This is awful. This is absolutely a breaking change and, IMO, an unforced error by the HA team.
The no backups before updating addons thing has already screwed me over. I updated HA a few days ago. I didn’t pay close attention to the changes to backups. Today, I updated an add-on without thinking much of it. Didn’t notice the backup option was gone because I always just leave it checked. Well, the update broke the add-on for me. So I went looking for the (nonexistent) backup thinking I could just revert it, no big deal. Nope, no recent backup to be found! Sure, my fault for not paying attention, but I can’t possibly be the only one with this issue. I feel like this is a pretty predictable outcome actually. But what do I know, I’m just some guy who specialized in UX design and HCI.
Another bone I have to pick with this: what even is the point of encrypting these backups? What could possibly be in there that would be valuable to a hypothetical hacker, that they couldn’t otherwise get from the system which they have clearly compromised at that point. Besides, I’m not exactly storing my SSN and credit card numbers in home assistant. I can’t really think of anything in my use case that I would be worried about if my system was compromised other than some camera streams and door controls, but those have nothing to do with backups anyway. Regardless of whether the risk is real or imagined (which I believe it largely is), I should be allowed to live ‘dangerously’ if I so choose.
Really hope they listen to the community on this one.
Addon backup should be made exactly right before you update it. Why?
Let’s say i make regular backups, so i do have latest backup. But now i go and spend whole day programming and changing my HA. In the evening an addon update appears and i update it. Which breaks my whole HA. NOW WHAT? Should i go back to 4:45 backup and destroy MY WHOLE DAY’S WORK? I can’t just revert to previous addon version, since it’s not there anymore… what a mess…
