2024.4: Organize all the things!

mcarty · April 4, 2024, 2:09am

The new Ring Intercom integration from the beta didnt pass the cut?

grahamj · April 4, 2024, 2:14am

Wow thanks so much for this! I’ve been mostly happy using a naming convention plus search to organize and find automations but my mind is spinning considering the possibilities of targeting entities by label! That plus the new table options have me very excited for this install to finish!

teskanoo · April 4, 2024, 2:14am

I have had several templates/automation exhibit issues over the last few months. It has almost always been related to the reduced startup time. HASS is starting up so fast that I think my templates/automation started triggering before all of the entities with which they interact (Zigbee devices) were actually available.

In most cases I have managed to resolve the issues by adding availability to the template or a condition to the automation

An availability template may be defined to suppress rendering of the state template.

tom_l · April 4, 2024, 2:24am

Yeah I got this in the beta testing. A light brightness automation I’d been using for ages suddenly turned off all the lights if I restarted at night. Guarding against unknown and unavailable states did the trick. I commented along the lines of:

Start-up is too fast now!

justone · April 4, 2024, 2:43am

Wow, the new webpage dashboard finally allows for Logitech Media Server using the Material Design to be added to HA. This never worked using the old iframe solution.

ehn · April 4, 2024, 2:48am

It’s great to see the addition of floors. Would it be possible to also add buildings as a way to group floors? Many single-family homes consist of more than one building and may have a guesthouse, boathouse, stand-alone garage etc.

Arguably, the addition of floors alone makes that situation even more awkward, as it might now seem like things are on the same floor while they are in fact in different buildings.

Alternatively, what about the more general option of allowing nested areas as suggested elsewhere in this thread? That could neatly accomodate for buildings, floors, sections of floors (family area consisting of multiple bedrooms, say), rooms and parts of rooms (dining area and sitting area in a living room, say).

francisp · April 4, 2024, 3:26am

Just upgrade my Pi2 (32bit) from the beta to release, no issues.

123 · April 4, 2024, 3:28am

When the concept of floors was proposed in the Architecture repo, nested areas were suggested as an alternative. The suggestion was rejected.

The entire discussion can be reviewed here:

marnau · April 4, 2024, 5:05am

Hello,

Who are using Huawei solar integration: GitHub - wlcrs/huawei_solar: Home Assistant integration for Huawei Solar inverters via Modbus
Can confirm that it’s working fine with this version of HA?

denverpilot · April 4, 2024, 5:42am

Didn’t go well here. All devices connected via the Tasmota integration (via MQTT) went “unavailable”.

Too late at night to deal with it, mess with it this weekend. Reverting.

sparkydave · April 4, 2024, 5:46am

I had some issues with MQTT earlier and restarted the Mosquitto add-on… so far so good but I’ll do more testing when I get home from work this afternoon.

denverpilot · April 4, 2024, 5:55am

Trying a complete restart now, may see if bouncing MQTT brings it back… otherwise I’ll kick off the restore from backup.

Clearly it’s something about MQTT, but I’m definitely not in the mood. LOL…

c.ciprian · April 4, 2024, 5:56am

The floors do no reflect in the labeling of the automations.

olwater · April 4, 2024, 6:11am

After upgrading to the latest 2024.4.0 system, SNMP entity values that were previously functioning correctly under 2024.3.3 now fail with an error when encountering negative values.

Update for sensor.hwacbgroupbatcurr_96 fails
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/src/homeassistant/homeassistant/helpers/entity.py", line 951, in async_update_ha_state
    await self.async_device_update()
  File "/usr/src/homeassistant/homeassistant/helpers/entity.py", line 1268, in async_device_update
    await self.async_update()
  File "/usr/src/homeassistant/homeassistant/components/snmp/sensor.py", line 218, in async_update
    await self.data.async_update()
  File "/usr/src/homeassistant/homeassistant/components/snmp/sensor.py", line 264, in async_update
    self.value = self._decode_value(resrow[-1])
                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/usr/src/homeassistant/homeassistant/components/snmp/sensor.py", line 273, in _decode_value
    bytes(value),
    ^^^^^^^^^^^^
ValueError: negative count```

Laffer · April 4, 2024, 6:23am

First off; great changes this release. Very much appreciated!

A couple things:

Filters sometimes seems to not filter correctly. For example, in the Automations view, Filters, Areas – when selecting an area, areas that are in different areas show up. I could be selecting “Office” and a couple items from “Bathroom” would show up.
It would be great to be able to collapse groups.
It would be nice to be able to add multiple items to an area, like we are able to with categories.

Mariusthvdb · April 4, 2024, 6:23am

made that same remark during Beta, and the answer was: they have to go somewhere.

Since they’re so unique in HA, and, more importantly, pertain to almost everything in HA, they should probably get their own entry in that listing

Mariusthvdb · April 4, 2024, 6:36am

that discussion really is about Floors (which is a true asset to HA now, almost cant imagine how it was before), as is pointed out more than once in that thread.

The resistance/reasoning against nested areas still feels illogical to me. I can see the challenge from a developers point of view.

However, when taking the User’s pov, nested areas are so obvious.

my usecase for those would be that I have a larger condo consisting of a single Floor (well except for the attic and basement…), and that single floor has 3 major parts. Areas. Like separate structures, connected by a few corridors.

Inside those I have rooms etc, which are my current Areas.

It was suggested to change those (areas) to labels, but that is not what a label is for imho.
Next, Paulus suggested I use several Floors on the same level.

So I did, and with the current tools, that indeed seems to be the most elegant approach.

I cant stop feeling it is a ‘hack’ though, and not a real solution to my quest for finding the most succinct reflection of the architectural design of my home.

The idea to have more than 1 Floor on a single level (0 in my case) goes against my understanding of the concept…

because like the release notes say:

Floors are a new way to organize your areas per level of floors in your home.

panhans · April 4, 2024, 6:43am

Can I edit/delete categories in the automation view?

//EDIT: found

In the filter menu you can edit your categories.

adorobis · April 4, 2024, 6:43am

Indeed! Now I can finally clean up all those orphan entities

Mariusthvdb · April 4, 2024, 6:47am

are people removing groups, in favor of labels? wondering if we should go that way, and still be able to template those easily enough.

example: grouped media_player s, test for them being available, and/or playing. Set volume on the group etc etc.

what would be most efficient? do we still need to test for availability to prevent None errors etc etc.

didnt get a chance to test the during Beta, so hope others have already done so.
Group vs Label

or should we just keep using both

groups:

{{state_attr('light.feest_lampen','entity_id')|select('has_value')|list|random}}

labels:

{{label_entities('feest_lampen')|select('has_value')|list|random}}

or can we do:

{{label_entities('feest_lampen')|random}}

need to find out what happens on an unavailable light