Software update: Home Assistant 0.50.2

Home Assistant is an open source home automation platform that runs under Python 3. It runs via Hassbian on a Raspberry Pi 3 or a Linux, macOS or Windows computer. It supports detecting devices such as Nest thermostats, Philips Hue, Belkin WeMo switches, Mr. Coffee makers and the MQTT protocol. In addition, where possible, it can control these devices and apply automation. For more information, please refer to this page. The developers have released version 0.50.2, with the following announcement:

0.50: Voice control, History improvements, and Xiaomi

Last Wednesday we released Hass.io, an operating system to take care of all the updating hassles that come with running home automation at home and so much more. This is a major milestone for Home Assistant as it is our first step to offering a fully integrated solution using a bring your own hardware approach.

The launch has been crazy successful. The 20 minute introduction video by BRUHAutomation already has 12.5k views in just 4 days with no less than 150 comments.

Hass.io will be a great foundation for bigger and better integrated features. Stay tuned.

Adding the power of voice to integrations
But enough about Hass.io, let’s not forget about Home Assistant. This release has completely revamped the way we deal with voice integrations. We turned Home Assistant into a platform to write voice apps, no matter where the processing of the voice happens. This can be done by Alexa, Google Assistant or in the Home Assistant user interface.

We are super excited about the new functionality and hope that it will trigger a new type of applications and systems to be built on top of Home Assistant. This release includes a shopping list to show the new functionality. As a user you can add any item to the shopping list with your voice and also ask what is on your shopping list.

To make testing these applications easier, we’ve updated the conversation component. The component will now allow sentences to be configured that hook directly into the new voice functionality. Combined with the new interface it will allow for some great interactions! Check out the developer docs for more information.

History improvements
@OverloadUT has been recently spending a lot of time on optimizing the history database queries. This release includes PR #8632, the first in a list of improvements that he is working on. This PR greatly improves requests for single entities by using an optimized query for this use case.

The performance change in some of his tests shows this change to be about 300x faster (30 seconds to 0.1 seconds!) (There is no theoretical upper limit due to the issue with multi-entity queries getting worse the longer the current recorder run has been going.)

Xiaomi integration
Yes, it has happened! After being in beta for a while, the Xiaomi support is now available to all. @danielhiversen did an amazing job and we now support sensors, switches, lights and covers.

Velbus integration
Another awesome integration is that of the Velbus home automation system which has been contributed by @thomasdelaet. It integrates their sensors, covers, fans, lights and switches.

Manual alarm with MQTT control
A new version of the manual alarm component is now available with full MQTT control thanks to @colinodell. Using this you can build your own control panel to remotely arm/disarm the alarm. For example, using a Raspberry Pi to create an alarm.

New Platforms

• Initial support for Google Wifi/OnHub
• Xiaomi gw support
• Add Intent component
• Manual alarm with MQTT control
• Add component Light TPLink
• Velbus
• Add uk_transport component.

Release 0.50.2

Straight to 0.50.2. We released 0.50 as 0.50.1 due to an upload error to PyPi.

• Fix TP-Link light brightness issue #8744.
• Fix typo in script error
• Fix tradfri error spam
• Media Player – Pioneer: Supress exception if host is not available (fixes #8684)
• Telegram Bot: Retry set_webhook up to three times, reduce timeout to 5s again
• Fixed sensor issue with Google Wifi routers in bridge mode
• Fix alexa cards
• Fix Kodi reconnection after websocket disconnect
• Move I/O outside of properties for light/tplink platform
• Correctly discover GE Fan Controllers
• Fix Z-Wave barrier discovery for new API