I am just trying to keep my system working month to month. I have got to the point I just read breaking changes. Who has time to read what is new? It took me from the May 2026 until now to start working on new stuff. Now it looks like older apple product I have may not work any longer (if I am reading it right?). If that is the case then WTH is the use of voluntarily Breaking what Still Works?
I have updated my massive install almost every release from 2024.10 to 2026.11, without any real breakages. Are you using a ton of custom stuff?
The Apple stuff not working I presume relates to the Companion app not working before iOS 16? That’s probably mostly because HA takes advantage of a lot of newer iOS features, and it gets very annoying after a while for devs to keep a ton of backwards compatibility that hurts newer, higher end devices. Are you not able to use a normal web browser instead for older devices?
I just set up notifications through the Companion app and they work well. I am not about to replace the apple devices for newer and that is why I do not want to update HA to the latest and greatest. I use a lot of ESPHome, ZHA and Kasa. I really don’t need more than I already have now. I just want to keep it working and refine my automations really. Thank you for your reply. @inventor7777
When it comes to Apple devices then you really have to direct your blame towards Apple instead.
Apple support the current OS of a device type and the two prior to that one.
This means when the year say September/October then they release their new OS version and they also release their development tools for that version, which a dev have to use to support the new OS version.
Those development tools have Apple made with disregards to the OS versions that are no longer supported, so if a feature is better with only the newer function in the development tools, then that one is chosen over one that support older OS versions.
When the HA devs or even Microsoft devs develop to Apple products, then they often do not know which functions are the pitfalls, so the end result is apps that simply do not work on older devices.
Sometimes they can recompile an old version of an app and it will fail too, because the functions used back when it was developed have been “upgraded” by Apple since then.
@WallyR I was not aware of that, but it makes sense as Apple wants to sell as much as they can and have users upgrade as often as possible. I inherited some of the apple product from my daughter as she tends to update every few generations. I still think I will hit a holding pattern with HA pre 2026.11and work with the devices I have. Thanks for the post.
Some things is required to be updated in the companion app, like when you need to support new phones or tablets and that is enough to break it for older versions.
While i like updates…(i won’t write all 200 lines here), i really think there should be some king of LTS releases, EVEN my vacuum integration has them.