Update Information

ESPHome
1

Hello
I’m hoping someone can point me in the right direction. The picture below shows the ESPHome dashboard and all three of my devices are current.

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Validation for one of the devices.

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This picture shows only two devices and they both need updating:

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There version number it’s showing is:

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So, my question is how do I remove the two devices from “Settings” and work only with them from the ESPHome dashboard? Is this the correct way to manage these devices; from the ESPHome dashboard?

Thanks in advance for any help that can be provided.

2

  1. The ESPHome dashboard is not completely reliable regarding update status (or online status). Sometimes it takes a few minutes to show either. (I suspect the issue lies in mdns (i.e mydevice.local).

  2. “Need” updates?? If it’s working- no. You don’t need to update an ESPHome device unless there is a new feature or bug fix that you need. Otherwise turn off the device firmware entity and you will never be prompted for an update again.

FYI, I have 63 ESPHome devices and I only update two (one ESP8266 and one ESP32) when an update is available. These two are nearby and easily accessible if the update goes badly.

  1. The ESPHome dashboard only shows the devices where there is a yaml file in config/esphome.

  2. Deleting an entity is a challenge. Best to just disable it. Disable effectively makes an entity not exist. It technically still exists so Home Assistant and the integration that created it know it’s not missing and doesn’t try to recreate it but from the perspective of the user it doesn’t exist anymore. It won’t show up anywhere, it’s state is not being tracked and recorded, you can’t reference it in automations, scripts, templates, etc

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3

I think it’s that the update notifications appear before you update the firmware and aren’t automatically dismissed once you’ve updated them.

So you can “skip” them. Can’t recall if they go away after a restart.

Traditionally most new/intermediate users would manage and update via the ESPHome dashboard.

Updating via those Home Assistant notifications is a newer HA feature, and possibly a few things don’t quite sync up just yet (or may take some time as stevemann suggested).

I think this is what’s probably going on but someone may correct me.

I usually head to the dashboard, boldy hit “update all”, and manage the fallout (often reading release notes somewhat reactively ). My happy-go-lucky “frequent blind updates” strategy mostly works ok until it doesn’t.

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4

I would spend the rest of the day fixing broken yaml files because of the changed platforms and other changes.

5

Dashboard is so smart that doesn’t even offer updates for my boards with esphome 2022.X

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6

That does happen every few years.

I find if you update frequently then the incremental breaking changes are more manageable.

Quite often changes can be made by bulk find/replaces across all files and use of include helps a lot too.

I get why some people choose to only update when needed. I do the opposite and it (mostly) works ok for me.

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7

Honestly, I think it’s just a question of preference, not that one is better than another. I would not suggest automatic updates to anyone though.

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8

In my case, if an OTA update goes badly, the device is inaccessible, or nearly so. Meaning that it would take a substantial amount of time to access the device to update it. Most are on Wemos D1 Mini boards, so I just need to get a USB cable to it. But some are on ESP8266-01, so I would need to put the device on my benchtop and connect through a UART.

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9

Not really helpful for your esp82xx fleet but with the latest esphome release the esp32’s support OTA rollbacks. :leftwards_arrow_with_hook:

OTA Rollback Support

ESP32 devices using ESP-IDF now support automatic OTA rollback (#12460). When enabled (the default), the bootloader automatically rolls back to the previous firmware if the device crashes or resets before the boot is marked as successful.

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10

Let’s see, I have 63 WiFi clients, some are phones, Alexa devices and thermostats. That means probably 50 devices of my own construction. One of them is an ESP32. The Wemos D1 Minis are cheap and do everything I ever expect from them.