Software update: Home Assistant 0.63

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 and our forum. The developers have released version 0.63 and its release notes can be found below.

Date set for dropping Python 3.4 support

Ash announced in October, we’re going to drop Python 3.4 support in 2018. We’ve now decided that in two releases, 0.65, the minimum Python version that will be supported is bumped to 3.5.3. This won’t impact most users. You are already fine if you’re using Hass.io, the latest Debian stable (Stretch) or a derivative of that (Raspbian, Ubuntu).

Entity Registry

This release introduces the entity registry. The entity registry allows integrations to reserve entity IDs. This means that we’ll automatically grant an entity ID to a device. It’s reserved so that no other device will ever get that entity ID. It also means that as a user, you will be able to customize the entity IDs for these devices.

For an integration to leverage the entity registry, it needs to define a unique ID for each of their entities. A unique ID is something that we can uniquely identify the device and that is not configurable. So a serial number and mac address are ok, IP addresses or names are not.

Examples of integrations that have unique IDs defined in this release are Z-Wave, Hue, Nest, LIFX, Sonos, Apple TV.

To update the entity ID that will be assigned to your device, update /entity_registry.yaml and restart Home Assistant (reloading on the fly is planned for a future release).

The entity registry will assign an entity ID the first time that a device is seen. This should be the same entity ID as it always was before. If this is not the case, update the registration entity to change it back to the old entity ID.

We’re planning a lot of cool stuff around the entity registry. Stay tuned!

New Platforms

• Adds allergy/disease sensor platform from Pollen.com (@bachya – #11573) (sensor.pollen docs) (new platform)
• Add Goalfeed platform (@wardcraigj – #11098) (goal feed docs) (new platform)
• Add Melissa (HVAC/climate) component (@kennedyshead – #11503) (melissa docs) (sensor.melissa docs) (new platform)
• media room (@dgomes – #11864) (media_player.mediaroom docs) (new platform)
• Add Xiaomi Universal IR Remote (Chuangmi IR) (@cnrd – #11891) (remote.xiaomi_miio docs) (new platform)
• SQL sensor (@dgomes – #12142) (sensor.sql docs) (new platform)
• Add Mercedes me component (@ReneNulschDE – #11743) (new platform)