Home Assistant has reached a significant milestone of two million active installations worldwide, right as Home Assistant 2025.5 is starting to roll out. This is a major update that has a lot of improvements to make usage easier.

A big part of this update is the overhaul of the backup system. This is supposed to address a long-standing user concern. The previous version focused on improving backup reliability and speed, and 2025.5 builds on this foundation. The most notable addition is the ability to set custom backup retention policies per location.

You can now specify how many backups to retain at each storage destination. So it can be a cloud service like Google Drive or a local network-attached storage device. This would give users granular control over storage space and data history.

The update also adds the option to automatically create a backup before upgrading the Home Assistant Operating System, eliminating any data loss during the upgrade process. Users can even set a default preference for this automatic backup feature, and the system will now wait for backups to complete before initiating restarts, which will prevent accidental interruption.

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Home Assistant keeps getting better.

Another significant improvement is the Home Assistant Cloud. Subscribers will now benefit from a substantial expansion of text-to-speech voice options. Beyond the already extensive library of voices, this update introduces numerous voice variants and styles, letting users tailor the tone of announcements to suit the context.

This means announcements can now use various emotions, from friendly to urgent, which should make a big difference when listening to them. However, I can see that it may increase the stress in your house if the urgent voice is used too often.

Selecting entities (the core components of Home Assistant’s automation system) has been improved. Entity pickers now give more context, like displaying device and area names directly within the selection dropdown. You’re basically getting better searchability and less need for manual entity renaming. This should simplify setup and improve the overall experience.

Users can also now directly paste YAML automation snippets into the UI, which means there’s no need for manual conversion. This is great for experienced users. The update also introduces Z-Wave Long Range support. This will extend the reach of Z-Wave devices and enable the connection of sensors and actuators located far from the Home Assistant hub.

This is a game-changer for users with large properties or complicated network configurations. The update also improves Smart Start functionality, simplifying the pairing process for new Z-Wave devices, further enhancing the user experience.

This release also comes with AWS S3 integration, which adds Amazon S3 bucket support as a backup location. The addition of integrations for Miele appliances lets users monitor and control their home appliances directly from the Home Assistant interface. Finally, there’s the inclusion of ntfy.sh integration, which gives another method for receiving notifications on mobile devices or desktops.

More integrations are included, which should make having this hub in your home much better. It’s a big update, so you’ll likely have a lot to look through when it hits your system.

Source: Home Assistant