I have 2 older Z-Wave mains powered dimmers that I will be replacing with 2 new Matter mains powered dimmers. I know the process of needing to add the dimmers to Apple Home/HomeKit before being able to add them to Hubitat. However, when ready to add them to Hubitat, what is the best way to do so? The last time I swapped devices is was like for like, so Swap Devices worked beautifully. Since the devices being removed are Z-Wave, I need to exclude them 1st and that will likely remove them fully from Hubitat, correct? So when adding the Matter dimmers, will I have the option to replace/swap devices? What's the best approach/process for what I need to do? Should I create temporary virtual devices to replace the actual Z-Wave dimmers and then when adding the Matter dimmers, replace the virtual temporary devices with those?
That’s exactly what I would do. Use virtual devices as an in between while you exclude the Zwave device.
If the dimmers are Matter via WiFi, you could use the mobile app to directly add them to Hubitat first. If they are Matter via Thread and/or you want them in Apple Home too, then going Apple to Hubitat would be the process.
+1 for that approach, not sure there’s another way.