Hey! And just like that, almost another year has passed and we’ve arrived at Home Assistant version 2015.12. This December release has something truly fantastic, namely Labs! But there is more, and I’m going to show it all to you in this video! Let’s dive in!
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Another year has almost passed, and here we are with Home Assistant 2025.12—the final release of the year. And this one is packed with exciting new features. The highlight? Home Assistant Labs, an experimental area where you can enable early features and give feedback. But that’s only the beginning. I’ve been testing the beta, and I’m genuinely impressed with what’s coming on the first Wednesday of December. Let’s dive into everything that’s new.
🧪 Home Assistant Labs: Test New Features Early
Home Assistant has introduced Labs, a section where you can enable features that are still in development. They’re not beta features, but more like experimental toggles you can try out and provide feedback on.
Winter Mode
A fun example in Labs is “Winter Mode,” which adds falling snowflakes to your interface. It’s purely decorative, but a nice touch during the holidays.
Intuitive Triggers and Conditions
The major addition in Labs is the new Intuitive Triggers and Conditions system for automations. This is a huge step toward making automation creation more user-friendly. Here’s what’s changed:
- When creating a new automation, you can now choose between Triggers and Targets.
- Targets allow you to define automations based on entire floors or rooms.
- For example, you can select the ground floor and trigger actions when any climate device is turned on or off.
- Or you can drill down to a specific room—like your office—and trigger actions based on devices in that room.
- You can even refine the behavior to trigger only when the first, last, or any device changes state.
Not every trigger is available yet—for instance, motion sensors don’t have target-based triggers at the moment—but you can still use the traditional trigger system when needed. The same intuitive approach also appears in Conditions and Actions, making automation creation far more accessible.
🖥️ Dashboard Enhancements
There are several great improvements to the dashboard system.
Set a Default Dashboard for Your Entire System
You can now select a system-wide default dashboard. Just go to:
Settings → Dashboards
Choose from built-in dashboards or any you’ve created. You can still override this per user in the user settings if needed.
Organize Areas, Labels, and Zones
You can now drag and drop areas, labels, and zones into the order you prefer. This change is immediately reflected in the Automated Home dashboard.
The Automated Home Dashboard
The previously experimental Automated Home dashboard is now part of Home Assistant by default. It’s hidden initially, but you can reveal it:
- Long-press the Home Assistant logo
- Enable the “Automated Home” dashboard
- Save
This dashboard also features a new sidebar showing information relevant to your home context.
⚡ New Energy Dashboard Structure
The Energy Dashboard has been redesigned and now includes:
- An Overview page
- Detailed pages, such as Electricity
You now see:
- Current power flow on both the overview and detail pages
- Current electricity usage per device or system
To enable all this, visit your Energy configuration and assign a Power Consumption Statistic to each device. The same applies to solar panels, batteries, and other energy-producing or consuming devices.
Additionally, you can now monitor individual water-consuming devices, such as washing machines—if your home is equipped for it.
🔌 New Integrations Added in 2025.12
This release includes several new integrations. A few highlights:
- Home Assistant Labs
- Philips Hue BLE
- Victron BLE
- Google Air Quality
There are also numerous improvements to existing integrations. For example, the Reolink integration has received significant updates.
Unfortunately, some integrations are being removed as well. The most notable one is Domino’s Pizza—apparently, nobody was ordering pizza through Home Assistant!
🔧 Other Noteworthy Changes
Here are a few more useful updates:
Delete Helpers Directly
You can now delete helpers directly from the Helpers panel, which wasn’t possible before.
Add Entities to Android Widgets and Favorites
Android users can add entities to:
- Android Auto Favorites
- Pixel Watch Favorites
(This isn’t available for iOS users.)
Backward-Incompatible Changes
As always, check the breaking changes before upgrading to avoid surprises.
🎬 Final Thoughts
Home Assistant 2025.12 is a feature-packed release that continues pushing Home Assistant’s usability forward. With Labs, intuitive automation tools, dashboard improvements, and an expanded Energy Dashboard, this update is one of the most exciting of the year.
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