Home Assistant 2023.11 is arriving today, bringing a host of exciting features and improvements. Here’s a comprehensive rundown of the key highlights.
Table of Contents
Introducing the “todo” Entity
In the latest update, Home Assistant introduces a new “todo” entity. This entity represents a list of tasks, and its state indicates the number of tasks that are still open. Now, you can add todo lists directly in the Home Assistant sidebar.
My Home Assistant Link to add it – https://my.home-assistant.io/redirect/config_flow_start?domain=local_todo
These lists can include both local and Cloud-based lists, including shopping lists. This is possible because Home Assistant integrations can now provide todos, since they are considered entities. Additionally, the recently introduced Shopping list is now also considered a todo entity.
My Home Assistant Shopping List – https://my.home-assistant.io/redirect/config_flow_start?domain=shopping_list
But there’s even more to it! This new feature opens up opportunities to check the state of these tasks using scripts and automations, and add additional logic to them if needed.
It’s important to note that if you have a todo list, integrations can utilize it as well. This means that you can now seamlessly integrate Todoist and Google Tasks todo lists into Home Assistant.
These lists will be visualized as another todo list within Home Assistant. Essentially, you can now have both Google Tasks todo list and local todo lists running concurrently.
Empowering Tile Cards
Tile cards are taking center stage in Home Assistant, with a newfound flexibility that may soon make them the primary cards in Home Assistant, thanks to the added drag and drop functionality. The 2023.11 release allows for the creation of custom state content for Tile Cards, providing users the ability to define the state line according to their preferences.
This can be easily accomplished through the GUI, selecting the preferred state content from the appearance section. The versatility extends to all supported entities, including lights, switches, and climate controls and all others.
Imagine the wealth of information you can now add to these compact tile cards, optimizing screen space while enhancing functionality.
Embracing Matter 1.2
Matter 1.2 is adding nine new device types, fixes some stability issues and have a lot of improvements across the board. But that is not the most interesting to me thing here. The most interesting is that the Matter 1.2 release was announced just several days ago, there are no Matter 1.2 devices yet, but nevertheless Home Assistant 2023.11 will support that latest version of the Matter standard. It is so fast.
On top, there’s a statement in the release notes, which is basically saying that a lot of Matter Device manufacturers are using Home Assistant as a playground, because of the good Matter support. And they are testing their devices on the Home Assistant Matter controller before all others.
That is really good news for all of us as Home Assistant is becoming more and more mainstream and we can expect all future smart home & IoT devices to work flawlessly on it.
If you didn’t join the fun yet, now is a great time to start your Home Assistant journey and if you need a little help getting started – join my totally free webinar – https://automatelike.pro/webinar
In the webinar I will talk about the official ways to get Home Assistant, some pros & cons and I will share one super simple way to start on a pc in 5 minutes. Link and QR code to the webinar registration can be found on your screen.
Custom Range Dates in Energy Dashboard
The energy dashboard in Home Assistant now have a date picker, allowing users to select a custom date range to analyze energy usage over specific periods. This feature proves invaluable for comparing different timeframes and identifying consumption trends.
Expanded Capabilities for Conditional Cards
Conditional cards enable users to apply conditions to other cards, ensuring they are visible only under certain criteria. In the 2023.11 release, multiple conditions can now be defined, significantly enhancing the utility of conditional cards. Three new conditions—User, Numeric, and Screen—have been added, providing further customization options.
This empowers users to display or hide cards based on factors like user login status, numeric entity states, or device screen size.
Enhanced Restart Options – Safe Mode
A small yet noteworthy addition is the introduction of a “Restart Home Assistant in safe mode” button. This feature allows Home Assistant to start without loading custom integrations, themes, and custom cards, streamlining the troubleshooting process for performance or frontend issues.
Simplified Device Setup with Improv
Home Assistant 2023.11 now facilitates the setup of Improv devices directly from the platform. Improv is an open protocol used by various firmwares like WLED, Tasmota, ESPHome and simplifies the WiFi configuration process for newly flashed devices. This update automatically detects WiFi and Bluetooth-enabled devices with ESPHome firmware, enabling seamless integration with your home network and Home Assistant instance.
Configurable Script Fields
In Home Assistant 2023.11, users can add custom fields to their scripts. This allows for greater versatility, such as creating scripts with custom text fields for notifications. These custom fields can be defined through the Home Assistant UI, providing options for names, variable keys, descriptions, selectors, default values, and required status.
New Country Selector and Variable Type Checking
This Home Assistant 2023.11 release introduces a new country selector for Blueprints and custom script fields, offering configurability directly from the UI.
Additionally, variable type checking is now possible in templates, providing more robust logic options for users regularly working with templates.
{% set my_string = "Comment" %}{% if my_string is string %} Please {{my_string}}!{% endif %}Additional Home Assistant 2023.11 Noteworthy Changes
The release also includes several other notable updates:
- A two-pane view now available in the calendar dashboard.
- Enhanced intelligence in ZHA, providing repair guidance in case of network setting changes.
- Fitbit integration improvements, with setup now accessible directly from the UI, along with support for Fitbit nutrition sensors.
- Fibaro integration now supports event entities.
- HomeKit Bridge receives updates for managing device capabilities seamlessly.
New Integrations in November Release
This November, Home Assistant welcomes several new integrations:
- Google Tasks integration allows easy access to your Google Tasks to-do list.
- Improv BLE streamlines connecting Improv-enabled devices to your network.
- Local to-do list functionality lets you create and manage lists directly in Home Assistant.
- Integration with Tami4 water bar, enabling control and monitoring of filter sensors.
Conclusion
Don’t forget to check the braking changes in the release notes as well as my Smart Home Glossary if something is not quite clear for you.
Here is one (or more) article that will be also interesting for you – https://peyanski.com/category/smart-home/home-assistant/
Thanks for reading I’m Kiril and until next one. Bye!
