What’s new in Home Assistant March 2024.3 – Drag and Drop is Here! - Smart Home Junkie - Tutorials and Information for your Smart Home and Home Assistant (2024)

Hi! It’s finally here. We can now use drag and drop in dashboards. It’s only a first step, but it looks promising. Additionally, there are more exciting new features in this release. Let’s dive in!

⭐⭐⭐ NOTE: ⭐⭐⭐

This article accompanies a YouTube video. I wrote it for people who would rather read than watch a video. To keep doing this, I would like to ask you to also check out the video, leave a comment under the video, give the video a thumbs up, and subscribe to my YouTube channel. This means that the video is offered more often to new visitors so that they also stay informed of the latest Home Assistant tutorials.

Thank you for your support!

Ed

Click here to watch the video

The new March version 2024.3 of Home Assistant will be released on the first Wednesday of March. At this moment the beta is already available, so if you want to see the new features of Home Assistant, you can try and install the beta. Please note that the features I show in this video are based on the beta and may differ slightly from the final release next Wednesday.

Sections!

We have been waiting for this for a long time. The developers of Home Assistant have worked hard to create a first version for Drag and Drop. It is still in the experimental phase, so there may be breaking changes in the future on dashboards you are already creating using Sections.
You can now create sections on your dashboard and perform various drag and drop actions with them. At the moment, it is not yet possible to create headers and sidebars, but the developers of Home Assistant have told me that this will be possible in the future. Let’s create a dashboard view with sections!

  • Go to one of your dashboards.
  • Click the plus sign to create a new view in your dashboard.
  • Give your view a name and select Sections (experimental) as the View type. Note: you cannot select the Sections (experimental) view type on an existing view that has one of the other types.
  • Click Save.
  • Your new view will be shown and the first section is already present.
  • You can give your section a name first. In my case, I call it Living Room.
  • Then you can add another section by clicking on the add section icon.
  • I call this section Office.
  • Now you can drag and drop both sections already.
  • Within a section, you can add entities or cards.
  • Click on the plus sign within a section.
  • Now Select the By Entity Tab and filter the entities that you want to add.
  • Select the entities that you want to show within the section.
  • Click Continue.
  • You will now see a suggestion on how the entities will look.
  • Click Add to Dashboard.
  • The entities are now added to the sections and you can start moving the entities around within the section.
  • I will also add some entities to the Office section now.
  • And I will add a map to the Living Room section.
  • You’ll see that the map is larger than the tile cards that are shown in the section, but I can still move the map around within the section. The other cards wrap neatly around it.
  • But, there’s more! You can even move entities from one section to another section!

This is a first step towards a complete drag-and-drop environment in Home Assistant, but it already looks promising. Once it becomes possible to create headers and sidebars, I will create a comprehensive tutorial showing you how to easily assemble a tailor-made dashboard.

Running Scripts from the dashboard

A few months ago, it became possible to add fields to scripts using the UI. In this release, you can call a script containing fields from your dashboard, allowing you to interactively fill in the fields. In this example, I have created a script with two fields that send a message to your phone. When I call the script via a button on the dashboard, it prompts me to fill in the two fields. This way, you can now create interactive forms in Home Assistant. If you want to learn more about how to use scripts, take a look at this video where I extensively explain how scripts work and how to use fields in scripts.

What’s new in Home Assistant March 2024.3 – Drag and Drop is Here! - Smart Home Junkie - Tutorials and Information for your Smart Home and Home Assistant (1)
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New Energy Graph

The energy dashboard includes a new graph, allowing you to track the energy consumption of your devices over time. Next to that, you can export a CSV of your energy data now as well and import it into Excel for example.

New Sentences for Assist

New sentences have been added for Assist. You can now control the position of a valve using your voice. Additionally, you can set covers to a specific percentage. If you have a robot vacuum cleaner, you can now also control it through Assist. Furthermore, you can operate media players by starting, stopping, pausing, fast-forwarding, and adjusting the volume.

Disabling the remotely enabling of Home Assistant Remote UI

If you utilize Home Assistant Cloud, you have the capability to remotely access your Home Assistant instance through the Remote UI feature.

In cases where this feature is disabled and you are away from home, you can activate the Remote UI feature remotely by logging into your Nabu Casa account and requesting your Home Assistant instance to enable it.

Community feedback has indicated that this feature may not always be preferred, and this release introduces a new option to prevent the remote enabling of the Remote UI feature.

Translating states in your templates

You can now return the translated state of a template, so that the state is in a human readable form. Moreover, it utilizes the default language of your Home Assistant instance. Therefore, if you are operating Home Assistant in a language other than English, the translated state will be displayed in that language.

Other noteworthy changes

These were the major changes in the March release of Home Assistant 2024.3. Additionally, you can find the noteworthy changes in this list. The link to this list is available in the description of this video. One of the things that caught my eye is that there’s now a toggle service for climate entities making it easy to turn on and off your thermostat.

New Integrations

And of course, a bunch of new integrations have been added to Home Assistant, as you can see in this list.

Breaking changes in Home Assistant 2024.3

Always ensure you read the breaking changes for each release, which you can find in this list. Make sure you read the breaking changes before you update, or you might run into trouble! Be aware, that this video is based on the beta of Home Assistant 2024.3, so it might differ slightly from the final release that will be released this upcoming Wednesday.

Conclusion

Thank you for joining! If you appreciate my content, please consider supporting me to ensure the continued growth of this channel. You can find links to my Patreon, Ko-Fi, and channel membership in the description below. A sincere thank you to all the wonderful individuals on this sponsorship list; your support is essential in sustaining the channel, and I am grateful for each one of you.

And, of course, don’t forget to give this video a thumbs up and subscribe to my channel to contribute to its continuous evolution!

I look forward to seeing you in my next video.

Bye Bye!

Related posts:

Boost your Security Camera Video in Home Assistant using WebRTC!Professional ALARM SYSTEM in Home Assistant! How to set it up.
What’s new in Home Assistant March 2024.3 – Drag and Drop is Here! - Smart Home Junkie - Tutorials and Information for your Smart Home and Home Assistant (2024)

FAQs

How much does a Home Assistant cost? ›

Today we are introducing an affordable way for new users to start their smart home with Home Assistant: the Home Assistant Green – and it costs only $99 (MSRP).

What is a Home Assistant smart home? ›

March 2021) Home Assistant is free and open-source software for home automation, designed to be an Internet of things (IoT) ecosystem-independent integration platform and smart home hub for controlling smart home devices, with a focus on local control and privacy.

What is Home Assistant built on? ›

Home Assistant Operating System (formerly HassOS) is a Linux based operating system optimized to host Home Assistant and its Add-ons. Home Assistant Operating System uses Docker as its container engine.

What language does the Home Assistant use? ›

The backend of Home Assistant is running with Python 3. The Architecture page show the details about the elements running in the background of Home Assistant. To implement a new platform or component, please refer to the Development documentation.

Do I have to pay for a Home Assistant? ›

Automatic setup via Home Assistant Cloud

Just log in via the user interface and a secure connection with the cloud will be established. Home Assistant Cloud requires a paid subscription after a 30-day free trial.

What do I need to start Home Assistant? ›

TOOLS REQUIRED
  1. Raspberry Pi 3, 4 or 5 with power supply.
  2. MicroSD card.
  3. Ethernet connection.

Does a Home Assistant need internet? ›

Home Assistant doesn't work without a local network that connects everything together. You do not need internet access after Home Assistant is installed, but you do need a local network.

What is the purpose of a smart home? ›

A smart home allows homeowners to control appliances, thermostats, lights, and other devices remotely using a smartphone or tablet through an internet connection. Smart homes can be set up through wireless or hardwired systems.

Can you run Home Assistant on a phone? ›

System Requirements​ The iOS App requires iOS 10 or greater, this means the oldest devices supported are the iPhone 5, 4th generation iPad, and the 6th generation iPod touch. The Android app has 2 separate flavors full or minimal . Both flavors require Android 5.0 or greater.

What code does Home Assistant use? ›

Home Assistant uses the YAML syntax for configuration. While most integrations can be configured through the UI, some integrations require you to edit your configuration. yaml file to specify its settings.

Does Home Assistant use WIFI? ›

It is possible to run HA over wi-fi, but it is never recommended compared to wired connections.

What is the point of a Home Assistant? ›

Home Assistant keeps your data local, no need for a cloud. Home Assistant communicates with your devices locally, and will fallback to pulling in data from the cloud if there is no other option. No data is stored in the cloud, and everything is processed locally.

How much is a Home Assistant? ›

Home Assistant Green is the easiest way to run Home Assistant for the low price of $99. Try out Home Assistant for your smart home or share the love with family and friends.

Is Home Assistant secure? ›

Summary: Home Assistant had two security audits done as part of our regular security assessments. You are safe. No authentication bypasses have been found.

Are home assistants worth it? ›

A home assistant will be useless and won't do anything if you don't have any smart home device in your home. However, if you are having one or more smart home devices a Home Assistant can be a great way to enhance the functionality and features that will not cost you a fortune.

Does Home Assistant require a subscription? ›

No, Home Assistant does not require a subscription if you want to continue using the basic functionality. However, if you plan to get cloud services and remote access via Nabu Casa then you will need a subscription for Nabu Casa which brings these advanced features.

How much does Home Assistant hub cost? ›

Home Assistant Green is the easiest way to run Home Assistant for the low price of $99. Try out Home Assistant for your smart home or share the love with family and friends.

Can I use Home Assistant without a hub? ›

According to my so far research, HA running on a home server can eliminate the need of buying an IoT Hub, Bridge or Gateway. You'll need some kind of Zigbee Coordinator, like a Skyconnect, or buy a Home Assistant Yellow, which supports Zigbee out of the box. HA is your hub.

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