Software Update: Home Assistant Core 2021.1.0

Version 2021.1.0 of Home Assistant Core has been released. Home Assistant Core 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 discovering devices such as Nest thermostats, Philips Hue, Belkin WeMo switches, Mr. Coffee makers, the smart switches from IKEA and the mqtt protocol. In addition, it can control these devices and apply automation where possible. For more information, please refer to this page and our own Forum. The announcement for this release can be found below.

2021.1: Happy New Year!

We said goodbye to 2020, which was a weird and wild year. 2020 will be remembered because of the awful pandemic, that hopefully will get under control in 2021.

We wish you, your family, friends and everyone around you, safety, health, happiness and countless blessings for 2021!

Happy New Year! Kicking off the year with Home Assistant Core 2021.1!

Now don’t get too excited. The 2020.12 release was jam-packed, and most of us enjoyed the holidays with our loved ones. Furthermore, we didn’t have a full release cycle, this one was shorter than usual. This is due to the delaying of the previous release cycle (for the conference) and the introduction of the new release cycle (monthly now).

As a result of that, this release starts 2021 slowly, with a light release. No big new features, no new integrations. Just fixes, tweaking and tuning.

Besides, I’m curious, what is your smart home new years resolution? Let me know in the comments!

Enjoy the release!

../Frenck

Home Assistant Conference Videos

A couple of weeks ago, the Home Assistant Conference of 2020 took place. We had quite a few messages and requests for making all talks held at the conference available for viewing.

We have started the process of making those available on our YouTube Channel† So, if you haven’t done it already, go to our channel and subscribe and you’ll be notified when we make another talk available.

All videos of the conference will be added to the Home Assistant Conference 2020 playlist on YouTube as well.

Other noteworthy changes

This release has no big new features, but we do have quite a bit of tweaks that are definitely noteworthy to mention.

• @spacegaier removed the “No Area” from the device tables, reducing the clutter in those lists.
• Since 2020.12, entities can be assigned to areas. thanks to @elupusthese areas are now sent to Google Assistant as cream hints.
• rachio now has pause and resume services, thanks to @brg468†
• A bunch of new sensors are added to Météo-France† Additional weather conditions, UV, and wind gust, done by @mbo18†
• @alengwenus has been refactoring the LCN integration. While it does not bring new things to the surface, it does improve in quality and prepares for future improvements. Keep up the good work!
• Homeatic IP Cloud now supports HmIP-HDM1 and HmIPW-DRD3, thanks to contributions by @SukramJ†
• Accuweather now has Wind information, thanks @abmantis†
• ReCollect Waste now has integration options, starting by giving the option to display pickup types by their human-friendly names. thanks, @bachya†
• @postlund rewrite the Apple TV integration for 2020.12, but he’s not stopping! Besides some fixes, he extended the device information and added some attributes.
• the SQL Sensor now supports MSSQL, thanks to @dgomes†
• Support for climate devices with a temperature range, has been added to the HomeKit controller integration. thanks, @thevoltagesource†
• the MQTT integration discovery feature, now has support for device trackers, which has been added by @PeteBa†
• Sending animations using the Telegram Bot is now possible with the new animation service added by @tofuSCHNITZEL†
• If you have a Xiaomi Miio vacuum cleaner with a mop function, this release added status for the water box and the mop itself. thanks, @JJdeVries†
• weMo now supports the outdoor plug, thanks @mattbilodeau†
• the Music Player Daemon integration now shows album art in the media player. looks good @mweinelt†
• Amazon Polly has a new voice: Olivia. A female, Australian and neural voice. thanks @aque0us†
• Google Cloud TTS now has support for SSML (Speech Synthesis Markup Language). thanks, @lufton†