run a Zigbee mesh, the process there is different - see how to back up and restore a Zigbee network.

What actually gets backed up

A Z-Wave controller stores its network data (node list, network keys, associations) in non-volatile memory (NVM) on the controller chip itself. A Z-Wave backup is essentially a dump of that NVM. It is not stored as a .zwa or .xml file by Home Assistant — the modern Z-Wave JS backup is a JSON file containing the NVM contents.

Two important clarifications before we start:

• The controller is the radio stick, not your hub box. In Home Assistant your Z-Wave controller is a USB adapter such as the Home Assistant Connect ZWA-2 (Silicon Labs 800-series) or a Zooz ZST39 / ZST10 stick — not the computer it plugs into.
• Some “hubs” have no Z-Wave radio at all. The Philips Hue Bridge is Zigbee-only and the Home Assistant Connect ZBT-2 is Zigbee + Thread only. Neither contains a Z-Wave radio, so neither can host or back up a Z-Wave network. For Z-Wave in the Home Assistant world you need a dedicated Z-Wave adapter like the ZWA-2.

How to back up your Z-Wave network in Home Assistant

Home Assistant uses Z-Wave JS, which has a built-in NVM backup and restore in the UI.

1. In Home Assistant, go to Settings > Devices & services > Z-Wave (or open the Z-Wave integration page).
2. Under Download backup, select Download.
3. Z-Wave JS reads the NVM from your Z-Wave adapter and downloads a backup file (JSON) to your browser’s device. Save it somewhere safe — off the Home Assistant machine, ideally.

It’s good practice to take a backup before any major change: migrating to a new adapter, resetting the stick, or upgrading hardware.

Note: a full Home Assistant backup also captures the Z-Wave JS configuration and store. The dedicated NVM download above is what you want specifically for moving the network to a new stick.

How to restore your Z-Wave network in Home Assistant

1. Plug in the Z-Wave adapter you want to restore to and make sure Z-Wave JS is pointed at it.
2. Go to Settings > Devices & services > Z-Wave.
3. Under Restore from backup, select Restore and choose your backup file.
4. Z-Wave JS writes the NVM back to the controller. When it finishes, your previously paired devices reappear without re-pairing.

Migrating between different controllers (e.g. 700 to 800 series)

You can restore a backup taken from one stick onto a different one — this is how you migrate to a new adapter like the ZWA-2. Because the 800-series has a different NVM layout than the 700-series, Z-Wave JS detects the target controller’s layout and converts the backup into the correct format during restore. Home Assistant’s built-in restore is the recommended way to do this; it handles the conversion for you.

There is one hard limit. NVM migration works for 700-to-700, 700-to-800, and 800-to-800 moves. An NVM backup taken from an older 500-series controller cannot be restored onto a 700- or 800-series stick, because the SDKs do not allow it. Going from a 500-series stick to a modern one means excluding your devices and re-including them on the new controller.

Hubitat users

A Hubitat Elevation hub has its own Z-Wave radio and its own backup mechanism. The free local backup is a .lzf download of the hub database — apps, rules, device entries — and it does not include the Z-Wave radio. Backing up the Z-Wave radio and migrating it to a replacement hub is part of Hubitat’s paid Hub Protect / Cloud Backup subscription. Either way you restore through Hubitat’s own interface: you cannot import a Z-Wave JS NVM file into Hubitat or the other way round, because they are different controller stacks.

A note on older tools

You may see references to Z-Way or the old OpenZWave project. Z-Way is its own separate Z-Wave platform with its own backup format and is not used by Home Assistant. OpenZWave is deprecated and was replaced by Z-Wave JS years ago. For current Home Assistant setups, use the Z-Wave JS backup/restore described above rather than those tools.

Quick verdict

In Home Assistant, backing up Z-Wave is a two-click NVM download in the Z-Wave integration, and restoring is just as simple — including when migrating to a new 800-series stick like the Home Assistant Connect ZWA-2. Remember that Zigbee/Thread hubs (Hue Bridge, ZBT-2) can’t host or back up Z-Wave at all. Take a backup before any major change and store it off the Home Assistant machine.