Hacktoberfest 2019!
Hacktoberfest is live for 2019, and Home Assistant is again participating.
The first 50,000 developers who have registered at hacktoberfest.digitalocean.com and make 4 pull requests before the end of October may be eligible to receive a free t-shirt.
For Home Assistant, you can contribute directly either through new components, or help out by adding or improving documentation on the Home Assistant website.
Home Assistant State of the Union 2019
ING are once again hosting the Home Assistant State of the Union which will be held in Amsterdam on November 13.
The event has already reached capacity! Hopefully this will be live streamed somewhere.
https://www.eventbrite.nl/e/home-assistant-state-of-union-2019-registration-74331081265
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New Features
- Google Assistant via Nabu Casa can now report states
If you have Google Assistant integrated with Nabu Casa, Home Assistant can now push entity states to Google Assistant, similar to how it does for the Amazon Echo.This will allow you to create actions in Google Assistant which can respond to entities changing states from Home Assistant.
https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant/pull/27112 - DOODS Image Processing Support
DOODS stands for Dedicated Open Object Detection Service
Designed to run as a Docker container to allow you to process images to detect objects (like people, furniture etc).The states and attributes are very similar to the Tensorflow component
https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant/pull/26208 - iZone Climate Platform
The custom component is now an official integration in Home Assistant!
https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant/pull/24550 - Kaiterra integration
Supports devices and sensors from Kaiterra. One of which is called a Laser Egg, which is a Wifi sensor designed to detect gasses and chemicals in the air inside your house!
https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant/pull/26661 - Here Travel Time
Here Travel Time is a new travel time sensor. HERE offers a Freemium Plan which includes 250.000 free Transactions per month, and requires an API key to be integrated with Home Assistant.
https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant/pull/24603 - Soma Smart Shades
Official support for the Soma Smart Shades.Soma recently released their Raspberry Pi controller image, allowing you to turn a Raspberry Pi into a control unit for your blinds. This integration now talks to that directly.
https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant/pull/26226MQTT Service Phil uses: https://github.com/andersonshatch/soma-ctrl - IKEA Fyrtur Blinds
For those lucky enough to have the new IKEA smart blinds, these should now be supported with the native Tradfri integration in Home Assistant.
https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant/pull/26659
Breaking Changes
A lot of breaking changes in this release, here’s a couple of highlights
- Deprecated Integrations have now been removed
We mentioned these back in episode 55. Webscraping components such as UPS and Fedex have now been removed. You should be able to find them from the Home Assistant Community Store if required though.
https://community.home-assistant.io/t/custom-component-hacs/121727 - Updates for Ecobee Users
Ecobee climate devices will now be setup from the UI. Existing users should have their settings from the YAML and other configuration files imported when you upgrade.As part of this change, any Ecobee specific services such as “ecobee_resume_program” are being moved away from the climate platform, and will instead be moved to an ecobee platform, for example “ecobee.resume_program”
https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant/pull/26634 - Transmission Download Client moving to UI setup
Setting up an integration with the Transmission download client can now be done from the Integrations menu in Home Assistant. No more configuration YAML needed.As part of this change, existing users who have set the monitored_conditions flag in their configuration YAML will need to remove this, as now all sensors and switches will be imported by default.
https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant/pull/26434
Other Noteworthy Updates
- Plex can now be setup via the UI
Similar to Transmission above, without any breaking changes. You can now setup the Plex integration without the need for any YAML.
https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant/pull/26548 - ZHA Integration now supports Sirens and Warning Devices
https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant/pull/26046 - Template devices and sensors now define an availability template
When an integration is offline, Home Assistant can mark sensors and switches as unavailable. This unfortunately didn’t work for sensors and switches which are based on templates.Now there is an availability template, allowing you to specify a template which can tell Home Assistant when that sensor or switch is no longer online/available.This is available across the board, including lights, fans, covers etc.
https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant/pull/26513 - Google Home Devices can now arm and disarm alarm panels in Home Assistant
You’ll need to provide your voice PIN, for that extra bit of security.
https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant/pull/26249
Todays Guest

Tony Lamont
.Net Software developer and armature PCB designer.
The Hosts

Phil Hawthorne
Phil is a Melbourne based web developer who lives and breathes technology. When he's not at his day job, he’s in his home office attempting to simplify his life through complicated tech.
Website | Smart Home Products | Buy Phil a Coffee
Rohan Karamandi
Rohan from Toronto, Canada works in the Technology sector as an architect designing network and datacenter solutions for his customers. His passion for technology stems from there and extends to IoT and home automation
Website | Smart Home Products | Buy Rohan a Coffee