Hello everyone, it’s (almost) time again for the February 2025.2 release of Home Assistant. This time, there has been good attention to user feedback on the new backup system, changes for Voice, and more. In this video, I will show you all the new features. Let’s go!
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Ed
Before I start, I want to let you know that I made this video based on the beta release of Home Assistant 2025.2. So, minor changes might still be before the final release is launched on the first Wednesday of February. But, often, it’s not too significant.
Iterating on backups
Last month, the new backup system for Home Assistant was launched, and wow, it generated a lot of feedback. I’m always amazed at how blunt people can be when reacting to changes in software that they can use for free. I have close contact with the Home Assistant team, and I know that this team doesn’t just make changes without thoroughly considering them. They take constructive feedback very seriously and act on it. That’s why several new features have been added to the backup system in the February 2025.2 release.
You can now enable or disable encryption from this release for specific locations. For example, you can turn off encryption for backups stored on your system and enable it if you store your backup in the cloud. Note that backups stored in Home Assistant Cloud are ALWAYS encrypted because Nabu Casa wants to protect your privacy.
But don’t worry. If the encryption key on your system is the same as when you created the backup, it will automatically be decrypted when you download it. If you’ve changed your encryption key, you’ll need to enter the old one first, and it won’t be automatically decrypted.
Setting the days and times when your backups are created is also possible. Previously, this was at a fixed time, but now you can configure it yourself. If that’s still insufficient, you can create your automation to start backups. The new action backup.create_automatic allows you to start a backup at a specific date and time. For example, when a new Home Assistant version becomes available, and you want to perform updates automatically, you can use the trigger update.home_assistant_core_update to check if a new version is available and then automatically create a backup before updating Home Assistant.
But… that’s actually no longer necessary. When the new backup functionality was introduced, the option to automatically create a backup before updating Home Assistant was removed. That option has been reintroduced, so you can always make a backup before manually performing the update.
Note that if you only want to update the add-ons, only a backup of the add-ons will be created, not the entire Home Assistant installation.
In the past, a backup’s filename consisted of a hash, which wasn’t human-friendly. That has now been fixed, and backup filenames are more readable.
Additionally, two new integrations have been added, allowing you to store your backups in Google Drive or OneDrive. This means you no longer need the Google Drive Backup add-on, as this functionality is now built into Home Assistant. This is great for people who don’t use the Home Assistant Operating System and, therefore, don’t have access to the add-on store. You can add them via Settings > Devices and Services. Afterward, you can choose Google Drive and/or OneDrive storage locations for your backups.
Voice
Assist has gained several new features in the February 2025.2 release.
You can now broadcast a message to all voice assistants in your home, such as to let your housemates know that dinner is ready.
You can also now set the temperature of your thermostat to a specific value. Your command will adapt to your current location, but you can also call out a specific thermostat.
What’s also really cool is that LLM-based agents can now fetch your appointments from your calendar for today and this week. Of course, you’ll need to ensure your calendar entities are accessible to “Assist” for this to work.
In the past, the combination of Assist with LLM-based agents didn’t always work smoothly. For example, if you turned on a light with Assist and said, “Turn them back off,” your voice assistant might not understand you. Assist, and your LLM-based agent shares the same history from this release, so this functionality now works as expected.
And Home Assistant will now be able to call your analog phone to deliver a message. I must say that I don’t use this feature myself and therefore can’t demonstrate it, but if you want to test it, you can use the assist_satellite.announce action to play a message when someone picks up the phone.
New Integrations
These were the most important changes in the February 2025.2 release, but of course, new integrations were added. You can find them in this list. Here, you’ll also see the Google Drive and OneDrive integrations listed.
Other noteworthy changes
You’ll also find some new additions in the list of other noteworthy changes. When I made this video, only two things were listed, including the ability to see which Bluetooth dongle or proxy a device is connected through.
Backward Incompatible Changes
As with every new release, certain changes might not be backward compatible with earlier versions of Home Assistant. To prevent unexpected issues, carefully review the compatibility list before upgrading.
You’ll find links to the release notes and a full list of changes in the video description below.
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