Hi! Yes, I know, this video is a bit late, but I was on vacation and didn’t want to interrupt my ‘what’s new’ series. That’s why I’m still making this video to show what’s new in the August release of Home Assistant 2024.8. Let’s take a quick look!
⭐⭐⭐ NOTE: ⭐⭐⭐
This article accompanies a YouTube video. I wrote it for people who would rather read than watch a video. To keep doing this, I want to ask you to check out the video, leave a comment under the video, give the video a thumbs up, and subscribe to my YouTube channel. This means that the video is offered more often to new visitors so that they also stay informed of the latest Home Assistant tutorials.
Thank you for your support!
Ed
It’s already August 2024, and Home Assistant has added some great new features in release 2024.8.
New Badges
In this release, the badges have been revamped. They now resemble the chips in Mushroom cards, and it’s starting to look like I can finally replace my old dashboard with the new sections combined with these new badges.
Additionally, there is now a new custom badge in the Mushroom collection, namely the Mushroom template badge, allowing you to fully customize the badges to your liking. To use the template badge, you must have the Mushroom cards installed via HACS.
When you create a new sections dashboard view, you will see an option at the top to add badges. You can choose an entity and customize it as desired. You can also set the visibility. Here, I’ll show an example where my person badge is only displayed when I’m home. Additionally, you can drag and drop the badges to place them wherever you want.
And since I have the custom Mushroom cards installed, I can also create Mushroom template badges, giving me complete flexibility. Ultimately, your dashboard can look something like this. As you can see, the cards have also been slightly compressed in this release, allowing you to display more information at a glance on your dashboard. Once I’ve replaced my old dashboard with all the options that sections offer, I’ll make a video on setting up a dashboard that works well on both your tablet and phone.
Service calls are now Actions
In the past, you could call services in Home Assistant using the call service command. However, ‘services’ is a bit of a confusing term because, for example, you also have weather services. That’s why the Home Assistant team decided to rename services to actions.
For instance, the services tab in the developer tools is renamed to Actions. And in automations, you can now use the command Perform Action instead of Call Service. But don’t worry, your old automations that use the call_service command will continue to work. When you edit an existing automation that uses the call_service command, it will automatically be converted to the action command.
Additionally, there’s a new feature added: the actions in the Home Assistant Core Integration: Generic turn off, Generic turn on, and Generic toggle. So now, you don’t have to think about the type of device or entity you want to turn on or off. These three actions figure it out for you. This way, you can turn lights, switches, and toggle helpers on or off simultaneously with just one action.
Sorting tables by created or last modified
Starting from this version, it is now possible to sort your data tables by the created or last modified date. This allows you to easily see which devices were most recently added to your system. Keep in mind that the created and last modified dates are only being stored from this release onwards, so initially, this sorting may not have much effect.
I need your help!
You will be doing me a huge favor if you subscribe to my channel if you haven’t already. And, you will help me a lot if you also give this video a thumbs up and leave a comment. This way, YouTube will present this video to new people, making the channel grow! In the video description, you will also find information about how you can sponsor me so that I can continue to make these tutorials for you.
Thank you!
Control Home Assistant using AI with Ollama
Since this version, Home Assistant also supports local Large Language Models with the help of Ollama. I have to admit that I haven’t looked into this yet, so I can’t show it on my own system just yet. But as soon as I have it working, I will make a separate video about it.
Integrations
As with every new version, the August 2024.8 release of Home Assistant has added several new integrations. You can find them in this list. Additionally, existing integrations have also been updated. For example, you should now be able to adjust the chime settings in the Reolink integration, but unfortunately, I don’t see this option in Home Assistant for the chime connected to my Reolink Video Doorbell. I have no idea why it’s not visible for me. If you know why, please let me know in the comments.
Furthermore, there have been updates to SHA and Matter, and KNX can now be managed through the UI.
Other Noteworthy Changes
In addition to the integrations, there are other changes worth mentioning. You can find them in this list. For example, you can now also ask Assist for the date and time.
In the past, integrations created via YAML in the configuration.yaml file could not be seen in the Home Assistant UI. Starting with this release, that’s now possible. These integrations will now appear in the Integrations overview. They are marked with a special icon indicating that the integration was activated via YAML. The same applies to helpers created in YAML.
Conclusion
So, that was my quick overview of the changes in Home Assistant 2024.8. Now it’s time for me to start adjusting my dashboard so that it fully works with sections. Thanks for watching! If you enjoy my work and want me to continue doing this, you can support me on Patreon, Ko-Fi, or by becoming a paid member of my channel. You can find the links in the description of this video. These people are already sponsoring me and helping me to keep this channel going. Thank you all.
And don’t forget to give this video a thumbs up and subscribe to my channel if you haven’t already. I’ll see you soon in my next video!
Bye Bye!