The robust home automation tool, Home Assistant, is now receiving enhanced support for Android, featuring integration with the native “Device Controls” feature presented in an improved panel view.
Home Assistant serves as a centralized platform for consolidating various smart home devices, offering more advanced control capabilities than conventional smart home applications.
Home Assistant’s automation capabilities are quite impressive, ranging from simple tasks like sending low battery notifications for devices to sophisticated operations such as adjusting lighting to match the external time of day.
This latest update extends these advanced controls to Android’s native “Device Controls” functionality, which also accommodates applications like Google Home and SmartThings.
As detailed on Home Assistant’s website (via Mishaal Rahman), this integration enables users to activate or deactivate automation processes, regulate climate device temperatures, directly control lighting, lock or unlock doors, and even initiate actions such as activating a robot vacuum.
While support for Android’s standard button layout already exists, Home Assistant is now introducing a “Dashboard” view.
This “Dashboard” view operates similarly to Google’s “Home Panel,” found on Pixels and Samsung Galaxy devices running Android 14.
One notable advantage of this integration is that it functions even when the phone is locked, assuming the necessary settings have been configured. Consequently, Home Assistant stands as one of the pioneering applications leveraging the new API for Android 14’s innovative “panel” view.