Changelog - Version 1.10.0

Native API

Dashboard+Hass.io Add-On Updates

Better Custom Components

Native API

Dashboard+Hass.io Add-On Updates

Better Custom Components

APDS9960

MAX31855

ULN2003

APDS9960

MAX31855

ULN2003

NeoPixelBus Light

ESP32 Ethernet

Home Assistant Sensor

NeoPixelBus Light

ESP32 Ethernet

Home Assistant Sensor

Native API

This release brings with it lots of goodies, but most important is the native API. MQTT has been the only way this project communicated with Home Assistant for a while now. And MQTT is a great protocol to get started, but it always had problems:

  • Another service to install - Users would need to install an MQTT broker in order to get started.

  • MQTT Discovery - Home Assistant’s MQTT discovery has been great, but always had problems like retained messages etc.

  • Inefficient - A typical MQTT message for sending a binary sensor state is about 70 bytes long, and the MQTT library we used was quite inefficient with runtime memory allocation too.

So I decided to do something against that: ESPHome now features a native protocol (based on TCP+protocol buffers) that addresses these issues and has a component on the Home Assistant side too.

Does this mean MQTT will be removed?

No! MQTT is an awesome protocol with easy integration for many tools like Node-RED and custom MQTT clients. This native API is only for replacing communications with Home Assistant, so if anything gets removed it’s MQTT auto discovery for Home Assistant. Of course both can be used together at the same time too.

Should I switch to the native API immediately?

You definitely can, but a word of warning first: The MQTT implementation has seen tons of fixes for small quirks in how the ESP SDK works. From my own testing, the native API seems to be quite stable - but I’m sure it’ll take a bit of time to find+fix some final bugs.

How do I migrate from MQTT?

First, make sure you run at least Home Assistant 0.85.0 (currently a beta release). Then, go through the migration guide here (removed).

Python 3 Compatibility

PlatformIO has finally implemented python 3 support after some quick changes, ESPHome is now also compatible with python 3.5+. So with this new release you can try ESPHome with Python 3 already. Just make sure to install the development version of platformio first:

pip3 install -U https://github.com/platformio/platformio-core/archive/develop.zip

I don’t particularly like python 2, and in a year’s time support for it will officially be ended. So the plan for ESPHome is to drop python 2 as soon as possible. Once platformio releases version 4.0 (with python 3 support), I will go through and check everything still works. Maybe ESPHome will support python 2 for 1 or 2 releases after that but really I want to drop support for python 2 as soon as possible.

Dashboard & Hass.io Addon Updates

The dashboard and Hass.io addon have seen a lot of ❤️ in this release: The dashboard has seen tons of small changes to make the user experience better and the Hass.io addon has been completely re-written with the Hass.io Community Addon Images as the base.

  • The dashboard now features a built-in YAML editor.

  • Configuration wizard now shows a list of boards directly, so you just have to choose them from a dropdown.

  • Hass.io Addon: You can log in using your Home Assistant credentials now.

  • And many more changes (colored logs, auto-scroll, node status, update notifications, …)

Rename: esphome{lib, yaml} -> ESPHome

The name esphomelib and esphomeyaml were too technical, and this project has changed a lot since the first published release (the yaml part didn’t even exist back then). So … the project is being re-branded slightly:

  • esphomeyaml -> ESPHome

  • esphomelib -> ESPHome Core

  • esphomedocs -> ESPHome Docs

As you see, the yaml project is now getting the “fancy” name, because that’s by far the best way to use this framework. As part of this change, using the _core_ framework directly from code (without YAML) is being deprecated, the API docs have long been inaccurate now and users should really switch over to ESPHome through YAML

Of course that doesn’t mean you won’t be able to write custom code. In fact, this release also contains lots of new guides and changes to make creating custom components much easier. The goal is to have a project where users can use YAML for the boring boilerplate code but can completely customize everything with custom components.

This migration is of course huge - almost every single file in the code+docs base has esphome{lib, yaml} somewhere in it, so it will take time until the next release for this to be finished.

Breaking Changes

  • Previously, esphomelib would by default only publish every 15th sensor value in order to provide averaged values. However, that often confused users and I now decided to remove it and set the default update interval of all components to 60s instead of the previous 15s. You can get back the old behavior by setting

    sensor:
  - platform: ...  # enter platform here
    # other settings
    update_interval: 15s
    filters:
      - sliding_window_moving_average: {}

  • The fastled effects have been renamed to addressable_ for the new Neopixelbus integration. See the validation error message for more info.

Other notable changes:

  • You can now configured multiple WiFi networks to connect to. The best one will be chosen automatically. This is along with a complete rewrite of the WiFi component which now interacts directly with the ESP SDK. (Connecting to Multiple Networks)

  • GPIO Switches have a new option restore_mode to configure how their values should be restored on boot. (GPIO Switch)

  • Added Substitutions to reduce repeating across configs.

  • Validation error messages are now displayed even better. Now all errors are shown with the exact context where the error appeared. Try it, it’s so much better. Next step will be to upgrade to a better YAML reader to provide better error messages when the YAML syntax is invalid.

  • Added a bunch of guides (and helpers) for creating custom components. Also new: esphomeyaml.libraries, esphomeyaml.includes and esphomeyaml.platformio_options (ESPHome Core Configuration)

  • Saved a lot of flash space on ESP8266 boards. Previously, platformio would allocate about 1/4 of flash for SPIFFS, but esphomelib doesn’t use that so now you have that as extra storage. Thanks @brandond <http://github.com/brandond>

  • You can now use Home Assistant to get time in ESPHome, so no more need for SNTP. See Time Component.

Release 1.10.1 - January 13

  • docs: Fix substitutions example & api intro text docs#117 by @thubot

  • lib: Fix while action not resetting is_running core#378

  • lib: Fix remote transmitter ESP32 repeat wait core#376

  • lib: Fix addressable lights core#375

  • yaml: Fix ESP32 not decoding stacktrace on broken PC esphome#330

  • docs: Fixed missing link to BME cookbook docs#120 by @Mynasru

  • lib: Fix addressable flicker effect core#383

  • lib: NeoPixelBus: fix handling of white color component core#384 by @badbadc0ffee

  • lib: Fix trigger not being optional core#381

  • docs: Add WiFi fast connect docs#121

  • yaml: Fix AsyncTCP compilation on ESP32 with Arduino breaking change esphome#334

  • yaml: Fix show logs with MQTT and dashboard esphome#332

  • lib: Add WiFi fast connect mode core#385

  • lib: Fix API Server has deep sleep core#386

  • yaml: Introduce wifi fast connect mode esphome#333

  • lib: Fix GPIO Switch not handling inverted core#387

  • lib: Expose NeoPixelBus Controller core#388

  • yaml: Pin platformio platforms esphome#335

  • lib: Fix ble tracker compile error core#390

All changes

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