How hard is it to migrate from HomeBridge to Home Assistant?

I’m currently using Homebridge with Cbus and, to be fair, it has been very stable for me. I really can’t complain about reliability. For basic HomeKit control, it has done the job well.

The reason I’m thinking about Home Assistant it’s more that I’m starting to want more advanced automation, and Homebridge seems a bit limited once you go beyond the basics.

For example, I’d like to do things like having the lights flash a few times when someone presses the doorbell, but only for lights that are already on and are dimmable. From what I can see, that sort of thing seems fairly easy in Home Assistant, but not really practical with Homebridge and Apple Home.

So I’m curious how hard it really is to move from Homebridge to Home Assistant when C-Bus is involved, and how long people found it took in the real world. Is it something that can be done without too much pain over a few hours, or does it usually turn into a fairly involved migration with a lot of tinkering and troubleshooting?

Thanks in advance.

 

I would allow a few session of 2 or 3 hours to get it working.
If you can keep homebridge going until complete then at least you can walk away and have a rest
When I did it on a RPI 5 I used a separate SD card so I could easily revert to Homebridge.
It's worth the effort, have a look at this post https://www.cbusforums.com/threads/c-bus-via-mqtt-and-matter-bridge.11516/

 

Thanks, that’s useful.

I’ve actually got HA talking to my C-Bus now via a 5500CN using ha-cbus2mqtt, so the big plus is I didn’t need to set up an extra Pi just to run Cgate. That part was pretty straightforward.

But now that I’ve got it in, I’m running into a few issues that make me wonder if this path is a bit limited. Eg HA seems to treat everything as dimmable, even groups that are really just relay channels, and my blinds are also coming through as dimmable lights instead of covers. State updates also seem a bit off in blinds.

So I’m not really sure whether this is just the limitation of ha-cbus2mqtt.

Has anyone compared this with any of the Cgate to MQTT options in real use? I’m wondering if those handle entity mapping better, eg relays as simple on/off, blinds as covers, etc.

The main reason I tried ha-cbus2mqtt first was exactly because I could avoid running a separate Pi for Cgate, so I’m just trying to work out whether the convenience is worth the trade-offs.

 

I've done this recently, in the last few months.

There's a new plug in for Home Assistant that doesn't require MQTT or anything like that. You have to install it via a third party app store, but it all works very well. If you already have C-gate configured to work with Homebridge then all the hard work is already done.

If you need help with it give me a shout.

 

Hey mate, do you mean this one: https://github.com/Weslide/cbus ? I’ve heard of it before, but I thought it was still in the experimental phase.

 

Yeah that's the one. Working fine for me. Hoping they are still making active improvements on it as the Homebridge version hadn't been updated in many years.

 

I just tried it. It works, but it's worse than ha-cbus2mqtt. ha-cbus2mqtt doesn't require a dedicated CGate. All components can run on Home Assistant, and it's fairly easy to install; the documentation is good. MQTT itself isn't a problem.

My complaint about both projects is that they don't include a configuration file to easily import all the names and types of CBus components.

Anyway, I’ve decided to keep Homebridge. It’s stable and I don’t want to risk messing up my lights. I’ll use Home Assistant for other experiments and automations.

 

Not sure what you mean about dedicated Cgate. I have a small home server running Windows Server 2025 and along with all my other stuff it runs Cgate/Toolkit/SLCC. Then I use Hyper-V for my VMs. One of the VMs is Home Assistant. It just points to the Cgate running natively on Server 2025. So only one instance of Cgate does everything. No MQTT or anything in the middle.

Am I missing out on some functionally by not doing it the ha-cbus2mqtt way? Because if I am, I might look into changing over...

 

No your not missing out using C-Gate, MQTT is an alternative of getting load status into HA and turning loads on and off.
C-Gate as you are using it achieves that, as well as allowing you to program C-Bus via TK or SLCC.
So what's all the fuss about MQTT,
Its light weight and very easy on low spec machines (RPI's) fast to start up and sync well at least mine is when used with a NAC.
Should you change over? Not unless you want to or you are experience problems with your present setup, I rarely need to fix anything using MQTT it just works and if your system is functioning and you understand it then leave it alone.

 

I had a quick look at the mentioned cbus integration and it works fine on my lab setup. One thing I noticed is that it only supports the lighting application and the classification of HA entities seems to be based on what you named your groups. In my case my 'Study Light' is connected to a relay output but in HA it was created as a light object. It works but it thinks it's a dimmer now. Not a problem, just an observation.

A few years ago I also tried the cbus2mqtt which also worked fine but it had the ability to 'see' what group was assigned to which output unit and classify the entities accordingly. If it was connected to a dimmer then it would be a light object and for relays it made them switch objects. I stand to be corrected but I seem to remember it also supported a few other applications which allowed me to add sensors and security application (doors, windows and PIRs) to HA. For most people only looking at the lighting application I think either should work fine.

 

Is there a way to trigger scenes or emulate an eDLT via Home Assistant at all?

 

This is from the cgate-mqtt github page.

• Trigger Application Support: The project includes support for CBUS Trigger applications, enabling Home Assistant to identify and respond to triggered events.

 

Thanks. So I'm migraing my setup on to a new server tomorrow, and I'm gonna rebuild the Home Assistant stuff from scratch. I was having issues with states not being recognised and various glitches with the methid I mentioned previously, so gonna try a different method.

Along with lighting, I also have a C-bus thermostat that I want to integrate. I also believe I need the measurement application so I can put data back onto my eDLTs. With that in mind, what is the best way to go? I need the option with the most functionality.

What do you reckon?

 

Hi @Tension, if you’re going through the process of installing HomeAssistant from scratch, can I recommend that you have a look at my bridge that I finalised over a week ago. It has dimmable light, curtains/blinds, AC temperature reading and controls, motion sensors, smoke and gas alarms built right in. I’m waiting for HACS to add this bridge into HA, which would make installing it easier, but it’s available, just follow these instructions.
1. Open Home Assistant → HACS → Integrations
2. Click the three dots menu → Custom Repositories
3. Paste https://github.com/UNsync3D/homeassistant-clipsal-cbus
4. Select category: Integration
5. Click Add

I hope this works for you. Let me know if you have any feedback. No need for CGate, LUA or MQTT.

 

Thanks, looks good!

Unfortunately I don't have a SHAC though, I do everything over serial, so looks like it won't work for me.