Home Assistant Podcast 54 – 0.97 and making beer with Brandon 00:00 / 1X

Tasker Alarm from Monty

I found a way to integrate my phone’s alarm app with HA so that HA knows when I’m planning to get up, but leaves the waking me up part to my phone.

I use the app AlarmDroid as my alarm clock app, but this could be adapted to many other apps as well. In AlarmDroid there is a setting to display a notification for upcoming alarms. I think the default is something like 30 min before alarm, but I raised mine to 1 hour.

The next step uses Tasker. I have a profile setup in Tasker to look for a Notification that has the text “Next alarm: *”. Once Tasker sees this, it sends an http post to a webhook I have setup in Home Assistant. So that webhook gives HA a 1 hour notice for when I am actually waking up. Some automations fire at the 1 hr notice, but I also start a 1 hr timer so that HA can trigger other automations at the time my alarm actually goes off.

Note: This app is no longer available from the Google Play Store, but can be downloaded here: https://apkpure.com/alarmdroid-alarm-clock/com.splunchy.android.alarmclock

0.97

Python 3.5 No Longer Supported

As of this release Home Assistant requires Python 3.6 or later!

New Features

Improved Accessibility

There will be some less obvious changes in this release for visually impaired users of Home Assistant. So things like labelling buttons correctly in the HTML, to make them easier for screen readers and other accessibility software.

There will be some less obvious changes in this release for visually impaired users of Home Assistant. So things like labelling buttons correctly in the HTML, to make them easier for screen readers and other accessibility software. Server control has been moved to its own Configuration area

After a Reddit suggestion, Marijn Pool has moved the server control settings, such as validating config and reloading your Home Assistant config into a new section in the Configuration screen.

https://www.reddit.com/r/homeassistant/comments/cg6tc5/anyone_else_think_it_would_be_useful_if_there_is/

After a Reddit suggestion, Marijn Pool has moved the server control settings, such as validating config and reloading your Home Assistant config into a new section in the Configuration screen. https://www.reddit.com/r/homeassistant/comments/cg6tc5/anyone_else_think_it_would_be_useful_if_there_is/ Apache Kafka Integration

You can now have Home Assistant events sent to an Apache Kafka instance.Kafka is used for building real-time data pipelines and streaming apps

https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant/pull/25085

You can now have Home Assistant events sent to an Apache Kafka instance.Kafka is used for building real-time data pipelines and streaming apps https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant/pull/25085 Twente Milieu

Contributed by Franck, allows Home Assistant to see the waste pickups by Twente Milieu in The Netherlands.

https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant/pull/25129

Contributed by Franck, allows Home Assistant to see the waste pickups by Twente Milieu in The Netherlands. https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant/pull/25129 FortiGate Firewall Presence Detection

If you’re running a FortiGate firewall, you can now have devices that connect to it exposed to Home Assistant for presence detection.

https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant/pull/24908

If you’re running a FortiGate firewall, you can now have devices that connect to it exposed to Home Assistant for presence detection. https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant/pull/24908 Avea Bluetooth Lightbulbs

Although no longer supported by Avea, Home Assistant can now control these Bluetooth lightbulbs!

https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant/pull/24281

Although no longer supported by Avea, Home Assistant can now control these Bluetooth lightbulbs! https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant/pull/24281 Rainforest Eagle200 Integration

The EAGLE-200 connects using ZigBee, Ethernet, and WiFi to various behind-the-meter devices. This includes smart meters, hot water tanks, smart outlets, solar inverters, and energy storage systemsWith Home Assistant you’ll be able to monitor energy use of your home.

https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant/pull/23844

The EAGLE-200 connects using ZigBee, Ethernet, and WiFi to various behind-the-meter devices. This includes smart meters, hot water tanks, smart outlets, solar inverters, and energy storage systemsWith Home Assistant you’ll be able to monitor energy use of your home. https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant/pull/23844 French water provider Suez

With this integration Home Assistant will be able to monitor how much water your house has used over the past few months, as well as the previous day.

https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant/pull/23844

Breaking Changes

Google Maps Location Tracker no longer accepting passwords

If you use the Google Maps Location Tracker, you can no longer provide Home Assistant with a username and password to login to Google.You will now need to add a cookie file to your Home Assistant configuration directory in order to use this component. Instructions on how to generate this file are available on the component page.If you previously have used this component before 0.97, the only change you should have to make is to remove password from your configuration file, as Home Assistant will already have a cache of the cookie file in your system.

https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant/pull/25316

https://www.home-assistant.io/components/google_maps/

If you use the Google Maps Location Tracker, you can no longer provide Home Assistant with a username and password to login to Google.You will now need to add a cookie file to your Home Assistant configuration directory in order to use this component. Instructions on how to generate this file are available on the component page.If you previously have used this component before 0.97, the only change you should have to make is to remove password from your configuration file, as Home Assistant will already have a cache of the cookie file in your system. https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant/pull/25316 https://www.home-assistant.io/components/google_maps/ Z-wave network keys in configuration.yaml will now override the UI

If you have a z-wave network key in your config files, it will now be used to override any other areas where you have set a network key. So if you have trouble connecting after your upgrade, try commenting out this key first if it exists.

https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant/pull/25112

If you have a z-wave network key in your config files, it will now be used to override any other areas where you have set a network key. So if you have trouble connecting after your upgrade, try commenting out this key first if it exists. https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant/pull/25112 Scan Interval has been removed from the Ring Camera Component

To better support more ring products in the future, the scan interval setting has been removed from the Camera Component.If you’re using this setting, you’ll need to move it from the camera portion of your config, and put it in the ring component options, where you set your ring username and password.

https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant/pull/24950

To better support more ring products in the future, the scan interval setting has been removed from the Camera Component.If you’re using this setting, you’ll need to move it from the camera portion of your config, and put it in the ring component options, where you set your ring username and password. https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant/pull/24950 Calendar Platform

The Calendar platform in Home Assistant has had some big updates. This affects different types of integrations, including Google Calendar and todoist.Before 0.97, when an event was over, the Home Assistant sensor would change to a default value to denote that there is no upcoming event for the calendar. From 0.97 once an event has passed and there is no future event, the state of the sensor will not be updated and will remain as-is. This makes the sensor more compatible with other Home Assistant sensors.Automation that rely on state attributes getting reset will need to be updated.

https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant/pull/24950

The Calendar platform in Home Assistant has had some big updates. This affects different types of integrations, including Google Calendar and todoist.Before 0.97, when an event was over, the Home Assistant sensor would change to a default value to denote that there is no upcoming event for the calendar. From 0.97 once an event has passed and there is no future event, the state of the sensor will not be updated and will remain as-is. This makes the sensor more compatible with other Home Assistant sensors.Automation that rely on state attributes getting reset will need to be updated. https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant/pull/24950 Nuki Lock Services have changed

If you have a Nuki lock, you’ll need to use the new lock.open and nuki.lock_n_go services.

https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant/pull/22888

If you have a Nuki lock, you’ll need to use the new lock.open and nuki.lock_n_go services. https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant/pull/22888 Multiroom Support has been added for Snapcast

There are two new services to be consistent with Sonos, snapcast_join and snapcast_unjoin.Because of the changes to this component the snapcast snapshot and restore services have been renamed.

https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant/pull/24061#issuecomment-495931399

Other Noteworthy Updates

New Spotify Service to play a playlist

You can now call spotify.play_playlist with a Spotify Playlist ID to have Spotify play a playlist. Can also be set to choose a random song.

https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant/pull/24991

You can now call spotify.play_playlist with a Spotify Playlist ID to have Spotify play a playlist. Can also be set to choose a random song. https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant/pull/24991 Area’s now supported for Fans, Covers, Automations, Counters, Alarm Control Panels, Scripts, Scenes, inputs, Wink …

Aaron Bach has gone ahead and really expanded the Area support in Home Assistant this release.Thanks Aaron!

Rohan’s Zigbee Journey

Conbee2 Zigbee USB

Boozer

https://github.com/bgulla

Todays Guest

Brandon Gulla I am a Cloud Engineer at my day job and live in Virginia with my wife, young daughter and dogs. I'm interested in electronics, home-brewing, distributed systems, DevOps and finding weird ways to mix all of them together. Bad at soldering, like really bad. Website Follow @gullatec

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