We’ve found an issue in Home Assistant Connect ZBT-1 that has affected a small number of customers, which appears to be the result of a faulty part incorporated in the first production run of ZBT-1 devices, causing the device to fail and become completely unresponsive. We want to make sure everyone can get a replacement ZBT-1 and ensure they are covered far into the future.

Though Home Assistant SkyConnect is identical to the ZBT-1 under the hood, it is not affected. The design is not what’s at fault, but instead, a defective voltage regulator that was used in this specific production run that is causing the issue. When a ZBT-1 is inserted into certain USB-A ports, the voltage regulator can fail, fully bricking the device. We used high-quality manufacturing and quality control in this and previous production runs. We are undertaking an investigation to find out how this could happen and most importantly, to avoid a repeat of anything remotely similar in the future.

We’re sorry for any inconvenience this may cause you. Below are details on our investigation, how devices are affected, and the replacement program.

• Background
• Do I have a ZBT-1?
• Pausing sales
• Replacement Program
• Conclusion

Boo! 👻

Please don’t be scared; it is October, Halloween is coming, and so is the next Home Assistant release: 2024.10! 🎃

The release we bring you today is a perfect mix of new UI features, advanced features, improvements, and lots of bug fixes while not being too overwhelming. There is something for everyone in this release.

Most notably, we have a brand new heading card. It allows you to add titles or subtitles to your dashboards, make them clickable, and even add cute little entities to them. The new section dashboard gets better and better with every release, which is super exciting!

We also introduce some small YAML automation syntax changes. If you are still a sucker for writing your automations in YAMLYAML is a human-readable data serialization language. It is used to store and transmit data in a structured format. In Home Assistant, YAML is used for configuration, for example in the configuration.yaml or automations.yaml files. [Learn more] (like me), I’m sure you’ll love these little tweaks that make it all feel more natural.

Enjoy the release!

../Frenck

Today there has been an important announcement, I (Paulus, founder of Home Assistant) will be taking a seat on the Z-Wave Alliance Board of Directors, representing Nabu Casa. This is a significant piece of recognition for the work we have put into our support of open standards, and the importance of open source projects in keeping standards successful and thriving.

Being part of this board allows us to play a bigger role in shaping Z-Wave’s future. As a Standards Development Organization (SDO) the Alliance is shaped by its members, and they brought us in for our connection to our community and expertise in open source. We will be giving a voice to Home Assistant users, open source development, and Open Home Foundation values.

I’ve said it before, but Home Assistant would be nothing without its community. That’s why we decided this year to focus our anniversary celebration on acknowledging and thanking our amazing community. It’s fitting as 2024 was the year we added a dedicated community manager, Missy Quarry, who hosted this celebration of you in our 11th Anniversary live stream.

Missy co-hosted the stream with creator and Home Assistant community member Andrej Broz, better known as Bearded Tinker. Together they threw a barrage of questions at Frenck and myself - we didn’t see any of them ahead of time so our responses don’t get any more real than that. It was a lot of fun, and there was even a little announcement slipped in there, so please check it out.

We can’t thank our community enough for the past 11 years. You are the engine driving forward Home Assistant. You put in your spare time to test, fix, build, and share your ideas. You fund our work by subscribing to Home Assistant Cloud, which allows us to devote our full attention to you, and never have to answer to a bunch of investors. We couldn’t do it without you.

Bruno here once again to bring you a bunch of news on your favorite iOS App 😉. In this release, we are introducing some new features to complement the release of iOS 18, along with a new way to configure your Home Assistant Apple Watch app.

Home Assistant 2024.9! 🎉

Many community members based in the northern hemisphere have taken advantage of the nicer weather to take a little time off. Home Assistant releases have continued to grow for some time, and this one might not be as gargantuan in size as previous releases, but it still packs some really cool features and announcements.

This release includes bigger sections, smarter energy monitoring, and a new LLM option. We’ve added five new integrations, along with one existing integration being added to the UI. On top of all that, we’ve announced a new Works with Home Assistant partner, and the culmination of a project to ensure our project is truly open source.

We hope you’ve been able to enjoy some time in, and away, from your smart home this month as well.

Enjoy the release!

We’re excited to announce that Aqara is bringing several of their devices to our Works with Home Assistant program. We know that Aqara is a brand that many in the community like to recommend for its solid options for Zigbee and Matter.

This will be the first partner to join since our recent update to the program, meaning it is the first to join certifying specific devices, making it much easier to see what will give you the best experience in Home Assistant. It will also be the first partner to use our “Works via Matter with Home Assistant” badge, giving some great options to use with Home Assistant’s industry-leading Matter support.

Art by Clelia Rella

TL;DR: HACS 2.0 is a big step forward, adding an easier install method, faster updates, a new UI, and proper Home Assistant update/repair notifications.

Home Assistant’s Community Store, HACS, has now hit v2.0, gaining some big improvements that continue to make it the best way to find, install, and update awesome community-made integrations and UI elements. This follows HACS being added as an Open Home Foundation collaboration partner, recognizing its important role in Home Assistant’s open ecosystem.

Just note, HACS is an advanced tool that can add custom code to your Home Assistant install, which can cause issues on your Home Assistant system. If you are a beginner or prioritize stability above all else, HACS might not be for you.

Jump to sections

• HACS reaches v2.0
• What is HACS?
• Why use HACS?
• A Brief History of HACS
• How to install

Want to skip the blog and just start playing with HACS 2.0? Just remember to proceed with caution and do not skip the backup step before you install.

Art by Clelia Rella

After two successful years of Works with Home Assistant, we’re continuing our work to improve this program. With this in mind, the program will move to the non-profit organization that owns Home Assistant, the Open Home Foundation, which will ensure it is always aligned with the values of the Open Home.

Read on to see how we’re making several small but important changes to add more clarity to the program, and ultimately working to build a better, larger hardware ecosystem of smart home devices.

Home Assistant 2024.8! 🎉

Warning! An awesome and huge release is coming your way this month!

11! new integrations and 7! integrations are now available via the UI; We have many noteworthy improvements to integrations and even more noteworthy improvements to Home Assistant itself. And that… is just the tip of the iceberg! 🗻

I’m most excited about the new badges for your dashboard. I mean, the old ones weren’t the prettiest, but these new ones are definitely gorgeous! Oh! And if you missed the last dashboard stream, I would highly recommend watching the recording of it, as it is very insightful!

This release also marks a significant milestone in the history of Home Assistant, as we are saying goodbye to service calls. Services have been around since day one, but we are now moving to actions, making things much easier to explain to people new to Home Assistant.

Enjoy the release! 🎉

../Frenck