How to Migrate Your Zigbee Coordinator to the New SONOFF Dongle？

Overview

For traditional Zigbee gateways, ecosystem barriers between brands often make migration a real headache. Switching to a new gateway usually means re-adding a large number of sub-devices from scratch.

However, for Zigbee coordinators in the form of Dongles—commonly used with open-source platforms—the story is quite different. If you need to replace your Dongle, both ZHA and Z2M offer Zigbee coordinator migration features that allow you to transfer your setup quickly and seamlessly, with minimal effort. This makes upgrading to a new Dongle much easier and far more convenient.

After several rounds of iteration and upgrades, the SONOFF Dongle lineup has evolved to include the Dongle-M, Dongle-PMG24, and Dongle-LMG21—each designed for different users and scenarios. All three are based on the Ember solution and support migration features, allowing you to transfer data from your old Dongle and continue running your Zigbee ecosystem without disruption.

In this article, we'll take the Dongle-M as an example and walk you through how to migrate your configuration—whether from a Z-Stack–based Dongle or another Ember-based Dongle—into a new SONOFF Dongle (Dongle-M, Dongle-PMG24, and Dongle-LMG21) using ZHA or Z2M.

ZHA: Zigbee Coordinator Migration  

Official ZHA Tutorial: https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/zha/#migrating-to-a-new-zigbee-coordinator-adapter-inside-zha

Result:

No need to reconfigure devices  

Migration Steps:

1. Go to the ZHA configuration page and click the Migrate Radio button.

2. Select Migrate to new radio.

3. Confirm the migration information and click Submit.

4. Unplug the old Dongle and connect Dongle-M to the host USB port or the local network.

5. Confirm the connection method for Dongle-M:

• USB connection: Select the serial device directly and connect.
  
• TCP connection: Choose Enter Manually, then manually select the device type EZSP, and set the serial path to: tcp://Dongle-M.local.
  

Manual setup:

6. Choose to restore from automatic backup.

7. Migration successful.

Z2M:  Zigbee Coordinator Migration  

Official Zigbee2MQTT Tutorial: https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/guide/faq/#how-do-i-migrate-from-one-adapter-to-another

Migrating from an Ember Coordinator to Dongle-M

Result:

No need to reconfigure devices

Steps:

1. Stop the Zigbee2MQTT add-on.

2. Use the File Editor add-on to access /homeassistant/zigbee2mqtt/configuration.yaml.

3. Change the port to the Dongle-M path, e.g., tcp://Dongle-M.local:6638, then save (Ctrl + S).

4. Restart Zigbee2MQTT.

Migrating from a Z-Stack Coordinator to Dongle-M (Unofficial Recommendation)

Result: 
Tested to require no device reconfiguration

Steps:

1. Stop the Zigbee2MQTT add-on.

2. Use the File Editor add-on to access /homeassistant/zigbee2mqtt/.

3. Back up configuration.yaml, coordinator_backup.json, and database.db to your local computer (in case restoration is needed).

4. Modify /homeassistant/zigbee2mqtt/configuration.yaml and enter Dongle-M’s serial path, e.g., tcp://Dongle-M.local:6638. Make sure to change the driver to ezsp, then save (Ctrl + S).

5. Delete /homeassistant/zigbee2mqtt/coordinator_backup.json.

6. Start the Zigbee2MQTT add-on. Zigbee2MQTT will recreate the Zigbee network based on the YAML file. The pan_id and extended_pan_id will match the original network, while the device list will be empty.

7. Once the Zigbee network starts successfully and the Zigbee2MQTT console is accessible, stop the add-on. Revisit /homeassistant/zigbee2mqtt/, delete the newly generated database.db, and rename the original database.db.backup to database.db.

8. Also, modify configuration.yaml to set adapter to ember, then save (Ctrl + S).  

9. Restart Zigbee2MQTT. The original device list will now be restored from database.db.  

Finally, no matter which method you use to migrate your Zigbee coordinator, if you run into any issues, feel free to visit the Dongle section of the forum. Our  Dongle developers are there to help answer your questions and ensure a smooth, seamless transition to your new SONOFF Dongle.