Hi! Here’s a quick overview of what’s new in the May release of Home Assistant 2024.5. It’s just a small release but with oh-so-powerful new things! Let’s dive into this.
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The forthcoming May release, labeled as version 2024.5 of Home Assistant, is set to debut on the first Wednesday of May. Presently, the beta version is readily available. If you’re keen on delving into the fresh features of Home Assistant, you have the option to install the beta. Nonetheless, it’s important to note that the features highlighted in this video are derived from the beta version and could undergo slight adjustments before the final release next Wednesday.
Strict Connections
Home Assistant will tighten its criteria for accepting connections from non-private networks when activating this mode. This functionality proves particularly valuable when exposing your Home Assistant instance to the internet.
Once activated, Home Assistant will exclusively permit authenticated clients. Consequently, unauthenticated connections will be rejected without the option for direct login. To log in from a new device, you must either be on the local network or utilize a temporary link generated by an individual with administrator privileges.
Strict connection functionality is offered in two modes: Guard Page and Drop Connection.
In Guard Page mode, if your Home Assistant is accessed without authentication, it will display a page where the user cannot access the instance. Direct login is not feasible unless a temporary login link is available.
In Drop Connection mode, Home Assistant will not even present the login page. The connection will be promptly terminated, giving the impression that no Home Assistant instance exists.
Next to this, you can create a login link to send to users to whom you want to give access while strict mode is applied.
This strict connection feature is accessible to both Home Assistant Cloud users and those not using the cloud. Non-cloud users can enable this option through YAML configuration, while Home Assistant Cloud users can manage it via the cloud settings page.
More Features for Data Tables
There are a few new options for the Data Tables that were introduced in the previous release.
One of the things that I was looking for, was expanding and collapsing of grouped items. And this can now be done!
Also, you can now group entities by their domain in the entities panel. And, you can filter by entity domain in the entities panel as well.
It’s now also possible to select and assign an area to multiple items in the automation, scene, script, and device pages.
The best of this all is that the grouping and sorting options that you used are stored so that when you return to Home Assistant, the grouping and sorting will be the same.
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Create Helpers on the Fly
You can now create Helpers straight from the automation Editor. This is very helpful because you do not have to leave the automation editor anymore when you want to use a new helper in your automation. You can create all sorts of helpers here now.
Lock feature for Tile card
There’s a new lock feature for the Tile Card. Now you can control your locks using a Tile card as well.
Other Noteworthy Changes
These were the major changes in the May release of Home Assistant 2024.5. Additionally, you can find the noteworthy changes in this list. The link to this list is available in the description of this video. One of the things that caught my eye was the possibility of retrieving maps for Roborock using a service. Although, I’m not sure what I can do with it exactly. If you know what to do with it, please let me know in the comments of this video.
New Integrations
And, as always, some new integrations have been added to Home Assistant, as you can see in this list. A particularly useful feature is the integration with the Epic Games Store, allowing you to easily keep track of which free games will be available at any given time.
Backward-incompatible changes in Home Assistant 2024.5
Always make sure to review the list of backward-incompatible changes for each release, as it can be found here. It’s essential to read through these changes before updating to avoid potential issues. Please note that this video is based on the beta version of Home Assistant 2024.5, so there may be slight variations from the final release scheduled for this upcoming Wednesday.
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