First of all, I may sound like i don’t appreciate all the hard work that people put into this; I’m sorry about this (sounding like that) and in fact I do appreciate it and THANK YOU!
But…
I just finished updating my devices yesterday (some after many troubles); today there is another update which will need all devices to be updated. The “update all” would be nice but it usually doesn’t work for me.
Why so often? Unless something broke, please keep it every few months less often .
Would it be possible to allow users to specify what updates they care about such as only major, minor, or patch?
To avoid broken things, maybe there should be an “enthusiast” channel that would catch most problems before they reach mainstream (maybe there is and I don’t know I’m on it?).
I realize I can “skip” it but like others say, it comes back again and again. Also, there is the danger that skipping some/too many may prevent upgrades in the future or break things.
I don’t know how things are done, I feel a major update should be released not as major changes (with potential bugs that then have to be fixed in minor/patches) but as the current status/functionality after most/all known bugs have been fixed; then add features that may be buggy again as minors, fixed with patches. That way upgrading only to majors would be a good experience for those that don’t need latest features NOW.
Skip for a period of time and then apply a batch.
You’re correct that it’s painful to keep updating every day but you don’t have to. You won’t incur much technical debt (damage your position by staying on a version too long) if you update even only quarterly. You’ll definitely run into quite a risk if you wait a year or more though.
Ive been slamming every update in over the last few years while I build my system the way I like it. But at some point (soon) I expect to pull back into more of a maintenance mode and when I do I’m going quarterly on the updates for my production install.
Just make a plan and stick to it.
Exactly, you aren’t forced to update.
I keep the add-on up to date but only update my devices if there is a particular feature I want or improvement that would make it worthwhile, or if there is a breaking change with a component I use.
Why not have a feature or option to indicate you don’t want to be bothered for notification updates during a time or fo ever ? Perhaps add an option at Skip where you could say if it’s for ever or for 6 months for example ?
Just disable the update entity for the ESP device. This has been discussed extensively in the related feature request.
None of these are solutions, just workarounds.
I don’t want to stop updating; there may be security and other implications.
Can’t developers just release updates when they are more substantial? Not every 3 -7 days?
That’s rather unfair to the people who might be eagerly waiting for a PR to be included so they can use a new device or component.
Why is everyone being so selfish here? Just ignore the updates if it’s too much effort for you.
The dot releases are bug fixes. Do you really want wait 3 months for a fix to a component you use?
I am the individual most guilty of screaming at the rooftops about the frequent updates. Including a new feature request.
I was wrong.
If it ain’t broke. don’t fix it. Always update the ESPHome add-on when it’s available. If you have an ESP device that is working fine, just turn off the firmware entity for it. You won’t be bothered with almost daily ESPHome updates for that device.
I do not do an “Update All” because invariably at least one of my devices will not update and is bricked until I manually flash the ESP chip on it. Of course those devices are the most inaccessible.
I have not hidden the device firmware for a few devices that are conveniently on my desktop or workbench. Manually flashing them is no problem.
Most important- READ the release notes to determine if any of the issues addressed in the update applies to any of your devices. If not, then you can safely ignore the device updates.
I believe the frequent release cycle is both HA’s biggest feature and main drawback.
The amount of effort being put into developing HA and the mass of different integrations is truly incredible, and means that if a new feature you want missed out on the last release you don’t have to wait another 6 months. 
But you are quite right that it does take seemingly never-ending effort to keep up with all the changes 
, and unfortunately improvements sometimes mean a change that “breaks” something.
I now read the release notes when it comes out and - if there is nothing I am desperate for - I wait a couple of weeks for the .3 updates (which are essentially for bug fixes) before updating. Personally I don’t want the size of headache that 6 months worth of updates will generate all at once …
Bottom line is that it’s up to you to consider the suggestions made in this thread and do what you feel comfortable with.
If you want static code that is severely behind the time, and infrequently updated go to openhab
@nickrout, Ya, I said (not) I want static code! I don’t feel the need to specifically repeat for you what I already said.
Stop updating then. HA and ESPhome have active development cycles. Like it or lump it. You can lump it by not updating. Real simple.
It seems I’m the only one that feels there could be an “enthusiast” channel; nobody even commented on that.
Such “channels” have different names (for example “preview”) and I think would solve all above problems.
Separately, I think going for this CI/CD and all sort of other fast release cycles has risks, but I don’t know enough to say “it’s bad”; I’m sure it has … good in it.
Just google ci/cd dangers.
Look where it got Android; EVERY day new things to update, and if one tries to read through (permission or other) changes there’s no time left for anything in the day.
This was somewhat of a problem for me because updating all my devices takes a while and a lot of computing power (compiling ESPHome). It also led to a lot of updates as you’ve mentioned.
I got around this by skipping the ESPHome add-on update. If you don’t update ESPHome then you won’t get updates mentioned for your devices for that version.
However, if you’re still finding the rate ESPHome updates too often, I think the suggestion to disable your update entities is the ideal. It may be a good feature request to allow users to specify what updates they care about such as only major, minor, or patch (read up on semantic versioning).
Regarding your suggestion to have ESPHome not release updates as often: I’m not sure this is the correct course of action. There’s a concept of separating data from how it’s displayed. There isn’t inherently wrong with how the releases are being done. You just don’t like how often you’re being notified in HA. This means that it needs to be fixed at that level.
Thank you Scott,
I think you expressed what I was looking for in better terms; I edited my original message based on yours.
The ability to choose only major, minor, or patch would, I think, solve the problem.
Like I said, I don’t think skipping is a solution for me; It reminds me I’m… not up to date then I might start to ignore the notification and miss bigger ones. There are too many notifications everywhere even though I try to reduce them.
I would like to say this is a solution, but just saying it doesn’t solve the problem; I’m not sure what the netiquette is here…
… until something gets deprecated and then when you have to update it may take more effort to find out what happened… for example the change from API password to key caused all sort of problems, apparently not just for me.
When I read that something will stop working at some point in the future I’d rather fix it before it breaks.
I don’t know how things are done, I feel a major update should be released not as major changes (with potential bugs that then have to be fixed in minor/patches) but as the current status/functionality after most/all known bugs have been fixed; then add features that may be buggy again as minors, fixed with patches. That way upgrading only to majors would be a good experience for those that don’t need latest features NOW.
You didn’t read my whole post. Always update the add-on and always read the release notes to determine if any changes affect any of your devices.
It can be a lot to read them all if they come every few days; that’s why I’d like to do it only on majors.
I don’t know enough about this to know if deprecations only happen in majors; if that’s the case maybe I can do it that way.