2023.4: Custom template macros, and many more new entity dialogs!

Franck Nijhof April 5, 2023

• Core
• Release-Notes

Comments

Home Assistant Core 2023.4! 🎉

The spring (release) is here! And do we have some fine new features for you to play with this upcoming easter weekend! 🐰

I’m thrilled to see more of those new entity dialogs coming in this release. They look beautiful and work exceptionally well from the mobile app. There is even an added bonus of new Tile card features! But…

Oh boy, do I love the new ability to make your own Jinja2 template macros in this release. It is mind-blowing! The best thing about them, it makes them easily shareable as well! Can’t wait to see what you all come up with!

Happy Easter! 🐣 and enjoy the release!

../Frenck

• New dialogs for alarm, cover, and fan entities
• New features for the Tile card
• Macros for your templates
• More new templating features
• Database scalability
• New selector capabilities
• Translating entities
• Other noteworthy changes
• New Integrations
• Integrations now available to set up from the UI
• Release 2023.4.1 - April 6
• Release 2023.4.2 - April 8
• Release 2023.4.3 - April 12
• Release 2023.4.4 - April 13
• Release 2023.4.5 - April 17
• Release 2023.4.6 - April 21
• Need help? Join the community!
• Backward-incompatible changes
• Farewell to the following
• All changes

Don’t forget to join our release party live stream on YouTube 5 April 2023, at 12:00 PDT / 21:00 CEST!

New dialogs for alarm, cover, and fan entities

The previous release brought in new entity dialogs for lights, switches, and sirens; it seems many of you really liked it!

So, this release @piitaya kept on trucking, implementing the designs by @matthiasdebaat, bringing the same new clean and neat UI in entity dialogs for alarm control panels, covers, and fans!

Covers

First up, covers! For covers, there are many variants, doors, windows, curtains, blinds, shutters, etc. Not just that, some can be controlled by how far they are open/closed, and others can only be opened and closed.

This is no problem for the new dialogs. They will adjust to the capabilities your cover has:

The one on the left is interesting, as the first slider controls how far down the blinds are. Notice how it slides in from the top! The slider directly next to it controls the tilt. Nice!

Fans

Next up, the fan entities. The UI experience shown in the dialog will automatically adjust to the capabilities of the fan you are controlling, just like with covers.

Depending on the number of speed steps your fan has, the dialog will automatically adjust the UI. In case it has four speed steps or less, it will show the speed buttons as on the left screenshot. Otherwise, it will use the slider shown on the most right screenshot.

Alarm control panels

Lastly, the alarm control panel entities. They are a bit different compared to others as, more often, these require one to input a code to arm or disarm the alarm.

This is how arming and disarming an alarm now looks like.

When needed, the pin-pad will pop up! A nice finishing touch is the neat little animation is shown during the process of arming and disarming the alarm.

New features for the Tile card

The Tile card has two new features: Fan speed & Alarm mode.

Both look and feel similar to the new entity dialogs from above, making the look and feel, nice and consistent. Take a look; aren’t they beautiful?

Like the new fan entity dialog, the fan speed feature will show buttons if there are 4 speeds or less; in all other cases, it will use the slider. If the fan can only be turned on/off, like the fan in the middle in the above screenshot, the regular tile can be used.

The alarm mode feature allows quickly setting your alarm in a different state. The feature provides the option to select which modes are shown as buttons in the card.

Just like with the new entity dialog, the pin pad will pop up once a code entry is needed and even the nice little animation is there. 🤩

Macros for your templates

If you are an advanced Home Assistant user, you most likely will be familiar with Home Assistant’s templating language: Jinja2. It allows you to do amazing powerful things in your templates. However, if you have lots of them, you often end up repeating similar logic everywhere!

@depoll to the rescue! He found a way to add the ability to centrally define your own Jinja2 macros and import and use them anywhere in Home Assistant! 🤯

To support this, Home Assistant now has a new custom_templates folder, where you can store your macros. For example, assume this file /config/custom_templates/tools.jinja:

{% macro answer_question(entity_id) %}

Is the {{ state_attr(entity_id, 'friendly_name') }} on?
{{ (states(entity_id) == 'on') | iif('Yes', 'No') }}!

{% endmacro %}

This macro answer_question will ask and answer a question based on a given entity ID. You can now import and use this macro anywhere in Home Assistant. For example:

{% from 'tools.jinja' import answer_question %}
{{ answer_question('light.kitchen') }}

Which will output:

Is the kitchen light on?
Yes!

An fantastic contribution! Thank you, @depoll!

Reusing templates documentation

More new templating features

As if the reusability of your macros wasn’t good enough already, there is much more templating goodness in this release!

Thanks, @depoll, @ehendrix23, @petro31, and @rokam, for these amazing additions down below! ❤️

Adjusted behavior of relative_time and today_at

@Petro31 adjust the behavior for template entities using the relative_time and today_at template functions to update their state once a minute. Nice!

New is_hidden_entity function

The brand new is_hidden_entity function was added by @depoll, which can tell if a given entity has been marked “hidden” or not. This function also works as a test. Cool!

This example returns a list of all entities in the kitchen area that are not hidden.

{{ area_entities('kitchen') | reject('is_hidden_entity') | list }}

New areas function

Talking about areas, @rokam added an areas function, which returns a list of all areas you have!

A simplistic example:

{{ areas() }}

Added break and continue for use in for loops

@depoll added support for break and continue in for loops, which allows short-circuiting those loops, allowing you to make them more efficient.

{%- for value in range(10) %}
    {%- if value == 1 -%}
        {%- continue -%}
    {%- elif value == 3 -%}
        {%- break -%}
    {%- endif -%}
    {{ value }}
{%- endfor -%}

New has_value function

Lastly, @ehendrix23 added a requested template function from the Month of “What the Heck?!”: has_value. The has_value function can also be used as test and can filter out entities currently in an unavailable or unknown state.

You could use this conditionally, like so:

{% if has_value('sensor.train_departure_time') %}
  The train leaves at {{ states('sensor.train_departure_time') }}
{% endif %}

Or, maybe list all entities from the living room that currently have no state value:

{{ area_entities('living_room') | reject('has_value') | list }}

Database scalability

As your smart home grows and you add more devices, this means more data to keep track of. This release includes significant advancements to the recorder database design to help Home Assistant scale.

This version has a new database format that reduces the space needed to store history for your devices. This change comes with a few benefits:

• Smaller (deduplication), less disk usage
• Reduced disk IO (SD-card lifetime improvements)
• Reduced CPU-usage 📉
• Quicker startup 🏎️
• Faster history graphs and logbook
• Reduced latency in the entire system which means less waiting from the time you hit a button until an action completes 🚀
• Home Assistant now keeps history when renaming entities 🤘

If you are accessing the database directly, check out the Data Science Portal and the SQL Integration for updated example queries.

It may take a while to complete background data migration, depending on the size of your stored data. To ensure Home Assistant keeps history when renaming an entity, wait 24 hours after upgrading before renaming.

New selector capabilities

Selectors are user inputs for the user interface that drive things like Blueprints. A new selector for use in Blueprints has been added by @emontnemery and @piitaya: The constant selector.

The constant selector provides an optional input, which returns a fixed value (the constant) when enabled, otherwise doesn’t provide any value at all.

Example use in a Blueprint:

example:
  name: Constant selector example
  selector:
    constant:
      label: Enabled
      value: true

Which results in the following:

When checked, the selector returns the set value.

Also improved are the device and entity filters on the Area, Entity, Device, and Target selectors. Previously, you could filter with a single set of conditions; now, you can pass in a list of filters.

If you are building Blueprints, this can be really helpful if a user should be able to select one of multiple different devices.

An example, this selector allows you to select the battery sensor of either a Philips Hue RWL020 (US) or RWL021 (EU) remote in your Blueprint.

device:
  filter:
    - integration: deconz
      manufacturer: Philips
      model: RWL020
    - integration: deconz
      manufacturer: Philips
      model: RWL021
  entity:
    - domain: sensor
      device_class: battery

Translating entities

Over the past releases, we’ve been slowly extending translation support in more places in Home Assistant. This release completes support for translating entities!

This includes the entities’ names, their attributes, and translations of the attribute values. These translations will be visible on your dashboards, dialogs, automation editors, etc. Pretty much all places displaying them.

Integrations have to explicitly add support for these. Quite a few integrations have done so in this release, but we expect many to follow in the upcoming releases.

Other noteworthy changes

There are much more easter bunnies in this release; here are some of the other noteworthy changes this release:

• @ArturoGuerra added support for locks to Matter! Nice!
• The new light entity dialog (introduced last release) now better supports white mode. Thanks, @piitaya!
• @emontnemery added energy storage and volume storage device classes; these will allow differentiating between, for example, consumed energy versus stored energy in a battery.
• @starkillerOG is rocking the Reolink integration. It now provides button, switch, siren, select, number, and light entities for all kinds of things you Reolink cameras and doorbells can do. Awesome!
• The Universal Media Player now supports browsing media! Thanks, @Drafteed!
• The Supervisor integration now provides sensors containing the Home Assistant Core and Supervisor’s stats. Thanks, @ludeeus!
• The Spotify integration now supports podcasts! Nice @BTMorton!
• LIVISI Smart Home now supports climate devices, switches (PSSO, ISS, and ISS2), and window sensors (WDS). Thanks @StefanIacobLivisi & @planbnet!
• ESPHome now supports pairing Bluetooth devices. Nice work @bdraco & @jagheterfredrik!
• @MarkGodwin extended the TP-Link Omada integration to support update entities; awesome!
• All sun.sun entity attributes are now also available as sensors, much easier to use, thanks @gjohansson-ST!
• Covers with the door device class, now appear as actual doors in HomeKit, nice @Dexwell!
• @loongyh did something similar for Google Assistant. Covers with the window device class now show up as actual windows. Thanks!
• The SQL integration now supports settings device and state classes, thanks @gjohansson-ST!
• @teharris1 added support for the new Insteon i3 device, cool!

New Integrations

This release has no new integrations, but does provide a couple of new virtual integrations. Virtual integrations are stubs handled by other (existing) integrations to help with findability. These are new:

• ESERA 1-Wire provided by 1-Wire, added by @jrieger
• HomeSeer works with Z-Wave, added by @b-uwe
• Quadra-Fire provided by IntelliFire, added by @jeeftor
• Vermont Castings provided by IntelliFire, added by @jeeftor

Integrations now available to set up from the UI

The following integrations are now available via the Home Assistant UI:

• EDL21, done by @StephanU
• Frontier Silicon, done by @wlcrs
• Nextcloud, done by @mib1185
• Obihai, done by @ejpenney

Release 2023.4.1 - April 6

• Handle Uncaught exceptions in async_update Honeywell (@mkmer - #90746) (honeywell docs)
• Bump fritzconnection to 1.12.0 (@saschaabraham - #90799) (fritz docs) (fritzbox_callmonitor docs)
• Fix issue with Insteon All-Link Database loading (@teharris1 - #90858) (insteon docs)
• Generate a seperate log message per dumped object for profiler.dump_log_objects (@bdraco - #90867) (profiler docs)
• Add constraint for websockets to <11.0 (@bdraco - #90868)
• Add MariaDB deadlock retry wrapper to database timestamp column migrations (@bdraco - #90880) (recorder docs)
• Migrate entity unique ids in PI-Hole (@mib1185 - #90883) (pi_hole docs)
• Fix missing bluetooth client wrapper in bleak_retry_connector (@bdraco - #90885) (bluetooth docs)
• Bump ulid-transform 0.6.0 (@bdraco - #90888)
• Guard against invalid ULIDs in contexts while recording events (@bdraco - #90889) (recorder docs)
• Fix entity_id migration query failing with MySQL 8.0.30 (@bdraco - #90895) (recorder docs)
• Bump simplisafe-python to 2023.04.0 (@bachya - #90896) (simplisafe docs)
• Bump aiodiscover to 1.4.16 (@bdraco - #90903) (dhcp docs)
• Return empty available programs list if an appliance is off during initial configuration (@stickpin - #90905) (home_connect docs)
• Handle NoURLAvailableError in Nuki component (@pree - #90927) (nuki docs)
• Update frontend to 20230406.1 (@bramkragten - #90951) (frontend docs)
• Fix flaky test in vesync (@epenet - #90921) ([vesync docs])
• Bump aioambient to 2022.10.0 (@bachya - [#90940]) (ambient_station docs)
• Bump reolink-aio to 0.5.10 (@starkillerOG - [#90963]) (reolink docs)
• Avoid writing state to all esphome entities at shutdown (@bdraco - #90555) (esphome docs)
• Fix state being cleared on disconnect with deep sleep esphome devices (@bdraco - #90925) (esphome docs)
• Coerce previously persisted local calendars to have valid durations (@allenporter - #90970) (local_calendar docs)
• Bump gcal_sync to 4.1.3 (@allenporter - #90968) (google docs)
• Fix error after losing an imap connection (@jbouwh - #90966) (imap docs)
• Fix command_template sensor value_template not being used if json_attributes set (@gadgetchnnel - #90603) (command_line docs)
• Fix verisure autolock (@heiparta - #90960) (verisure docs)

Release 2023.4.2 - April 8

• Fix NMBS AttributeError (@PatrickGlesner - #90525) (nmbs docs)
• Bump websockets constraint to 11.0.1+ (@bdraco - #90901) (ambient_station docs) (vallox docs)
• Raise an issue for legacy SQL queries that will cause full table scans (@bdraco - #90971) (sql docs)
• Resume entity id post migration after a restart (@bdraco - #90973) (recorder docs)
• Bump vallox-websocket-api to 3.2.1 (@bdraco - #90980) (vallox docs)
• Bump aioambient to 2023.04.0 (@bachya - #90991) (ambient_station docs)
• Bump roombapy to 1.6.8 (@joostlek - #91012) (roomba docs)
• Delay utility_meter until HA has started (@dgomes - #91017) (utility_meter docs)
• Make sure upnp-router is also initialized when first seen through an advertisement (@StevenLooman - #91037) (upnp docs)
• Bump ZHA quirks lib (@dmulcahey - #91054) (zha docs)
• Fix Smartthings acceleration sensor in ZHA (@dmulcahey - #91056) (zha docs)
• Bump zeroconf to 0.55.0 (@bdraco - #90987) (zeroconf docs)
• Bump zeroconf to 0.56.0 (@bdraco - #91060) (zeroconf docs)
• Make location optional in google calendar create service (@allenporter - #91061) (google docs)
• Bump gcal_sync to 4.1.4 (@allenporter - #91062) (google docs)
• Bump subarulink to 0.7.6 (@G-Two - #91064) (subaru docs)
• Bump env_canada to v0.5.31 (@michaeldavie - #91094) (environment_canada docs)
• Fix context_user_id round trip when calling to_native (@bdraco - #91098) (recorder docs)
• Bump flux_led to 0.28.37 (@bdraco - #91099) (flux_led docs)
• Make the device_tracker more forgiving when passed an empty ip address string (@bdraco - #91101) (device_tracker docs)

Release 2023.4.3 - April 12

• Fix configuring Flo instances (@amattas - #90990) (flo docs)
• Fall back to polling if webhook cannot be registered on Nuki (@pree - #91013) (nuki docs)
• Track availability of source sensor in utility meter (@dgomes - #91035) (utility_meter docs)
• Bump aiopyarr to 23.4.0 (@tkdrob - #91110) (sonarr docs) (radarr docs) (lidarr docs)
• Bump env_canada to 0.5.32 (@michaeldavie - #91126) (environment_canada docs)
• Relax calendar event validation to allow existing zero duration events (@allenporter - #91129) (google docs) (calendar docs) (caldav docs)
• Bump ulid-transform to 0.6.3 (@bdraco - #91133)
• Fix false positive in SQL sensor full table scan check (@bdraco - #91134) (sql docs)
• Reolink config flow fix custom port when USE_HTTPS not selected (@starkillerOG - #91137) (reolink docs)
• Fix all day event coercion logic (@allenporter - #91169) (calendar docs) (local_calendar docs)
• Reduce startup time for System Bridge integration (@timmo001 - #91171) (system_bridge docs)
• Cleanup ZHA from Zigpy deprecated property removal (@dmulcahey - #91180) (zha docs)
• Bump pytile to 2023.04.0 (@bachya - #91191) (tile docs)
• Flush conversation name cache when an entity is renamed (@emontnemery - #91214) (conversation docs)
• Update frontend to 20230411.0 (@bramkragten - #91219) (frontend docs)
• Fix switch_as_x name (@emontnemery - #91232) (switch_as_x docs)
• Update Inovelli Blue Series switch support in ZHA (@codyhackw - #91254) (zha docs)
• Bump ZHA dependencies (@puddly - #91291) (zha docs)
• Restore use of local timezone for MariaDB/MySQL in SQL integration (@bdraco - #91313) (recorder docs) (sql docs)
• Google Assistant SDK: Fix broadcast command for Portuguese (@tronikos - #91293) (google_assistant_sdk docs)
• Remove codecov from Python test requirements (@frenck - #91295)

Release 2023.4.4 - April 13

• Bump python-homewizard-energy to 2.0.1 (@DCSBL - #91097) (homewizard docs) (dependency)
• Bump aiolifx to 0.8.10 (@bdraco - #91324) (lifx docs) (dependency)
• Update frontend to 20230411.1 (@bramkragten - #91344) (frontend docs)

Release 2023.4.5 - April 17

• Add SetSynchronizationPoint fallback to onvif (@GrumpyMeow - #86400) (onvif docs)
• Fix SharkIQ token expiration (@funkybunch - #89357) (sharkiq docs)
• Reolink prevent ONVIF push being lost due to ConnectionResetError (@starkillerOG - #91070) (reolink docs)
• Add missing mock in sharkiq tests (@epenet - #91325) (sharkiq docs)
• Tado set_water_heater_timer should use water_heater domain (@rich-kettlewell - #91364) (tado docs)
• Fix listener running in foreground for System Bridge integration (@timmo001 - #91391) (system_bridge docs)
• Bump onvif-zeep-async to 1.2.5 (@bdraco - #91399) (onvif docs)
• Fix attribute reporting config failures in ZHA (@puddly - #91403) (zha docs)
• Save Thread dataset store when changing preferred dataset (@emontnemery - #91411) (thread docs)
• Bump env_canada to v0.5.33 (@michaeldavie - #91468) (environment_canada docs)
• Fix creating onvif pull point subscriptions when InitialTerminationTime is required (@bdraco - #91470) (onvif docs) (dependency)
• Bump onvif-zeep-async to 1.2.11 (@bdraco - #91472) (onvif docs) (dependency)
• Handle a few more transient onvif errors (@bdraco - #91473) (onvif docs)
• Reolink ONVIF move read to primary callback (@starkillerOG - #91478) (reolink docs)
• Fix onvif failing to reload (@bdraco - #91482) (onvif docs)
• Resolve issue with switchbot blind tilt devices getting stuck in opening/closing state (@BTMorton - #91495) (switchbot docs) (dependency)
• Fix state mapping in fibaro climate (@rappenze - #91505) (fibaro docs)
• Bump unifiprotect to 4.8.1 (@AngellusMortis - #91522) (unifiprotect docs) (dependency)

Release 2023.4.6 - April 21

• Add a guard against selecting all entities in state_changes_during_period (@bdraco - #91585) (recorder docs)
• Fix tasks with no due date from not triggering on calendar state. (@boralyl - #91196) (todoist docs)
• Fix Insteon thermostat issue (@teharris1 - #91568) (insteon docs)
• Handle UnsupportedError in HomeWizard (@DCSBL - #91608) (homewizard docs)
• Bump renault-api to 0.1.13 (@epenet - #91609) (renault docs)
• Handle long format context UUIDs during migration (@bdraco - #91657) (recorder docs)
• Bump aioshelly to 5.3.2 (@thecode - #91679) (shelly docs)
• Fallback to generating a new ULID on migraiton if context is missing or invalid (@bdraco - #91704) (recorder docs)
• Bump python-songpal dependency (@rytilahti - #91708) (songpal docs)
• Do not wait for mqtt at startup mqtt_statestream (@jbouwh - #91721) (mqtt_statestream docs)
• Bump pylitterbot to 2023.4.0 (@natekspencer - #91759) (litterrobot docs)
• Bump pysml to 0.0.10 (@StephanU - #91773) (edl21 docs)
• Relax the constraint that events must have a consistent timezone for start/end (@allenporter - #91788) (google docs) (calendar docs)
• Disallow uploading files to bypass the media dirs (@balloob - #91817) (media_source docs)

Need help? Join the community!

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Our very active Discord chat server is an excellent place to be at, and don’t forget to join our amazing forums.

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Backward-incompatible changes

This smart home is controlled by Home Assistant.

An overview of the areas and the devices in this smart home:
{%- for area in areas() %}
  {%- set area_info = namespace(printed=false) %}
  {%- for device in area_devices(area) -%}
    {%- if not device_attr(device, "disabled_by") and not device_attr(device, "entry_type") and device_attr(device, "name") %}
      {%- if not area_info.printed %}

{{ area_name(area) }}:
        {%- set area_info.printed = true %}
      {%- endif %}
- {{ device_attr(device, "name") }}{% if device_attr(device, "model") and (device_attr(device, "model") | string) not in (device_attr(device, "name") | string) %} ({{ device_attr(device, "model") }}){% endif %}
    {%- endif %}
  {%- endfor %}
{%- endfor %}

Answer the user's questions about the world truthfully.

If the user wants to control a device, reject the request and suggest using the Home Assistant app.

{% for state in states | sort(attribute='entity_id') %}

If you are a custom integration developer and want to learn about breaking changes and new features available for your integration: Be sure to follow our developer blog. The following are the most notable for this release:

• Calendar best practices
• Deprecating Polymer
• Translating the name and attributes of entities

Farewell to the following

The following integrations are also no longer available as of this release:

• Dark Sky has been removed. Apple acquired Dark Sky, and the API has now been shut down. (@gjohansson-ST - #90322)
• Magicseaweed has been removed. Magicseedweed no longer provides API keys to users. Additionally, the integration is no longer in a functional state. (@gjohansson-ST - #90277)

All changes

Of course, there is a lot more in this release. You can find a list of all changes made here: Full changelog for Home Assistant Core 2023.4