Home Assistant OS Updates Improve Reliability, Hardware Support, and Networking

Overview of Home Assistant OS

Home Assistant OS is a specialized operating system designed to run Home Assistant, an open-source platform for home automation. It is tailored for various hardware platforms including Raspberry Pi, Home Assistant Yellow, Home Assistant Green, ODROID, and generic x86-64 systems. Users of Home Assistant OS benefit from an integrated environment optimized for running home automation services with ease of updates and hardware support.

Home Assistant OS 18.1: Fixing Display and Expanding Hardware Support

Released as a minor update following the major 18.0 release, Home Assistant OS 18.1 addresses a critical issue affecting Raspberry Pi 5 users: a display freeze occurring on older firmware versions. Users who had upgraded to 18.0 were advised to update their Raspberry Pi 5 firmware before upgrading to 18.1 to avoid this problem.

Additionally, 18.1 brings broader Intel hardware support, including enabling the iwlmld driver for Wi-Fi 7 Intel devices and adding Intel Bluetooth and NPU drivers for x86-64 boards. The Linux kernel received incremental updates across all supported platforms, enhancing overall stability and compatibility.

Noteworthy platform-specific updates include:

Raspberry Pi: Kernel updated to version 6.18.34, with a switch to the modern KMS graphics driver for new installations, enabling HDMI-CEC support.
Home Assistant Yellow and Green: Kernel updates and firmware notes to ensure smooth upgrades.
Hardkernel ODROID: Kernel update and fallback mechanism for kernel load failures to improve boot reliability.

Home Assistant OS 18.2: Networking and Boot Improvements

This minor release focuses on fixing networking issues, particularly with custom MTU settings on Home Assistant Green devices, and resolving eMMC and booting problems on Hardkernel ODROID-N2+ hardware.

The update system integration on Raspberry Pi 5 was improved to ensure the OS version reflects correctly immediately after an update, enhancing user experience during upgrades.

Key technical updates include:

Buildroot updated to version 2025.02.16, incorporating various security fixes.
Docker updated to version 29.6.2.
Kernel updates across multiple platforms, including Raspberry Pi, Home Assistant Green, Open Virtual Appliance, and others.
Enhanced resilience of Supervisor startup against transient network failures.

Home Assistant OS 18.3: Reliability Enhancements and Docker Storage Reset

The latest release, 18.3, is primarily a bugfix update focusing on reliability improvements across the OS.

A significant enhancement is the synchronization of container image layers to disk immediately after unpacking. This change prevents image corruption if power is lost shortly after an update, a common cause of container failures.

For users with existing corrupted Docker storage, a new command-line interface (CLI) command ha docker reset-storage allows wiping the entire Docker storage and redownloading all container images, including Supervisor, Home Assistant Core, plugins, and apps. Importantly, user configuration and data remain intact as they are stored outside Docker storage.

Additional improvements include:

Support for the F2FS filesystem on all targets.
Fixes for Raspberry Pi HDMI output on displays larger than 1920x1080 and USB SSD booting on Raspberry Pi 3.
Stabilization of Bluetooth on Home Assistant Yellow after regressions in earlier releases.
The initial setup landing page is now served on port 80 with a redirect from the legacy port 8123.
The Linux kernel has been updated to the latest stable versions across all supported hardware.
NTP (Network Time Protocol) configuration is now managed via layered drop-in files, allowing more reliable updates and CLI-based configuration.

Impact and Recommendations

Each of these releases addresses specific issues reported by the Home Assistant community, improving the stability and usability of the OS across a wide range of hardware platforms. Users running Home Assistant OS on Raspberry Pi, Home Assistant Yellow, Green, ODROID, or virtual appliances are encouraged to update to the latest versions to benefit from these fixes and enhancements.

Particularly, users experiencing Docker container issues or corrupted images should consider using the new Docker storage reset feature introduced in 18.3.