Embodiments of this application provide a communication method and a related device. The method includes: User equipment obtains various conditions based on configuration information from a base station, and then performs path switching based on the various conditions. For example, a network device first sends the configuration information to the user equipment, and then the user equipment obtains a first condition based on the configuration information. Then, in a measurement process, the user equipment sends a measurement report to the network device when determining that the first condition is currently met. After obtaining the measurement report, the network device indicates at least one candidate relay device to the user equipment by using a path switch command. The user equipment determines one relay device in the at least one candidate relay device, and communicates with the network device or another network device through the determined relay device.