Home Assistant Core 2022.4 is now available

Release 2022.4 – April 6th has been released and should be available to update in your dashboard (Click Configuration, should be listed at the top of the screen). You can also now manually check for updates by clicking the 3 dots at the top of the configuration screen.

Goodbye Lovelace, Hello Dashboards

Not a change as such, but the term Lovelace has now been completely replaced by the term Dashboards. It was felt that Lovelace meant very little for new users, and calling them Dashboards described exactly what they were.

Hiding Entities

As well as enabling and disabling entities it is now possible to hide entities. These won’t appear on auto generated dashboards, and won’t be pulled into other services such as HomeKit, Alexa and Google Assistant.

Groups

You are now able to combine multiple entities into a single entity. These can be controlled and monitored as a whole. These were previously only available in YAML, but with this release they’re supported within the UI.

Switch as X

A new helper, this lets you convert any Home Assistant switch into a light, cover, fan, lock or siren to match your real-world use better.

More helpers available via the UI

This release brings the following helpers to the UI:

• Derivative
• Groups
• Integration – Riemann sum integral
• Min/Max
• Switch as X
• Threshold
• Times of day
• Utility Meter

New Update entity

Update entities can tell you if an update is available for your device and service and, in some cases, allow you to install the update straight from Home Assistant.

Backups for Home Assistant Core and Container installs

The backup facility is now available for Home Assistant Core in Python, or if you use a Home Assistant Container in Docker.

Testing automation conditions

In the previous release a feature was added to see if the automation you create triggers correctly. This has now been added for conditions too.

Zones now have a state

The state of a zone used to state ‘zoning’. Now the state will show the number of persons currently in that zone. Zones now also have history.

Adjusting unit of measurement for sensors

You can now change the unit of measurement for temperature and pressure sensors straight from the UI.

Adjusting long-term statistics

When monitoring a device, such as an electricity meter, a big spike might impact your long term statistics, for instance an average consumption may be skewed as a result. You are now able to correct or adjust historical data to solve this issues. This is in Developer tools – Statistics.

Performance optimisation

The communication layer between the frontend and the Core has now been improved. A lot less data is now sent over and it is optimised to send the least amount of data when first loading the UI. This should now result in the UI loading faster.

Write reductions have been added to preserve SD card lifetime, performance updates designed to get data to the frontend faster, and database sizes have been reduced. This has been achieved by storing a reference to state attributes instead of saving the entire set of attributes. This applies to data recorded from this release onwards.

New and updated selectors

A wide range of new selectors are now available and options have been extended for existing selectors. Examples are a location selector that lets you pick coordinates from a map. RGB colour and colour temperature selector, icon, theme, time, data, datetime selector.

Variables on trigger

For the more advanced uses cases, this release provides: variables on trigger. It is exactly what it says on the can: The possibility of setting variables on triggers that become available when that specific trigger triggers.

Other noteworthy changes

There is much more juice in this release; here are some of the other noteworthy changes this release:

• @balloob took a deep dive into the world of media players and made sure many more of them now work with the media browser and play media action! If you use: Bluesound, Denon HEOS, forked-daapd, Linn / OpenHome, Logitech Squeezebox, Music Player Daemon (MPD), Panasonic Viera, UniFi Protect, or Yamaha MusicCast, you can now use the media browser!
• Want to update the appearance of a binary sensor? You can now do that! When you edit the entity in the UI, you can select how it would show up. No need to customize device_class in YAML anymore. Thanks, @zsarnett!
• The Material Design Icons have been updated! Check out all these beautiful new icons we can use now! Thanks, @goyney!
• Our analytics integration now include data on using SSL certificates in Home Assistant (yes or no) in the analytics. Of course, only if you have enabled Analytics. Thanks for enabling it ????!
• Timers can now restore/survive their state across restarts. Awesome work @raman325! Each timer now has a configuration option to enable restore.
• @epenet has been cranking out a lot of improvements for the Samsung TV integration this month! Shoutout to @bdraco for helping out on that one too.
• Android 11 support for the Android TV integration is here! Thanks, @JeffLIrion!
• Long-awaited and finally there: Native Hue groups support! Thanks to Signify, who implemented our request for this. This means Home Assistant can now control groups as a whole instead of per light. Nice and snappy now! Thanks for adding support to Home Assistant for it @marcelveldt!
• @thecode added support for the second generation Shelly cover devices; thanks!
• If your Solar inverter has a lower capacity than your panels’ combined capacity, then @klaasnicolaas has good news for you. The Forecast.Solar integration now supports this and can adjust the forecast to take your inverter cap into account.
• Media players now have controls for the repeat modes in the UI! Thanks, @NachtaktiverHalbaffe!
• RFXCOM RFXtrx now supports sirens and chimes! Thanks, @elupus!
• The GitHub integration now uses event subscriptions instead of polling GitHub. Excellent work, @ludeeus!
• The TP-Link Kasa Smart integration now supports effects for their light strips. Thanks, @bdraco!

New Integrations

We welcome the following new integrations this release:

• DAirzone, added by @Noltari
• Backup, added by @ludeeus
• Kaleidescape, added by @SteveEasley
• PECO Outage Count, added by @IceBotYT
• Switch as X, added by @emontnemery
• Uonet+ Vulcan, added by @Antoni-Czaplicki
• Update, added by @ludeeus & @frenck

Integrations now available to set up from the UI

The following integrations are now available via the Home Assistant UI:

• Deluge, done by @tkdrob
• Derivative, done by @emontnemery
• Discord, done by @tkdrob
• Fibaro, done by @rappenze
• File Size, done by @gjohansson-ST
• Generic Camera, done by @davet2001
• Google Calendars, done by @allenporter
• Groups, done by @emontnemery
• Integration – Riemann sum integral, by @emontnemery
• Min/Max, done by @emontnemery
• Moon, done by @frenck
• Season, done by @frenck
• Sun, done by @frenck
• Tankerkoenig, done by @mib1185
• Threshold, done by @emontnemery
• Times of day, done by @emontnemery
• Trafikverket Train, done by @gjohansson-ST
• Uptime, done by @frenck
• Utility Meter, done by @emontnemery

Please also visit our new YouTube channel for further resources, how-tos and reviews: