Home Assistant 2023.3 is a relatively small release, but still it is an interesting one.
Let me explain.
Table of Contents
Cleaner entity information dialogs
The first new update that I want to talk about is Cleaner entity information dialogs. From now on, if you open an entity for a closer look, you will no longer see the usual Info, Settings & Related tabs.
They are all now replaced by a Cog Wheel and a Three Dots menu (also called Overflow menu). Inside this Three dots menu, the Related settings can be found, as well as the Device Info.
The Cog Wheel on the other hand is the former Settings tab.
New dialogs for Lights, Switches & Sirens
Next new thing in Home Assistant 2023.3 is also an updated look of some dialogs, and these are the lights, switches and siren entities dialogs.
Apart from the new look which is kind of a slider, there are some extra icons.
The whole idea here is that not all information will be presented on the top of the dialog. Only the most relevant and used one will be shown. And if you need something additional, you have to go the next level by using the icons.
New create Automation dialog
There are more new Dialogs in Home Assistant 2023.3 and the next one is a New create Automation dialog.
If you try to create a Home Assistant automation now, you will see that the menu style is different and there are some Blueprints aside, including a text saying from where these Blueprints are coming.
Other than that, creating automation process is exactly the same as before only this first menu is looking a bit different.
New Restart Menu
A bit different In Home Assistant 2023.3 and onwards is also the restart menu. As the authors are saying It is now in Windows XP style.
If you go to Settings and then System you will find In the top right a Power Icon that when clicked will offer several restart and shutdown options (shutdown is only available on HA OS & Supervised installations).
Have in mind that checking YAML configuration before restart is not needed anymore. When you hit restart, YAML is checked automatically for you. Nevertheless, if you still want that YAML check configuration you can do it from the Developer Tools.
As a worst case scenario for example if YAML seems OK, but still there is a hidden issue – there is a safety mechanism that will boot the system in Safe Mode from where you will be able to fix the things.
There is also one new option in the restart menu dialog called Quick Reload.
Clicking on Quick Reload is the same as if you go through all of the reloads available in Developer Tools and clicking them all one-by-one. So, a good to know option in my opinion.
Ask Assist for the current state of the things
Next new feature introduced in Home Assistant 2023.3 is the possibility to Ask Assist for the current state of the things. Assist is the built-in functionality that allow controlling Home Assistant via text or voice commands.
For reference, check this article of mine – Learn How to Use Assist on Apple Devices: Control Home Assistant with Siri
Starting from Home Assistant 2023.3 release there are new intents added in Assist – GitHub link
You can now query things about your Smart Home like:
- How many switches are off?
- Are all doors closed?
- etc.
Have in mind that this functionality depends on the selected language of your Home Assistant. As usual, If you are on English you should be fine, for other languages you have to test for yourself. If some of the things are not so OK in your mother tongue you can contribute.
How to contribute link – https://developers.home-assistant.io/docs/voice/intent-recognition/contributing/
As you know Home Assistant is an open source software and everyone can add something to make it even better.
Webinar?
And here I’m talking about Home Assistant contribution, but there is a case that you may not have Home Assistant yet.
Here comes the good part, there is a free event coming in a form of webinar. The host will be one very intelligent and handsome guy who knows a lot about the official Home Assistant installation types…
I’m kidding the host is just me 😉
But I’m not kidding about the Webinar! You can reserve your spot for free on this address – https://automatelike.pro/webinar
Thread & Matter
Next worth mentioning update in Home Assistant 2023.3 is the extended and improved Thread & Matter support.
For example, Home Assistant Yellow users can enable an experimental Thread border router.
Users on other systems can get a Thread Border Router using a Home Assistant SkyConnect for example or other similar dongle.
An auto discovered configurable entry will be shown in the Integrations section of Home Assistant and even if you don’t configured Home Assistant as Border Router but you have compatible devices from Apple or Google you will be able to see them there.
Have in mind that Thread is using IPv6 and may not work very well on some routers. If that is the case you can download the diagnostic data and send it to Home Assistant GitHub as new issue for further investigation.
And that was the Thread aspect of Matter which will improve over time.
The other Matter updates is that Matter Bridges should now work in this release. That means if you have Philips Hue Hub or Aqara Hub or other compatible you can now talk to them over Matter and you can expose all of the connected devices to these hubs to Home Assistant that way.
Of course, you can achieve the same or even better using the native local Philips HUE Home Assistant integration that is currently available or by just using the ZigBee devices directly, but that is another topic.
Python 3.11
For those of you using Home Assistant Core installation type (which is basically Home Assistant running inside Python virtual environment) you can now start using Home Assistant with Python 3.11, which is faster and more efficient than the previous versions.
However, update to Python 3.11 is still a work in progress for the Home Assistant Container, OS & Supervised installation types, but it will be added over time.
Smart Home Glossary?
If some of the terms or abbreviations mentioned in this article are not so clear, you can lift the fog by downloading my Smart Home Glossary from my other website for free. Inside that Glossary you will find simple and useful explanations that I think will help you in your Smart Home journey.
Thanks for reading. I’m Kiril see you next week. Bye!
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