Hi! I’m back with an update on the latest changes in Home Assistant.
This time, I’ll show you everything that’s new in the May 2025.5 release of Home Assistant. There have been updates to the backup system, entities can now be selected more easily, voice variations have been added, you can now paste automations and scripts, and much more.
Let’s dive right in!
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Every month it’s exciting to see what new and fun things are added to Home Assistant, and this month is no exception. The May release (2025.4) will be available starting Wednesday, May 7, so from that moment on, you’ll be able to start using these new features yourself.
Backup System
New options have been added to the backup system. First, you can now set the retention time per location, either based on the number of backups or the number of days.
There’s also a new option to automatically create a backup before updating your operating system.
Some people like to have a backup before running an update, while others don’t. That’s why there’s now an option to set the default state of the backup toggle in the update screen.
Additionally, Home Assistant now waits to restart until any ongoing backup process has finished.
New Text-To-Speech Voice Variants
If you have a Home Assistant Cloud subscription, you already have access to many text-to-speech voices. Now even more have been added—not just new languages, but especially new intonations. There are now voices that sound happy, angry, sad, and more. This allows you to make the voice match the context of your automations!
Not all languages are supported yet, but it’s a great addition nonetheless.
Picking Entities
In the previous release, device and area info was added to entity info dialogs, so you always know what you’re looking at. Now, you can also see in which area and on which device an entity belongs in cards, automations, and scripts.
This means you no longer necessarily have to rename entities. Still, I recommend giving your entities clear names—especially if you ever need to replace a device, it helps keep your existing automations and dashboards working without any extra effort.
Note: the entity ID is no longer shown by default in the interface, but you can still enable it in your profile settings if you prefer to see it.
Z-Wave Smart Start and Long Range support
There have also been changes to Z-Wave. I don’t have any Z-Wave devices myself, so I can’t demonstrate them, but here’s what’s new:
Z-Wave Long Range devices can now also be added directly.
Z-Wave Smart Start is now better supported, letting you easily add a device to Home Assistant by scanning its QR code.
Paste Automations and Scripts
This is a big one: you can now paste YAML code directly into the UI for automations and scripts! This makes it super easy to share automations with others—just copy the YAML code and paste it into a new automation in the UI.
Personally, I think this is the best improvement in this release.
Using templates in Automations and Scripts
It’s now also possible to use templates in automations and scripts while keeping the UI available. In the past, using templates meant you could only edit in YAML mode, but now the UI remains usable. Very convenient!
See what Home Assistant discovers
This one’s more for power users. Under Settings > System > Network, you can now see which devices Home Assistant automatically discovers on your network.
I probably won’t use this much myself, but let me know in the comments if you find it useful!
Integrations
Of course, there are also new integrations again, and improvements to existing ones. You can find them in this list.
Other noteworthy changes
Besides everything I’ve shown, there are other interesting changes too. These are also listed here.
Backward Incompatible Changes
As always, there are backward-incompatible changes. Be sure to read through these carefully before updating to avoid issues in your smart home setup after the update.
That’s it for today! What a release this was! Let me know in the comments what your favorite new feature or change is—I’m really curious!
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