Smart Home Addict

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Announcements

2021.12 release notes

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Home Assistant Core 2021.12 is the final release of the year 2021.

There will not be a January release, the first release of 2022 with be Wednesday 2nd February 2022.

Brand new configuration panel
A redesign of the configuration panel. It is more compact and categorised. Colour is now added to make items more recognisable.

The Supervisor panel and its sidebar menu option have been removed. The panel has been merged into the configuration panel. All updates are now shown in the top of the configuration panel.

The button entity
A button entity has been introduced. It’s very simple – you press it. It differs from a switch in that a switch has a state. A button is stateless – it can be used to trigger something but has no value.

The button entity has also been added to ESPHome 2021.12.

Redesigned area panel and the area Lovelace card
The area panel has been redesigned. Instead of a list of areas, it now shows a card for each area, and a picture can be shown of this area.

A new Lovelace card has been created for areas, which uses the picture you’ve uploaded for that area. It automatically populates with entities of devices assigned to that area.

Users that can only log in from the local network
This can be useful for visitors or a dedicated user for a wall mounted tablet.

Z-Wave JS SmartStart and entity categories
Z-Wave JS now supports StartStart. When using a SmartStart capable Z-Wave stick and device, the device can be set up by scanning the QR code on the device using your webcam or mobile phone running the Home Assistant app.

Z-Wave JS now has support for entity categories, so your Z-Wave sensors are now neatly organised.

Triggering on any, but only state changes
Previously it was difficult to write an automation that triggered on any state change without triggering on attribute changes. This is now possible. Conversely it is also now possible to trigger for an attribute change but without the state changing.

Cast issues resolved
The Google Cast feature has been improved. Previously there were a number of issues occurring during casting, these have now been resolved.

Other noteworthy changes

  • The Hue integration now only uses the v2 API. This means all light updates and remote presses are now instantly available in Home Assistant, and scenes are now natively supported.
  • Fronius integration has been rewritten.
  • ESPHome now supports setting the mode and unit of measurement on number entities.
  • Magic Home (Flux LED) integration has been improved adding new devices and features.
  • as_datetime template method improved.
  • motionEye integration added sensors and service.
  • WLED devices can be restarted and upgraded from within Home Assistant.
  • Climate platform support and rebooting/upgrading support for Shelly devices.
  • Entities within the Vallox integration now have unique IDs and can be adjusted from the UI.
  • Pi-hole integration now has a binary sensor to indicate if an update is available.
  • System Bridge has two new services for sending keyboard events to the remote machine.
  • Denon HEOS integration now supports media player groups.
  • REST platform now supports templates for its headers and query parameters.
  • Mill now supports its 3rd generation heaters.
  • Google TTS support added for ms-MY, nl-BE and pa-IN.
  • Nanoleaf now pushes updates into Home Assistant.
  • Yamaha MusicCast extended with number entities for controlling equalisers, dialogue volume/life and display brightness.
  • Levoit Core 400S air purifier now supported by VeSync integration.
  • State of number helpers is now exposed to Prometheus.
  • Support added for shutter controls to Bosch SHC.
  • Notifications fo Android TV can now send a notification with custom icons.
  • MQTT has several improvements in this release.
  • Support for long-term statistics to Coinbase, Daikin, Darksky, devolo Home Control, HomeMatic and Wallbox.
  • Entity categories for AVM FRITZ!SmartHome, devolo Home Network, Litter-Robot, Network UPS Tools, Rituals Perfume Genie, Switchbot and Z-Wave JS.

New Integrations

  • Balboa Spa
  • Button
  • devolo Home Network
  • Evil Genius Labs
  • Jellyfin
  • RDW
  • Ridwell
  • Tailscale
  • Tesla Wall Connector
  • TOLO Sauna

Integrations now available to set up from the UI

  • Fronius
  • Trafikverket Weather Station
  • Viessmann ViCare
  • KNX (partial)